4x4 Tire Myth?

it doesn't really matter that much as long as the tire sizes match. different brands are gonna probably have different wear properties, but as long as you aren't driving around town in 4wd with a 31 on one side and a 33 on the other side, you're fine.

He may be talking about how different brand tires, of the same listed size can be different sizes.

i.e. my 33x12.50 BFG At KO's were actually 32.5" tall. My interco trxus MT 33x12.50 are really 33" tall.

~Mark

He may be thinking of AWD where tires size is much more impprtant.

technically if the size is enough off the Auto 4x4 could get messed up and think it need to switch into 4x4 mod, but that would be an extreme case, and the small tire would need to be on the rear to make the computer think the tire is slipping. Just a theory not sure it it would really happen.

Other than that, like Techie said AWD has some issues with different tire sizes, and you could possibly burn up your TC but again that is an extreme case.

I think his thoughts revolve around the issues of driving a vehicle with different diameter tires from having one new and one very used tire on the same axle. Wreaks havoc on the drivetrain to some cars, but I can't speak to the X...

well he has the first gen explorer so get one of the same manufacuturer for tire continutity (if u can) but so long as it is the same size it shouldnt matter

^^^ yeah x2

I don't know that I've ever seen a "specification" for how different tires can be. Here's my experience (in a little more detail than the discussion that got started over at FSC):

On my BII (13-50 t-case, so it had the same kind of basic part time 4wd system as on the your Explorer), the front two Good years that I had wore out, but there was still some wear left on the back two (I hadn't kept them rotated), so I bought a used set of Michelins for the front. All four were 235/75R15. If current tire specs are similar to those that I had, there could have been a difference of .2-.3 inches in the diameter between the two manufacturers (~1%). The binding/popping was definitely real. My experience is only one anecdote; I don't know what others experiences have been, but it suggests to me that a difference in diameter of as little as 1% is enough to cause problems.

I've never tried to run a pair of old and new tires of the same make/style, but it wouldn't be hard to get a similar size difference. My MT's had about 0.5 inch tread depth new. 1/2 worn, they would have about 0.25 inch tread depth. This would result in ~0.25 inch difference in overall diameter between a pair of half worn tires and a pair of new tires. If my previous experience is indicative of how much "tolerance" there can be between front and rear, this would be enough to cause problems. Looking at the specs, many tires have reported tread depth of ~ .5 inch (12-18/32). So half worn tires can be different enough from a new tire to cause problems.

I don't know exactly when "needing to replace one tire" means "replacing all four, no matter how much is left on the other three" It appears there would be some point beyond which it wouldn't pay to just replace one.

I would be interested in others experiences if they've been in similar situations.

Tire Size Matters

I have a 99 Mecury Mountaineer AWD and believe me, size does matter with the AWD! One slightly worn tire on drivers side was havoc on mine, binding, poping, etc. I replaced with 4 new tires and drives/steers great.

One of my coworkers bought a 94 Suburban, and a 96(?) Tahoe. Both vehicles had a single mismatched tire. Both vehicles had strange driveline noises. On one of them, the noise came from the location of the odd tire.

After switching to a fully matched sets, the strange driveline noises disappeared on both.