Some cars leave the factory with wider tyres at the back than at the front. It is called a staggered fitment, it is common on rear-driven saloons and on a good many performance-minded SUVs, and it quietly changes how you plan for tyres. Read both sidewalls before you ring us. If the numbers differ front to rear, you own two sizes rather than one.
The consequence is that the tyres cannot be rotated. On an ordinary car you move them around the axles and the four wear out together. On a staggered car the fronts wear at their own rate and the rears at theirs, usually faster where the rear axle is driven, so you buy in pairs on two separate clocks. That is not a fault. It is a different rhythm, worth knowing before the rears come due ahead of schedule.
It also means the spare, if the car has one, only ever suits one end. Give us both sizes when you book and we bring both. Every wheel is balanced before it goes back on, the new tyres carry a two-year warranty, and you pay by card at the car.
Just bought the car? The tyres are the first thing worth checking and the last thing anybody looks at. We can come and look while it sits on the drive in Southside, tell you what you actually have, and fit what it needs at a time you pick. Level in East Hill, sloping in Southfields: we set the car straight first. Underground parking in Southfields or Earlsfield is worth flagging. The SW18 postcode and a street in Earlsfield: that is enough.
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Fitting happens wherever the car already lives, which around here usually means a permit bay in Earlsfield, a driveway off Garratt Lane or a workplace car park near the High Street. That matters more on a staggered car than on most, because turning up somewhere with the wrong pair ordered means a second trip through the gyratory for nothing.
A saloon on a driveway in Southfields needed all four. The fronts and the rears were different widths and different profiles, which the owner had never noticed in six years. Ordering four of the front size would have wasted a morning.
A car parked off East Hill had plenty of tread on the front pair and nothing left on the back. Nothing had gone wrong. A driven axle simply uses its tyres up sooner, and there is no rotation available to even it out.
A wheel swapped across by a previous owner was running a directional tread the wrong way round. The arrow on the sidewall points one way because that is how the pattern clears water. We took it off the rim, turned it and refitted.
Read the size off all four sidewalls. It looks like a string of numbers and letters, and on a staggered car the first two numbers differ between the front pair and the rear pair. If they match all round, the usual rotation applies.
Not sensibly. The wheels are usually different widths too, so a narrower tyre would be stretched or a wider one squeezed onto a rim it does not suit. On some cars the handling was set up around the difference.
Rarely. The pair is the unit that matters, and on a staggered car the two pairs come due at different times anyway. We measure all four while we are there and give you the figures rather than a recommendation.
For the common car, SUV and 4x4 fitments, usually. Staggered sets run to less ordinary sizes, so read us both numbers when you ring and we confirm what is aboard before setting off rather than turning up hopeful.
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