[Daily car maintenance] Why can’t I mix and match car tires? So the impact was so big!

  9
 September 23, 2024
Hello everyone, this is a column focusing on car repair and maintenance. There are car mysteries you don’t know, and it will teach you how to avoid the big pits on the road of car ownership. I believe that not only you but also many people have a certain sense of obscurity about the car aftermarket, which will help you uncover the unknown stories of car repair and maintenance.
Nowadays car owners are really becoming more and more careful and like to have insight into some new things. I met a young female car owner and asked me why the patterns of the tires were all the same. To tell you the truth, I was really surprised by her question, because I was rarely asked such a professional question by a female car owner.

In this issue, I will take you into an in-depth discussion: why the tire patterns on cars are all the same, can’t they be mixed and matched?

It would be even better if you are an old driver and have had the experience of changing a tire. I’m sure you remember that the maintenance technician spent a lot of time looking for tires with the same pattern as other tires in your car, even common models take hours, if some remote models take a few days to find!

Why make sure the tire pattern is the same?

The maintenance technician’s pretentious and serious way of working is unbearable to many car owners because it is really too time-consuming. Of course, this way of work is not that the maintenance technician is making it difficult for you, but really from the point of view of being responsible for you! There is only one reason to do this, that is to maximize the grip of each tire is the same!
The seemingly simple tire pattern is actually very fastidious, and now both the mainframe factory and the tire manufacturer are riveting hard on the tire. The purpose is very obvious, that is, the tire directly determines the performance of the car. Different tire patterns have different grip, drainage, tire noise and so on.

So the tire pattern should be as consistent as possible.

What are the consequences of mixing tires?

The four tire patterns on the car are the same, and in some ways the performance of the car will be the same. On a balanced interface, replacing different tyres with different patterns means that the established balance is broken.
Imagine that your left foot is wearing leather shoes and your right foot is wearing sneakers. Not to mention participating in various activities, it will be uncomfortable even to walk. The tires of cars are almost the same as the shoes we wear, and different tires will certainly cause imbalance in many aspects.

1 brake

As I said above, different patterns will lead to a lot of changes in tire performance, of which the biggest impact is the brake. Due to the different grip, the brake is likely to cause a big force and a small force, which is likely to deviate from the original braking path, resulting in uncontrollable consequences.
Especially on some slippery roads, this situation is magnified many times. I believe that people who like fierce driving will feel this kind of feeling more obviously, and at that time it is really not something you want to control.

2 fetal noise

In fact, the performance of fetal noise is not very obvious, brother Shi encountered this kind of situation is not much, can be measured by very little. It is true that the tire noise caused by different tire patterns is too obvious, and it took a lot of energy to solve this problem at that time. Fetal noise is not absolute, it is not necessarily different patterns will produce excessive fetal noise, but this thing is better not to try.

3 run off

Probably the most profound thing about the sound is this deviation phenomenon. There are many car owners in the replacement of different types of tires, the vehicle has a deviation phenomenon, even if repeated four-wheel positioning is also useless. The most important reason for this result is the deviation caused by the different grip of the tire.

Three summaries

Thus it can be seen that the tire mash-up is really not a good thing. Affect the feeling of driving, not to mention, may also cause certain safety risks.
Brother Shi suggested: try to keep the model of each tire all the time, do not have a mash-up situation. Even different years are much safer than different models.