Volvo V40

[GT50]

Volvo does not recommend tire rotation on their cars. There are mixed views on this subjects, since it is a FWD the tires have a different wear pattern and you put them at the back you will have oversteer. Do any of you had this experience? In my opinion you should rotate them at 5000km so they will wear almost the same.

[BillK]

I have never had an issue rotating tires on the FWD vehicles i have owned. The only thing you have to watch is it seems that more and more cars are using different size tires on the front and back and also tires with directional tread. As long as all four tires are the same you should have no issue.

[Dan Timberlake]

What year is your V40?

In early 2016 the recommendation seems to be this -
- "To avoid differences in tread depth and to prevent wear patterns arising, the front and rear wheels can be switched with each other. A suitable distance for the first change is approx. 5000 km and then at 10000 km intervals. "

https://www.volvocars.com/uk/support/ma ... aintenance

[peejay]

Always rotate tires if the tire and wheel sizes allow it.

[Dave Koehler]

I recently became the victim of a mild bait and switch or whatever.
Whatever means I don't know what to call it.

The patient: 2006 Ford Freestyle FWD

I had a front tire get a unfixable side wall leak.
Tire guy says that I might want to change both fronts to keep things even and so forth.
I didn't give it much thought other than it sounded reasonable and said go ahead.
tick tock, tick tock
I pick up car and the new tires purchased for the front are on the back.
WTH, whY?
Tire guy says that is the proper ways to do things.
Says who?
Crickets.
I just gave him my best you are a moron look and left.

My take on this is that if I knew they were going to put the new tires on the back I would have purchased a single tire.
I mumbled about this all the way home.

Soooo, Jury what is your take on this.
Is there an actual reason when purchasing 2 new front tires to install them on the back?

[jred]

I was all ways told and did put new tires on front and older tires on rear because of steering in case of a blowout,,BUT discount tire will not put new tires on the front of your car because of safe reasons But with no answers of why from them..

[PackardV8]

I was all ways told and did put new tires on front and older tires on rear because of steering in case of a blowout,,BUT discount tire will not put new tires on the front of your car because of safe reasons But with no answers of why from them..

They should be able to explain that back in the old days on a FWD car, coming off the accelerator pedal entering a curve, especially a downhill curve, causes compression braking of the front tires while the rears are rolling free. To lessen the tendency to oversteer in downhill curves, the best tires needed to be on the rear.

This oversteer tendency was much more noticeable with a manual transmission or larger engine in a smaller car. On today's four-cylinder turbos with eight-speed auto transmissions in heavy SUVs, the compression braking oversteer doesn't really exist any more, but the tire store policy still does.

[peejay]

I was all ways told and did put new tires on front and older tires on rear because of steering in case of a blowout,,BUT discount tire will not put new tires on the front of your car because of safe reasons But with no answers of why from them..

Old tires grip less than new tires, new tires on the front and old on the rear makes a situation where you can spin the car.

In the US, if you spin the car it is the car's fault, but if you slide straight off the road you were going too fast. (Hey, I didn't make this up. IMO either way if you fell off the road it is your own damn fault)

Rotating tires of the same age is a lot different than mixing new and old tires. Tread depth has very little to do with grip, the tires' age does.

There is a lot of legal precdent involved here. The case that is usually cited was a case where someone in Arizona had four ancient tires and only wanted to buy two. The nrw tires went on the front (front wheel drive car) and they spun off the road, with fatalities involved. The kicker is they were required to sign a waiver that indicated they were aware the car was unafe, BUT the tire dealership was found to still be at fault because they knew the car was unsafe, otherwise they wouldn't have required a waiver. (I guess they were supposed to give them free tires, or confiscate the car until they paid up, or something?)

Again, IMO we'd be better off with dispensing all of that and just leaving it a flat table: if any tires on your car are over three years old, you are at least 50% at fault. No finger pointing. You're free to drive an unsafe car but you have to own that responsibility.

[GT50]

Dan Timberlake, the year of the car 1997. When the car went to the dealer they recommended to change the tires because of safety and if anything would happen the warranty was at risk. These factory warranties are a money game for the dealers, as we all know once you buy a new car you have to stick with the dealers for five years and they take all the benefits that they can.

[Dan Timberlake]

"the year of the ( V40) car 1997. "

I was surprised to just read in Wikipedia that in some markets the V/S40 was available as far back as 1995.

What kind of warranty is available on a 21 year old car?

The oldest X40 owner's manual on the Volvo Car YS website it 2000.
https://volvo.custhelp.com/app/manuals/ ... /om_id/823
It contains recommendations about tire rotation, and NO decree for blind abstinence.
"If the wheels are rotated, they should be kept on the same side of the car so that they revolve in the same direction as prior to rotation."

==============.
The UK 2017 Volvo link I provided last week pretty much recommends tire rotation, and is quite explicit where the "good" tires should go on the car, and why.

"........To avoid differences in tread depth and to prevent wear patterns arising, the front and rear wheels can be switched with each other. A suitable distance for the first change is approx. 5000 km and then at 10000 km intervals. .......... If significant differences in wear (> 1 mm difference in tread depth) between tyres have already occurred, then the least worn tyres must always be fitted on the rear. Understeer is normally easier to correct than oversteer, and leads to the car continuing forwards in a straight line rather than having the rear end skidding to one side, resulting in possible complete loss of control over the car. This is why it is important for the rear wheels never to lose grip before the front wheels."

[GT50]

Dan Timberlake, I am sorry my mistake. The year of the car is 2017, it has five years of warranty and also few km 30.000.

[pdq67]

way years ago, I had bias on my car and bought a pair of radials and installed them.

Talk about a funny acting drive until I put the other new radials on my car. I forget which end I had which on??

Won't do that again.

pdq67