sherman

My Z is in the shop right now getting 2 new front tires to fix the feathering problem. I am 11,000 miles now. My question is, being that my front tires are going to be 11,000 miles newer than my fronts, what do I do when it comes time to replace the rears. I want to get my money's worth out of the new front tires, but I also want to change to a new type or tire. I live in the North East, so I would like to get a set of all season tires to put on. What would happen if I just get new all season tires for the rear, and kept the stocks up front? I still have many miles until I actually have to worry about this, but I am curious what people have to say about it.

RacerX68

That's perfectly fine. As long as you replace both fronts or both rears at the same time with the same tire, you are okay.

sherman

Thanks, That is what I was hoping you would say. That actually works quite well for me, it cuts the cost of each tire change in half. (yes I realize I will be doing it twice as often, but it still seems better).

motor city z

I would be very wary of mixing stock front tires with all season rears. When it gets slippery out you may be able to accelerate ok on the all season rears, but your fronts would still suck for steering and braking. There are several people on the forum (me included) who found out the hard way that the stock tires are not meant for winter driving. Just my $.02...

Jason Bourne

I'm going to disagree with RacerX68. It's fine to do this for the family minivan if your goal is just to save some money while having adequate tires to get to and from soccer practice, but this really isn't a great idea for a sports car. At least it isn't if you plan to use some of the nice handling capability built into your sports car. A setup with all-season tires in the rear and summer performance tires in the front would give you a lot of oversteer if you push the car close to its limits (on dry roads anyway). At best the car wouldn't be much fun, at worse you'll end up backwards in a tree.

On the other hand, if all you do is drive around suburbia under the speed limit and got the Z for its cruising potential only, knock your socks off. It'll still get you to the 7-11 and back as long as the tires are round and have air in them...

sherman

OK, so now I see there are differing point of views on this (no suprise there). I am only asking this question really for time between when I get my new rear tire, and when when my front tires need to be replaced (should be about 11,000) when I will get the front to match the rears. I just don't want to waste brand new tires that nissan is giving me, and I don't want to be stock on the stocks becuase of that. If you have any other suggestions for my dilema, let me know. And yes, you could say I am just being cheap and that I should just buy all 4, but I already know that.

grifferjr

you are definately not being cheap. if we were talking about tires that you could get at the local BP station for 99 bucks then i would say you are being cheap. but lets face it, an average tire for the Z will run between 200 and 250 bucks each, not to mention that if you want something with some performance capability, now you are talking 250-300 bucks each. I dnot care who you are and how much money you have, thats not being cheap. I am in your situation right now. I have the bridgestone originals on the rear, but my fronts were replaced by nissan with the potenza all season re92's. I can definately feel the difference. the front tires just dont grab as much as the old OEM use to but hey, if taking it a little slow around the turn means keeping 500 bucks in my pocket then I will. thats not cheap.

Jason Bourne

It's your call, you should do as you wish instead of listening to strangers like me giving you advice over the internet (), but, here's how I see it.

I bought my Z because I wanted a car that performed well in acceleration, braking, cornering and handling. For those properties I was willing to pay a premium. If I did not care about these things I could have bought a $14,000 Civic which would be just as capable of getting me and a passenger wherever I needed to go. I was willing to spend an extra $14K to buy better braking, cornering and acceleration. So to me, removing some of that performance to save $300 is not a good value at all. I realize a Z with mistmatched performance/all season tires is still a better sports car than a Civic but you're definitely removing some of the performance that you paid many thousands of dollars for. So, I wouldn't do it because it doesn't make sense to me personally. But if you can live with it and think that it's the right decision for you, then by all means, go ahead. You asked for people's opinion and that's all you're getting from me.

Btw, a set of Kumho Ecsta MX tires can be had for $650 shipped, which really isn't that much compared to the initial investment IMO.

ranger5oh

why not try selling your stock tires? Someone on here will buy them.

RacerX68

Well, yeah. I just meant it won't hurt the tires to do that. I live in Southeast Texas where we don't have to worry about things such as snow so that factors into my opinion as well.

sherman

let me ask another question then... Is you complaint just with the performance lost by getting all season tires or is something specific to mixing and matching. If you are just saying that all season tires don't have the performance of the stock "summer tires", I am ok with that. i would rather be able to drive as many days a year as possible (it is my daily driver). If what you are saying is that mixing tires becomes a liability beyond that of just having all season tires, that would be something for me to think about. I can deal with having all season performance, I was just concerned about doing damage (allignment or something like that). Am I correct in saying that no damage will be done, but I may loose some performance?
And I do apreciate all the different opinions, that is the reason I asked.

Jason Bourne

sherman,

You certainly won't be doing any damage as long as you get tires that are correctly sized. My point is, as you suspect, related to performance. But it's a little bit different than just going from 4 summer tires to 4 all season tires. In that case, you will lose grip and handling performance but the balance of the car will be the same (lose the same amount in front and in rear). If you just change one end of the car, you're going to affect the handling balance. In this case, by going to all season rear tires, your car will be more likely to oversteer in dry conditions. If you don't drive the car hard, this won't be a problem but it may feel a little strange from a seat of the pants perspective. But again you won't do any damage.

Now if you do try to drive it hard on the street (or take it to a racetrack) with mismatched rear tires, it could become a problem because you may not be ready to handle the oversteer you could get. Also, if you ever get into an emergency avoidance situation, it could become a problem. For example if you need to avoid a deer on the highway and do a last second, high speed lane change you could end up going backwards at 70mph when you could have kept it under control with matched tires.

But that's the only real "risk" if you don't care about the performance loss.

sherman

well said, and thanks.

grifferjr

I need to chime in here. The experience I literally just had explains this situation to a "T". Here in Ohio much like all of the midwest and eastern states, we are getting nailed with some torrential downpores, have been for a day solid now. I have OEM 040's on rear and all weather bridges in the front. I was on the way back from lunch having to turn left across traffic onto a state route speed limit 55, so acceleration is also a must. Little bit of a long story short, I had to step on it to try and squeeze into a space that I probably should have waited, but i needed to get back. Got through the turn alright, knew enough to keep it cool. But once in the lane, already pointed straight, thats when i figured i could start to get on it since i was done with the turn and i had traffic coming up on me pretty quick. well, that was wrong. as i was giving gas, and the tach was rising (i have an automatic) I was getting nowhere. Then the car downshifted and the rear started to come out from underme. nothing violent, and everything was easily corrected with less gas and with the fronts sticking like glue on the wet pavement. This may sound like I am supporting the all weathers, when really I am not. I am just trying to give a real life example of what can happen with different tire types. the opposite happens on dry days when I take a turn quick. I am not a car racer but I can definately tell that on those times my rear is sticking like glue but the front just seems as if it doesnt want to steer through the turn, understeer. +'s and -'s on each side.