I heard from someone that using different brand tires in the front and the rear of the car was dangerous. I was wondering if this was true or not. I don't autocross or track my car yet, and I just do street driving to and from work or school. I was wondering if I should reconsider this. Thanks for the input!

 

It can or cannot be dangerous. If you drive normally under normal conditions it should be okay but it may be annoying because some times have more road noise and are more rough than others.

On the track though, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to drift you get sticky front tires, non sticky rears. If you go for auto-x you try to get stiff tires with good contact patch. I think its more of a choice rather than a danger issue.

 

I'm not sure if using 2 different brands would affect much if they were all new, maybe hydroplane resistance. But, I had kumhos up front with low tread (close to the legal limit) and I bought new falkens for the rear (since the kumhos were bald to the cords). The car handled like **** at anything about 70mph. I drive at high speeds, coasting 100 mph on the highway, and this was scary. The car felt very unstable and I didn't want to drive my car long distances on the highway.

Edit: I recently replaced the fronts with identical falkens, and the car handles like a dream now... all the way up to 159 mph!

 

As long as you use similar tires, you should be ok, if you have to run this type of tire setup. Things that are to be considered: it would not be wise to run two different types of tires, so if you have an all season up front, you should match that tire type in the rear as well. Don't run sticky tires in the front, and not the back.
Try to keep all the tires within the same specs if possible, such as treadwear, temp ratings etc.... This will help minimize complications.

If someone put sticky toyo ra-1 tires in the back with normal bridgestone re050s in the front for example, i'm fairly sure the car would drive terrible overall....

 

Thanks for the replies.. I didn't think it was that dangerous (Like at high speed) as someone said above. I already bought my tires and I guess I should be more careful and get used to the limitations and the feel of it when I put it on. I have just one more question though since I already bought my 2 tires.

I bought BFGoodrich KDW NT/2's for the rear of my car the other day and they're sitting in my garage right now waiting for the install (This friday)..


Now, I am running the stock tires on the front of my car I believe they are Bridgestone Potenza RE090? I think these are both high performance summer tires.. I was just wondering based on this situation if I should be extra careful or just careful about this.. or any other pointers?

 

You'll be fine. I'm running different tire front/rear on both my sets of 19's.