RE: tire rotation

["Brad Sterling" <bgsterling@earthlink.net>]

<snip Shawn>
Well, basically, in a FWD car you want to keep the meatiest tires up
front mostly from a longevity standpoint for the tires. The vast majority
of autoxers can barely afford the sport to begin with and since tires are
a rather large investment, they must be well taken care of.
<end snip>

Now, I'll preface this with the statement that I don't or haven't auto-x'ed.
However, I've read from various tire pros that you want your meatiest tires
in the rear, regardless of whether the car is RWD or FWD.  This seemed to go
against what I had learned growing up, but they had a point.  From a daily
driver standpoint, the purpose is to not upset the balance of the car in a
turn.  Since most cars, like ours, are designed to understeer, putting meaty
tires up front and lesser tires on the rear will promote oversteer and
increase the risk of spinout.  For auto-x'ing, I would expect the same to
apply.  With a setup car, one that I would guess would be more neutral
through sway bars, tire pressures, etc., would have its handling tweaked by
having better tires on one end versus the other.  I guess the point is, for
daily driving, keep your best tires in the rear.  For auto-x'ing, be ready
to figure the mismatch into your handling setup equation.

My borrowed .02.

- Brad
'86.5 Volkswagen Scirocco 16v
'76 International Scout II



--
Email LIST problems to: scirocco-l-probs@scirocco.org.
To unsubscibe send "unsubscribe scirocco-l" in the message to majordomo@scirocco.org