Mixed my front tyre brands - advice needed

[joe6]

If they followed your instructions then you probably don't have a comeback. It is perfectly legal to have different radials on the same axle. If it was me, I would put them on the rear axle as the different traction ratings will be less noticeable.

[Penarth Blues]

If it was me I'd go back and say you've just noticed the tyres are different makes and can they advise you? They may give you an allowance against replacing it with a new Bridgestone.

Either way there's no way I'd mix tyre types on an axle with that sort of performance on tap - especially when needing to stop quickly and in a straight line...

[RUM4MO]

Yup, carp happens, just one of these "if only" moments, luckily we normally don't get much practice at needing to grab a new tyre while doing other things!!

[SRGTD]

I'd also check your wheel carefully to ensure it hasn't been damaged by the tyre fitter when removing the old tyre and fitting the new one. Some of the national tyre fitting chains are not renowned for taking as much care as they should of customer's expensive diamond cut alloys!

[SRGTD]

Result!

Just make sure they're extra careful not to damage your wheel when they fit the correct tyre.

[iichel]

i think in general, the brand of the tyre should not make a difference. the only thing is, the tyres on the same axle should be the same size, type (winter/summer/4weather) and load and speed rating.
tyre profile ideally is taken into account, one tyre with 8mm of profile and another with 2mm will make maybe a slight handling difference.
sometimes a difference in age can make more difference than a difference in brand (not a few weeks, but 5 year old tires?)

on a four wheel drive vehicles, different wear rates are known for destroying transfer boxes and diffs. there it is a lot more crucial.

but both bridgestone and continental are excellent tyres.

also, should I write tyres or tires? google spell check is okay with both!

[RUM4MO]

Writing "tyres" for us in UK is good!

Kwikfit maybe fitted incorrect tyre, that was not too clever, but as usual when something like that happens (from places like that) there is a reason, in this case no stock of correct tyre - so customer put at risk maybe? I see that Kwikfit are not taking on any new insurance customers. Something for anyone that uses them to consider.

[RUM4MO]

This has turned into something horrible for you!

A simple "sorry we do not have a replacement tyre for you" phone call from KwikFit might have made you consider other options before that tyre was fitted, and left you to work something out later in a calm and collected manner.

Its not the first time that I've heard of places doing the wrong thing to get a sale or think that they have helped a customer out - and did something very wrong.

The way I see it, you need to get that tyre back to that KwikFit outlet to stop them charging you for it, at the same time you need to get to an independent tyre place and ask them to source a correct tyre ASAP, if they can source a single tyre, they should get it within a couple of days, if that fits in, ie arrives before you get back to KwikFit, then good and well get KwikFit to fit and balance that tyre. Then further along in time when KwikFit do get a tyre you will need to store it or sell it on.

I'd suspect that KwikFit only use their tyre warehouse to source tyres for outlets, and all these tyres come directly from manufacturers or main distributors, so they will never be aware of single tyres in stock elsewhere.

Check mytyres?

[RUM4MO]

I'd expect VW main dealers to hold stock of a few tyres as fitted to newly delivered cars, but at a slightly higher price, have you asked them if they have a tyre?

[RUM4MO]

My advice would now be, leave that spare on the front as moving it onto the rear is not meant to be good karma, drive very moderately and only when you actual have to, retain the old front wheel with wrong tyre as a spare to be used only to get you out of a dangerous situation - then if you needed to use it, remember its legal limitations and stop using the car once it is in a safe place (back home?).

I'm unsure about using an identical tyre but one that has Audi approval, I run an S4 and always, for summer wheels, only ever fit same as factory with the "for Audi use" marking - exactly how much that matters I can't say, but it makes me feel that I've done my best if/when it comes to using my insurance!

Only other thing that you can do is buy two new tyres fit for that car and keep the "5th" tyre as a spare - it really depends on how much you need to have full use of your car, money can fix most things, but you have to be willing to use it.

Edit:- remember, that tyre, as fitted to that car at factory, I think, will have a unique VW part number in the parts catalogue - normally only needed for warranty failure, ie early life failure due to manufacturing error.

Any/all VW dealers will carry a short range of tyres to cover the present range of models, that might be where VW UK does not want to specify any one manufacturer as being the only one fit for use on that car. Remember also, what gets fitted to any car during manufacture is a "blend" of which tyre behaved best in testing and which manufacturer gave VW a good deal to supply to the factory. While any tyre of the correct spec/sizes will be fit for use, it does seem to be true that some behave better than others to the extent that some tyres will be too noisy for most people or have some other undesirable trait(s).

[RUM4MO]

To be quite blunt about this, staying using that lower speed rated tyre is not on as far as insurance is concerned, is if I was you I'd get it off now!

Moving house means spending real money and committing yourself for a long period in time, so why have you chosen to play with the big people and buy into the new car game at this time? For me, and my wife, when we played the "buying a house" back in 1976, we allowed nothing but nothing else in our way until that was sorted out.

Maybe time to rethink what you are trying to achieve in life as using that as an excuse for not going out and buying new tyres is not playing the grown ups game?

[RUM4MO]

Have you tried approaching a small independent tyre place, they usually buy on the open market Europe wide, so they might be able to track down an odd (single) tyre that is still in stock some where?

The Audi marked "same model/version of tyre" - I think that VW are just giving you the party line, and none of us seem to have insider info to take that further, you do tend to find that "OE" marked tyres, for Audi, BMW, Porsche and M-B do seem to sell at a slightly different price - so something is going on there, but who knows what!

I hope you get sorted out this week, but do try the independent tyre place route it must be your best bet.

[C_Randell_23]

Why don't you just get a bridgestone tyre that you need from openeo or black circles and get it fitted by the quick fit for free. To be honest the bridgestones as standard are pretty crappy and I am looking forward to fitting some Goodyear f1 asymmetric 3s that will give the car much all round grip or when Michelin get their stuff together and make a ps4 in the polos size.

[C_Randell_23]

You will find the exact same Bridgstone tyre at the link below available for 48 hrs delivery

http://www.oponeo.co.uk/tyre-details/br ... #125951091

[RUM4MO]

The possible trouble with that tyre is, it is an "AO" spec'd and marked tyre - we have been through this already and no one knows what difference that makes so the OP is rightly sceptical about falling into another "is it okay?" trap - and I don't blame him!

I run an Audi S4 and it came from the factory with "AO" spec'd and marked tyres, I made sure that I replaced them with same spec for my summer tyres, winter tyres a different story. You tend to find most big tyre retailers (not high street ones) do offer the "non marque specific" version and some other "marque specific" versions but at differing prices, so there is something going on there, and some charge the same for the different versions.

Edit:- remember these tyres with AO etc spec'd on them, are not just a brand that, in this case Audi fit at factory, they are a tyre that has been seen to comply with what Audi etc requested for supply to the factory. This discussion can end up falling into the same zone as people buying Bosch Lambda probes because Bosch are an OEM supplier to VW group - Bosch do not supply Lambda probes to VW group, but they do supply lots of other parts. Just smoke and mirrors so best avoided unless you know better.