[Melanie Moxon]

With the Mustang they always went on the rear, a quick burnout (just enough to elicit some tyre smoke) and they were nicely scrubbed in, on a private road of course.

Its 'replacement' a 1.6 Mini might not be able to do that

[Flyin'Dutch']

Sometimes see cars where owners only replace one tyre at a time, perhaps mixing brands and model of tyre, and the tread patterns are different with different amount of wear which must at some point create differences in handling, potentially in an emergency stop or collision avoidance manoeuvre no matter how infrequent.

AFAIK thar is illegal

[mick w]

I remember people rotating all 4 Tyres , to evenly wear them & subsequently replace them all together .

[romille]

I remember people rotating all 4 Tyres , to evenly wear them & subsequently replace them all together .

On some 4x4's you need to replace all four together with the same brand to make sure they all have the same rolling diameter, otherwise you can wreck the transfer box( IRD)

[Bill Haddow]

AFAIK thar is illegal

FD, might seem untidy, but I do not think it is illegal - got a source ?

Bill H

[GolfHotel]

AFAIK thar is illegal

FD, might seem untidy, but I do not think it is illegal - got a source ?

Bill H

I believe it used to be that two tires on the same axle had to match. But that it is no longer the case. (obviously I use the term axle in a very incorrect fashion.) I have no proof of either claim.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I think the confusion comes from the days of crossply tyres. I believe it was (is) illegal to mix radial and crossply on the same axle.

https://www.justtyres.co.uk/pages/tyres-and-the-law

You can fit different makes of tyre on the same axle or on different axles providing they are all the same size and type of construction.

It is illegal to fit cross ply and radial construction tyres on the same axle and to fit cross ply tyres on the rear axle with radial or bias belted tyres on the front axle.

It is not advisable to mix winter or on/off road tyres with normal road tyres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrRz_ItWWDw

[rikur_]

AFAIK thar is illegal

FD, might seem untidy, but I do not think it is illegal - got a source ?

Bill H

I believe it used to be that two tires on the same axle had to match. But that it is no longer the case. (obviously I use the term axle in a very incorrect fashion.) I have no proof of either claim.

It is illegal to fit cross ply and radial construction tyres on the same axle.
It is illegal to fit cross ply tyres on the rear axle with radial on the front axle.
Both tyres on each axle must be of the same size.
But otherwise, no specific restriction on mixing.

[KingJames]

I haven’t got a clue if my tyres are radial or crossply. I assume this is because it is no longer relevant. When did it stop being relevant?

[Paul_Sengupta]

When they stopped making crossply tyres...

(for the general market)

[KingJames]

1980s?

[Paul_Sengupta]

Crossply seemed to mostly die out in the late '70s, IIRC. You could still get budget crossply tyres in the very early '80s as far as I remember (I was only 10 in 1980!) but everything from '76 or '77 onwards seemed to come with radials. I don't remember before that.

Crossply tyres lived (and maybe lives) on in motorbikes and various specialist applications.

[avtur3]

.... When they stopped making crossply tyres...

That was a sad day ... such happy memories in the early days of driving (c.1973) my Austin A35 shod with 5.20 X 13 crossply remoulds .... on we had so much fun ....

[Paul_Sengupta]

Interestingly, I think most of our aeroplane tyres are crossply as they have stiffer sidewalls.

I just looked up Michelin aircraft tyres now, and Michelin Aviator and Air are "bias ply" - crossply, but they now have Michelin Air X for bizjets which are radials - supposedly 20-30% lighter.

https://www.desser.com/content/aboutMich.asp

[Rob P]

I prefer a matched set of tyres on one axle. Sometimes see cars where owners only replace one tyre at a time, perhaps mixing brands and model of tyre, and the tread patterns are different with different amount of wear

As a buyer of secondhand, or more often fifth-hand cars this is one of the key indicators of the likely overall approach to care and maintenance of the vehicle being viewed. Always treat a car with a tired premium tyre on one corner and a fairly healthy Nakajima Ditchfinder on another with huge suspicion.

Rob P