One new tyre on a four-wheel-drive car can cost you a differential. Not that week, and not obviously. A fresh tyre with 8mm of tread turns slightly slower than the same tyre worn to 3mm on the other side of the axle, and on a permanent four-wheel-drive system that difference has to go somewhere. It gets taken up by the centre diff or the viscous coupling, which heats, wears and eventually fails. That repair costs several times the tyres somebody was trying not to buy.
So when we come out to a 4x4 or an all-wheel-drive car with one ruined tyre, the first thing we do is read the other three. If they are close to new, we match exactly: same size, same brand, same pattern. If they are half worn, the honest answer is usually a pair across the axle, and on a few systems all four. Manufacturers publish a tolerance for this, often only a couple of millimetres of tread difference, and it is worth knowing before you agree to whatever happens to be cheapest at short notice.
Speed is the point, but only because the alternative is the car being off the road. The correct size is matched before we leave, the tyre is fitted and balanced where the car is standing in Sunbury Cross, Charlton Village or anywhere between, and the pressures and valve are dealt with in the same visit. Steep camber in Lower Sunbury? We move a few metres, Sunbury Cross or anywhere else. Blocked drive in Charlton Village? Open kerb in Kempton Park? Either works.
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A four-wheel-drive car sat on a space saver is not really a working car, so waiting until Saturday is not the neutral choice people take it for. We would rather come out with the right size and the matching pattern the same day. Getting to a fitting bay from whichever side of the M3 you happen to be stranded on can easily take longer than getting a van to your door.
We went out to replace a rear on an all-wheel-drive estate and found a different make and pattern fitted opposite. It had been like that for months. A matched pair went on and the axle turned evenly again.
The lanes down by the river are narrow and parked both sides, and squeezing past leaves sidewalls scraped along the kerb edge. That never repairs. Before fitting we gauged the other three so the car was not left mismatched.
A driver needed the car early with a rear tyre shredded. We had the size on the van, fitted and balanced it at the house, and measured the fronts while we were down there anyway.
On a two-wheel-drive car, usually not. On four-wheel drive it depends what the others measure. We put a tread gauge on all four and tell you the numbers, then you decide with a real figure in front of you rather than a guess.
Handbooks differ, but a couple of millimetres between tyres on one axle is the usual outer limit, and less on some systems. It is rolling circumference that matters, which is why mixing sizes or profiles causes trouble even when the tread looks similar.
Both are possible. The van carries common sizes, and anything from a budget tyre to a premium name can be brought out if you want something specific. Worth asking when you ring rather than after we arrive.
For a short trip at reduced speed, that is what it is there for. On four-wheel drive it is worse than that: a much smaller spare turning at a different rate is precisely the mismatch the system dislikes. It is a get-home tool, nothing more.
It is balanced on the wheel before it goes back on the car, exactly as it would be in a workshop. A tyre fitted without balancing shakes at motorway speed and wears itself into a pattern that cannot be undone.
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