M3P - Running Front and Rear Tires of Different Brands

[longbeachblue]

Hey All,

I've been running my 2020 Model 3 Performance with tires from different brands for about 3-4 months now.

I did this because I kept destroying the OEM (Pilot Sport 4S) on the brutal L.A. potholes over the past year, and decided to cheap out on the next set.

Front Tires: Accelera Phi (235/35ZR20 92Y XL)

Rear Tires (OEM): Michelin Pilot Sport 4S (235/35ZR20 92Y XL)

Does anyone have experience doing something similar (running a cheap set up front and high end sticky tires in the rear)?

Any opinions on this practice? Am I compromising my performance significantly? Cheers!

 

[gearchruncher]

Am I compromising my performance significantly?

Yes.

But performance is relative. Are you giving up 0-60 on a dry day? No. Does your car pull as many G's in the corner as it does on 4S's? No. Can it do as many G's as a base Model 3 on MX4M's? Maybe.

 

[jmaddr]

I’ve done it on my old BMW M3‘s for similar reasons but don’t recommend. Every day driving you will not notice a difference.

At 8 to 10 / tenths of the chassis (track), or potentially an emergency manuever on the highway, you will notice increased understeer with your setup of the front tires you have don’t provide as much grip. The TM3 tends to understeer at the limit as it is.

 

[longbeachblue]

I’ve done it on my old BMW M3‘s for similar reasons but don’t recommend. Every day driving you will not notice a difference.

At 8 to 10 / tenths of the chassis (track), or potentially an emergency manuever on the highway, you will notice increased understeer with your setup of the front tires you have don’t provide as much grip. The TM3 tends to understeer at the limit as it is.

Gotcha. I just bought some Eibach sways, so I'm going to set up a soft setting on the front and stiffer setting in the rear. I'm doing this to try to induce more oversteer (since M3P is naturally an oversteering car, especially with my budget front tires).

 

[gearchruncher]

If you want oversteer, why not put the budget tires in the rear?
Caring about handling, then messing up the handling with mixed tires, then trying to fix that with sway bars that reduce the grip on the better tires is just weird.

FYI, many of us that track the car feel no upgraded front sway bar is needed on this chassis. The best way to get a stiff rear and soft front is to leave the front stock.

 

[Clover]

Not recommended at all. Tires are literally your only connection to the road and determine your limits. Paying for a sway bar instead of matching tires makes no sense at all to me. If you ask me, you're actually much better off with 4 cheap matching tires than two mismatched tires. At least it would be consistent. You don't want to get in a a rain storm and learn the cheap tires have less grip the hard way. Probably not much worse than trying to save a couple hundred bucks resulting in a crash. At a minimum, swap your front and rear tires. You want your good tires on the front. No question. Your front tires do all the steering and most of the braking. The situation you always want to avoid in a car is a lack of front grip. If you're front. tires are sliding, you're along for a ride as you can't steer at all or slow down much. To be honest, find a new tire shop too. They should have warned you. It is your decision, but if they did not even warn you about it, they are not looking out for you or possibly don't care. Doubtful they don't know.

 

[E90alex]

Not recommended at all. Tires are literally your only connection to the road and determine your limits. Paying for a sway bar instead of matching tires makes no sense at all to me. If you ask me, you're actually much better off with 4 cheap matching tires than two mismatched tires. At least it would be consistent. You don't want to get in a a rain storm and learn the cheap tires have less grip the hard way. Probably not much worse than trying to save a couple hundred bucks resulting in a crash. At a minimum, swap your front and rear tires. You want your good tires on the front. No question. Your front tires do all the steering and most of the braking. The situation you always want to avoid in a car is a lack of front grip. If you're front. tires are sliding, you're along for a ride as you can't steer at all or slow down much. To be honest, find a new tire shop too. They should have warned you. It is your decision, but if they did not even warn you about it, they are not looking out for you or possibly don't care. Doubtful they don't know.

You want the better tires in the rear for better stability. Especially since the Model 3 primarily uses the rear motor. Less grip in the rear means less grip for accelerating, more prone to snap oversteer and less stability in straight line braking.

Understeer is easier to regain control simply by slowing down. The Model 3 uses rear axle for regen so even if you overwhelm the front tires you can still potentially slow down enough with regen and regain front grip. Oversteer is much harder to control especially if it’s unexpected and/or the driver is not familiar with how to control oversteer.

 

[Clover]

You want the better tires in the rear for better stability. Especially since the Model 3 primarily uses the rear motor. Less grip in the rear means less grip for accelerating, more prone to snap oversteer and less stability in straight line braking.

Understeer is easier to regain control simply by slowing down. The Model 3 uses rear axle for regen so even if you overwhelm the front tires you can still potentially slow down enough with regen and regain front grip. Oversteer is much harder to control especially if it’s unexpected and/or the driver is not familiar with how to control oversteer.

No no no. Absolutely not the right approach, at least in my opinion. Yes, you would be less likely to have power oversteer with better rear tires. However, that is a terrible tradeoff for the loss in steering and braking performance unless you have absolutely no throttle control, especially considering stability control systems. In multiple years as a driving coach, I never once met a person with that bad of throttle control that I would make that recommendation of good tires on the rear. I worked on a private range for a few years with a skid pad and have tons and tons of experience with sliding around many different cars with wacky tires in good and bad shape. With bad tires on the front, if you lose the front you can do next to nothing as a driver. You steering won't do a thing as your front tires slide. With your front tires sliding, you're also going to be in ABS, so you won't be regening. You would have some braking force from the rear , which will hopefully help pull you back strait, but that won't be until you missed your turn and are off the road. You also have to remember that as you decelerate, your weight goes forward. i.e. off your rear tires limiting your braking capability from your rear tires. Most of a cars braking is done by the front brakes because of this. That is why cars have larger front brakes than rear brakes. On the other hand, if your rear goes out on you, you have all good options available to you as a driver. You can still steer, you can still brake(which will probably spin you to be honest, but may be best) or you can take you foot off the dang throttle. You also have the cars stability control system limiting your ability to power oversteer. Seriously, your front tires do all the steering and most of the braking.

As for understeer being easier to control than oversteer, that is lazy car review mumbo jumbo. When understeering, what control do you have? You can't steer and your brakes are locked up if you're on them. You're along for the ride until you slow down enough for your front tires to have grip again. How is that in any way more contrail than oversteer when you and still steer and brake and have control of the throttle? Anyone telling you that does not understand what they are talking about and are probably going to tell you next how the bigger brakes that put this model will help it slow down faster(also often repeated nonsense as bigger brakes only take more heat and won't impact stopping distance unless you overheat your brakes.)

To me, the argument of less stability in strait line braking is a bad one on fundamentals. In a panic threshold brake from 60mph, I sure would rather be able to stop in 120 feet with the need to control the rear than a best of 180ft. strait and easy. Snap overseer is a driver input error that stability control is meant to prevent. That just leaves you with less acceleration as your main benefit of having better tires on the tear. As a driver, I always want as much front end grip as possible. Always. I'd much rather have higher limits steering and braking than accelerating.

 

[gearchruncher]

At a minimum, swap your front and rear tires. You want your good tires on the front. No question. Your front tires do all the steering and most of the braking. The situation you always want to avoid in a car is a lack of front grip. If you're front. tires are sliding, you're along for a ride as you can't steer at all or slow down much. To be honest, find a new tire shop too. They should have warned you. It is your decision, but if they did not even warn you about it, they are not looking out for you or possibly don't care.

Since you are so sure of this, you should get with America's largest tire retailer, and tell them they are wrong:

Discount Tire | Tires and Wheels for Sale | Online & In-Person

www.discounttire.com

And Michelin:

Learn About Mixing Tire Brands | Michelin

Are you considering mixing tire brands? Here are some rules of thumb to follow when buying two tires instead of four to ensure your vehicle operates effectively.

www.michelinman.com

And Goodyear:

Where to Replace and Install Two New Tires | Goodyear Tires

Goodyear recommends replacing all 4 tires at a time to achieve the best handling, but a new pair of tire replacements should be on the rear axle. Learn more.

www.goodyear.com

And Les Schawb:

Replacing Just Two Tires? Put Them on the Back - Les Schwab

When replacing two of the tires on your vehicle, it’s important to install those new tires on the back to maximize traction in wet or slippery road conditions.

www.lesschwab.com

And Consumer Reports:

Tires Q&A: Can I replace one or two tires at a time on my car?

Consumers Union held their annual open-house tour on Saturday, October 17 at the company headquarters in Yonkers, New York. Visitors got a chance to tour various stations to hear how Consumer Reports tests different products. It's always a nice...

www.consumerreports.org

Find me a single reputable source that says newer or more performant tires should go on the front.

While you're at it, you should basically call up every single car manufacturer and tell them they are killing people by purposefully setting up stock cars for understeer, where you have "no control." All their research is bunk, and they should be setting up minivans for some sweet tail end out action and just relying on stability control to save you.

 

[Clover]

Since you are so sure of this, you should get with America's largest tire retailer, and tell them they are wrong:

Discount Tire | Tires and Wheels for Sale | Online & In-Person

www.discounttire.com

And Michelin:

Learn About Mixing Tire Brands | Michelin

Are you considering mixing tire brands? Here are some rules of thumb to follow when buying two tires instead of four to ensure your vehicle operates effectively.

www.michelinman.com

And Goodyear:

Where to Replace and Install Two New Tires | Goodyear Tires

Goodyear recommends replacing all 4 tires at a time to achieve the best handling, but a new pair of tire replacements should be on the rear axle. Learn more.

www.goodyear.com

And Les Schawb:

Replacing Just Two Tires? Put Them on the Back - Les Schwab

When replacing two of the tires on your vehicle, it’s important to install those new tires on the back to maximize traction in wet or slippery road conditions.

www.lesschwab.com

And Consumer Reports:

Tires Q&A: Can I replace one or two tires at a time on my car?

Consumers Union held their annual open-house tour on Saturday, October 17 at the company headquarters in Yonkers, New York. Visitors got a chance to tour various stations to hear how Consumer Reports tests different products. It's always a nice...

www.consumerreports.org

Find me a single reputable source that says newer or more performant tires should go on the front.

While you're at it, you should basically call up every single car manufacturer and tell them they are killing people by purposefully setting up stock cars for understeer, where you have "no control." All their research is bunk, and they should be setting up minivans for some sweet tail end out action and just relying on stability control to save you.

Did you even read any of those? I read the first three. Two of which state not to mix tires of different types like me where the other does not address it. All were referring to needing to replace two tires with tires from the same manufacture. All thee are simply concerned with tread depth and it's impact on hydroplaning paired with a driver who does not know what they are doing if that happens. Whenever you're not on top of water, everything I said above is accurate. Even if you hydroplane, the fundamentals about over and understeer of what I discussed above are still true.

I guess my view is also from the standpoint of someone who knows how to control a car and taught others to do so including skid recoveries on our skid pad. Everyone with that knowledge, is better off with better tires up front for all those times they're not on top of water for my above state reasons and using the correct inputs if they do hydroplane. Again, their fear is from the standpoint of less tread depth from old tires paired with the full tread depth of new tires and the impact of that tread depth difference on inducing oversteer when someone hydroplanes and does the wrong thing. This is not the situation discussed above and has little to do with my above statements, or a concern of mine for a trained driver.

By the way, we setup the skids by using the parking brake to lock the rear wheels while we flicked the rear with stability control as off as you could get it. Meaning we created the exact situation those sited articles are afraid of and taught how to recover if it happens. The key is, you can recover if you do the right thing as you.have control of the front for steering and braking. When understeering, you have almost no control. You just wait until you slow down enough or you decrease what you are asking the front tires to do, meaning braking or turning and going strait off the road. Being the one applying the parking brake thousands of times also made me pretty familiar with how much braking the rear can do on its own before locking up on many different cars. It's not a lot, especially on a slice surface.

 

[E90alex]

I guess my view is also from the standpoint of someone who knows how to control a car and taught others to do so including skid recoveries on our skid pad.

Exactly. If you know what you’re doing then oversteer can be preferable, sure. The problem is most people don’t have such experience or training. Most of the general public doesn't understand RWD vehicle dynamics or how to handle oversteer. For those people understeer is easier to control and that’s why most cars are set up to understeer at the limit from the factory.

Imagine some Joe Shmoe average driver taking a cloverleaf too fast in the rain or snow and it starts to understeer. Instinct is to slow down, which is the main way you correct understeer.

In the same scenario but it starts to oversteer, the instinct to slow down makes it worse because you further unload the rear and destabilize it even more.

 

[heavyD]

I would not advise using Accelera PHI tires in locals that see a lot of rain. Most of these budget tires are horrendous in the wet.

 

[Lindenwood]

Eh. If you weren’t pushing hard enough to have already noticed the difference, then it probably doesn’t really matter.

I concur with keeping the better tires in the rear. Understeer—staying pointed in the direction of travel—is pretty much always safer on the street. You have 5+ feet of crumple zones in a frontal collision, but only a few inches from the side.

 

[Mr_Unofficial]

Hey All,

I've been running my 2020 Model 3 Performance with tires from different brands for about 3-4 months now.

I did this because I kept destroying the OEM (Pilot Sport 4S) on the brutal L.A. potholes over the past year, and decided to cheap out on the next set.

Front Tires: Accelera Phi (235/35ZR20 92Y XL)

Rear Tires (OEM): Michelin Pilot Sport 4S (235/35ZR20 92Y XL)

Does anyone have experience doing something similar (running a cheap set up front and high end sticky tires in the rear)?

Any opinions on this practice? Am I compromising my performance significantly? Cheers!

I was actually considering getting some accelera phi for all 4 tires for my m3p how’s your experience with them .