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Tires for 2011 Murano

2K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  bhkrause 
#1 ·
Brand new here, and my first post. I just picked up a 2011 Murano with 60K miles. Don't hammer me too hard on this, but I didn't notice that the rear tires are not brand new, as the front tires are. The rear tires have about 50% tread wear left, while the front tires are brand new. My question is this; will I do any damage to the transmission if I do not put new tires on the back. I asked the dealer about this after I had purchased it, and they said it was not a problem, but they are not a Nissan dealer. It is a FWD Murano, if that makes a difference. The tires are all Cooper C4's, and looking at the cooper website the C'4's have been discontinued. Could I put new cooper C5's on the rear and be OK? Looks like they are a very similar tire. could I run the rears until they need to be replaced, or should I replace them now?

I know that's a lot of info, but if someone can steer me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.
 
#2 ·
There's no issue as far as wear and tear on the car goes. You just don't want unsafe tires.

If it were me and the rears were bad but not shot, I'd drive about 7,500 miles, put the fronts on the back, and put new ones on the front. Then rotate to even out the wear and not worry about it.

If you have plenty of dough, just replace the rears and start rotating every oil change.

You're not going to tear anything up unless the alignment is bad, or if a tire is horribly unbalanced. If it rides smooth and stays straight on the highway, I wouldn't be too concerned. The front is where you want the most traction. But again, if you have the cash just replace the rears and move on.
 
#5 ·
Thanks SR, I just bought the murano this week. I will rotate the tires every 5k miles. Not sure why there are brand new tires on the front, but not the back. For $350, I think I'll just go ahead and put new tires on the back. That way, they should all wear evenly, and need replacement at the same time.
 
#6 ·
If your SL is AWD you should consider replacing all 4 tires with the same brand. In Canada even though it's not law if you do get into an accident where you skidded and hit someone and your tires don't match the insurance company will blame you because there is so much data out there how matching tires have better skid control and distance than different branded tires on wheels. The same goes in the winter time here, even though it's not law for FWD or RWD vehicles to have snows on the other two wheels the data shows if they do you're less likely to skid out of control and will also reduce your stopping distance compared to having only snows on the rear or front wheels.

This is also one the things the police check at an accident scene to make sure the person had the best possible chance of stopping without skidding out of control. :)
 
#8 ·
Since it's FWD, a small difference in tire diameters is meaningless - no problem there.

What could be a problem (but not at the moment) is mixing tires. Having different brands and models of tires front and back is just asking for weird handling problems which might be unpredictable and even unsafe. You just can't predict the result, and it's like to show up in an emergency maneuver or in bad road conditions.

The good news is that you have the same make and model on all four corners. Therefore I would definitely NOT replace the rear tires until they're worn out. I would also keep the new tires on the front and not rotate for a while to even out the wear a bit.

When the 50% tread tires are worn to the point that they are ready for replacement, I would replace all four and sell the better pair for a few bucks on Craigslist.
 
#9 ·
FWD - mismatched tires front/rear are not much of a problem problem. But... put the good ones on the back, especially in winter or poor traction environments. It's a little counter-intuitive, but here's what happens. If you have good tires in front and worn in the rear, the front has more traction. If you're on a slippery surface and you even just let off the gas, the front tires will decelerate a lot faster than the worn rears, and the rear of the car may actually try to rotate around the front. And if you're in a turn (clover leaf, etc), this effect gets magnified... Fun if you're ready for it, really NOT fun if you're not. I've done both. Prefer the first. :)

If the rear has more traction than the front and you have to slow down - in a straight line your vehicle will still track relatively straight, while in a turn the front may push a little wide but since the rear is slowing faster it will have little impact on how the front is behaving. The fronts may still slide but it'll be a "normal" FWD effect.

bk
 
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