On a front wheel drive car the front tyres do nearly everything. They put the power down, they take most of the braking because weight shifts forward the instant you slow, they carry the engine and gearbox above them, and they are the only two that steer. The rear tyres are largely along for the ride. The usual result is that the fronts wear at roughly twice the rate of the rears, and in dense town driving the gap widens further, because a car that is forever turning, stopping and manoeuvring on lock is scrubbing its fronts the whole time.
That is worth knowing when you are planning a purchase rather than reacting to a failure. Do nothing and you will buy two front tyres, then two more front tyres, while the rears are still the ones the car left the showroom on, quietly ageing. Rotate front to back at around the halfway point and all four wear down together, so you buy four at once instead. Neither approach is wrong. One spreads the spending and keeps you coming back; the other keeps the four tyres far closer in age and condition. Working out which suits you is a better use of a phone call than arguing about brands.
Four seasons is a compromise, summer rubber is a commitment and winter tyres are a plan. Which of the three suits depends on where the car actually goes, and a car that spends its life on Kingsland High Street has different needs from one doing two miles at a time. A Kingsland cul-de-sac or a De Beauvoir main road, tell us which. A tight terrace in Kingsland or a narrow bay on Balls Pond Road is usually workable. An E8 address in Stoke Newington and one in Balls Pond are the same round.
New tyres in Dalston is part of our wider mobile tyre fitting cover. For new tyres in Dalston, call 07717 389637 or ask us for a quote.
Traffic around Dalston Junction is a front tyre's worst case: constant braking, constant steering and a lot of full lock manoeuvring into tight spaces. Cars that live here wear their fronts fast and their rears hardly at all, and it is common to find a set where the back two are barely used and old enough to be hardening. Age catches a tyre whether it is turning or not. When you are planning new fronts it is worth having somebody look properly at the rears too, rather than assuming that plenty of tread means plenty of tyre.
A car used almost entirely around E8 needed two fronts, while the original rears still carried plenty of tread after five years. Age was going to finish those rears long before wear ever did.
A driver doing a lot of short journeys had the fronts and rears swapped once the fronts reached about half tread. Everything now wears out together, which means one purchase rather than a rolling series of them.
Four tyres changed in a permit bay while the owner was upstairs. The car never moved, the old tyres left with us and the whole thing was settled by card at the kerb.
On a front wheel drive car, yes. The fronts steer, drive and take most of the braking load, and they have the weight of the engine sitting over them. In stop and start town use it can be rather more than twice. Rears that wear far slower are a sign of nothing being wrong.
It is worth considering. Rotating at around half tread evens the wear out so all four finish together, which keeps the set matched and closer in age. The trade is that you replace four at once instead of two at a time, so it comes down to how you would rather spend it.
Directional tyres have to keep turning the same way, so they can move front to back on the same side of the car but never across it. Look for an arrow moulded into the sidewall. Cars running different sizes front and rear cannot be rotated at all.
A good part of the work is exactly that. Tell us the car and roughly when suits, we bring the tyres to the house or the workplace, and it happens while you get on with your day. It also means a rotation can be dealt with in the same visit, if the fronts are due and the rears are still worth keeping.
★★★★★ 4.9 from 151 verified Google reviews.
Read all 151 reviews on Google →Prefer a callback? Send your details for a new tyres price in Dalston.