I justgot off the phone withmy local tire dealer to see about buying two new front tires formy'07Outlander XLS. Through our discussion he informed me that IHAVE to buy all 4 tires becuse it's an AWD vehicle, and if I don't I can damage the gearbox.

I've heard this storybefore whe I had a Ford Escape, but when 90% of my driving is in the 2WD mode should this really be a huge concern?

Please let me know your guy's thoughts/opinions...

 

why would you buy 2 front tires? Would you buy a left shoe and not a right?

never just buy 2 front tires....even if its a fwd. Thats why you rotate tires....

So, for the fact that you have a AWD? yes buy all four please....

 

Always buy 4 tire when you change them event on fwd car it's the same never replace 1 or 2 tire only as you will have uneven tire with uneven wear.

Has ryandlorsaid that's why you do tire rotation so the wear is event on all 4 tires!

 

Ideally, your tires would have been rotated and had even wear as mentioned by the other posters. However, this does not seem to be your case.

Now, replacing one tire on the left and not on the right would be completely wrong to do. However, replacing two tires and not the rears is not an utter disaster and it's completely false that you would damage your gearbox. That's ridiculous. However, you would have to replace the tires with the identical brand, model and tread or you can have some strange handling dynamics.

Ideally, you should replace all 4 and rotate, you'll sooner or later have to break this cycle anyway. My personal choice, would be to replace all 4 with something better than the stock Good Yeartiresthat came with the vehicle. They're not terribly good. And, since I have a great set of winters, I would opt for a better summer tire that's not 4 season, probably a performance summer tire.

 

THe service manual of the Outlander does mention that the wehicle will detect rotational speed difference between the front and rear and disable the 4WD Lock to protect the transfer case, I don't think that the difference genreated by having new and old tires mix will cause the system to react, but you should not damage the car. Arethe front tires so bad right nowthat you can't switch them and wear out the other pair?

 

This is a perfect example of why rotating tires is so important. Regular rotation of your tires (with every Oil Change) will significantly increase the life of your tires as well as reduce irregular wear which leads to noise and vibration.

Buy 4 new ones and be sure to rotate them. Biggest reason for 4 is to keep similar tire performance. You would be amazed to know how much two different tires (brand or model) can perform relative to each other. If you get just two, you are going to get stuck in a rut of replacing two and always having mismatched tires.