Volkswagen Golf - Tyres

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Fri 2 Apr 2021 08:02
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - usband

My front tyres requires replacing is it ok to fit a different brand of tyres ( same specifications as back ) just different brand .possibly Goodyear,original were hankuk (Lot of road noise) rear tyres are ok

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 2 Apr 2021 08:21
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - Falkirk Bairn

It would be OK BUT the tyre outlet usually puts the new tyres on the back and the old tyres on the front.

You want to keep the tyres as new as possible to avoid cracking with age & sunlight.

I used to have a Civic that needed new tyres of the front every 20K, the rears were around 5/6mm when the fronts were nearer 2mm. It made sense to swap them round.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 2 Apr 2021 12:45
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - catsdad
Just to add, it's OK in the UK but not in every country. If you want to drive in Spain for example you need four brand matched tyres. Having said that the locals seem to pay limited regard to this law!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 4 Apr 2021 10:35
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - edlithgow

I believe in Germany they ALL have to be replaced. Hence Germany is a source for a lot of the part-worn tyres on the market.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 4 Apr 2021 18:18
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - Andrew-T

It would be OK BUT the tyre outlet usually puts the new tyres on the back and the old tyres on the front. You want to keep the tyres as new as possible to avoid cracking with age & sunlight.

I used to have a Civic that needed new tyres of the front every 20K, the rears were around 5/6mm when the fronts were nearer 2mm. It made sense to swap them round.

Most cars are FWD, where front tyres wear about 3 times faster than the rears. So to follow these rules when front ones need replacing, the fitters will have to remove all 4 wheels - which they may be happy to do.

To counter the age problem you should swop the tyres front to rear before they need replacing (same side in case they are directional) to make all wear out together. Tyres left on the rear for their whole life could easily start cracking with age, even if you check pressures regularly.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 4 Apr 2021 19:46
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - Bolt

Tyres left on the rear for their whole life could easily start cracking with age, even if you check pressures regularly.

Something I have never done is change front to rear, when the fronts wear just before limit 3mm I buy new.

in the Civics case, I might get with our roads as they are 15K out the fronts and 25K out of the rears, even the 9th gen car was the same, but our roads are terrible so its not worth changing front to rear IMO

If our roads were in a lot better condition I might have considered it, but as they aren`t its not worth the hassle

unless they start using plastic coated roads like they are experimenting with in Scotland so I gather, apparently the roads as used in India do last around 10 years before the need attention...

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 5 Apr 2021 10:26
Volkswagen Golf - Tyres - John F

For optimum handling, tyres should be at roughly the same level of wear. I swap front to rear at around 12,000 miles. If at 24,000 miles the rears had a bit more tread than the fronts (assuming FWD), I would swap them back again, thus ensuring full use of all tyres before replacing all four at once.

A bit of superficial cracking with age is of no consequence. A more important thing to be aware of is invisible hardening, which I noticed some years ago on the twenty year old tyres on my TR7. It causes increasingly poor roadholding, especially in the wet. But that's a risk mainly for v low mileage classic car owners as it seems to have little effect up to ten years old. Probably longer for classics, as they are usually kept in cool dark places.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link

From choosing the right tyre to what to do when it goes wrong - we have the answers.

Tyre News And Advice