It seems reasonably clear that there is no law requiring the shop to put the tires on the rear, but it also seems clear that there is no law which dictates that the customer is always right. If the shop believes that putting your new tires on the front is an unsafe thing to do, I can’t imagine why the shop would be under a legal obligation to sell you the tires and take your direction on what to do with them, just as you are under no legal obligation to allow them to install the tires on the rear.
I should say that you would be better off finding another shop that will do what you want them to, rather than trying to compel a shop to do something that they clearly do not think is a good idea.
I live overseas, so not a US state. Vehicles cannot officially* pass vehicle inspection with mix-and-match tyres. Have to have all four the same per the Traffic Law. But there is no mention of having newer tyres in particular positions on the vehicle.
And the “It’s the law.” part comes about because it’s often the easiest way to get someone to stop arguing about it. Whether the person saying that knows it’s not really the law, or has no idea, but that’s what he was told, is up for grabs.
Here is the problem for the shop.
They are professionals. In court they are held to a higher standard than joe customer.
So picture this:
You buy tires, shop recommends putting them on the rear. You insist on the front. Shop agrees and mounts them on the front.
A week later while going around a corner you get a blow out on one of the old rear tires, car spins and wraps itself around the a big tree. You are killed.
Your heirs sue the tire store. (along with the tire company)
The attorney asks why the tire store mounted the new tires in the front when the industry standard is and has been new in the rear?
Tire store says that what the customer wanted.
Attorney points out that the tire store is the professional, and the late customer was an idiot.
The tire store will have no defense against this and will at this point probably lose the suit.
I can totally understand why a shop might not want to mount the new tires on the front.
The reason I always used to keep my worst tires on the back was so I would keep control if I had a blowout (and I used to drive on some pretty bad tires). A blowout on the front of a car with no power steering is a lot harder to steer with than one on the back. Blowouts on the back, in my experience, don’t cause the car to immediately steer hard towards the side with the flat like a blowout on the front does.
Two problems with you theory
First is the fact that a rear blowout is more likely to cause a spin and and secondly 99%+ of the drivers out there can’t drive out of a spin.
But I’ve had blowouts on the back and on the front, and the ones on the front had a much greater effect on steering difficulty than the rear ones. Really, the rear blowouts didn’t cause any steering troubles at all- they just seemed to slow the car down. Front blowouts caused an immediate veering towards the side with the flat that I had to steer hard against to maintain control. Granted, these cases were going straight, and I agree that a car will tailslide easier on slick roads if the rears are bald. I don’t believe for a second that rear blowouts on a car going straight are more dangerous than front blowouts on a car going straight.
The problem is you cannot predict if the blowout will occur on a straight piece of road or a curve. I do know which way Mr. Murphy will vote.
Look all the people that are in the business (Tire Rack, Michelin etc) all say new on the rear. No one has provided a cite for new on the front. Despite this lack of cites to support their position of ignorance the NIF people stick their fingers in their ears and go La-La-La I can’t hear you, my post is my cite.
Except for that whole fighting ignorance, not perpetuating it thing.
BTW getting back to the OP calling the highway patrol might NOT give a definitive answer about tire mounting.
In my state
::: wanders over to bookshelf to get current copy of laws and regulations for auto repair dealers:::
In addition to the Vehicle Code auto repair dealers are governed by the following:
Business and Professions Code
Civil Code
Family Code
Government Code
Health and Safety Code
Penal Code
Public Resources Code
Revenue and Taxation Code
And if that isn’t enough
California Code of Regulations
I doubt if any CHP officer in the state knows all of these regulations.
They’re not required to do business with you. You’re asking them to do work they feel is unsafe, they can tell you to let them do it the right way, or go home with your tires. You’re not paying them much to mount 2 tires. They’re going to violate the manufacturer/retailer’s recommendation, and put their customer at risk over a minor job?
Unless I completely misunderstood the original post, this is a completely different question. It sounded to me like you were first asking the question
“Do South Carolina shops, or an-y for that matter (maybe another state?) have legal obligation to restrict a customer’s wishes to how their tires are mounted onto their vehicle?”
Now you are asking:
“Do South Carolina shops, or an-y for that matter (maybe another state?) have legal right to restrict a customer’s wishes to how their tires are mounted onto their vehicle?”
There is a difference between a law that requires a tire shop to put the tires only on the rear and a law that says a tire shop must do whatever the customer requests. I would sincerely doubt that if I wanted to open “Bob’s Rear Tire Mounting Shop” and a customer came in and demanded to have tires mounted on the front that any state would force me to do business with this customer.
And even if there is no law in South Carolina that says “Mounting new tires on the front wheels is a Class B felony punishable by a $100,000 fine,” if courts have been consistently awarding $100,000 judgements against tire shops in civil suits after they mounted tires on the front, to a non-legally trained tire shop owner that has the same effect as the law saying “Thou shalt not mount tires on the front wheels.”
This is what I understood the OP to be asking all along. I will note, however, that “restrict” (from the OP) is a poor word choice (how do you restrict wishes?). I’m pretty sure he means “disregard.”
This is precisely what he’s asking about.
Which, while it would alleviate the OP’s frustration, is not the question at hand. He’s looking to see if tire shop personnel who specifically state that installation on the rear is mandated by law are correct in that assertion.
Of course the shop can refuse to put them where the customer wants, just like I often refuse to plug a tire (not safe, no longer an industry accepted practice), or to repair a puncture that in my estimation would result in an unsafe repair.
I also know of tire shops that refuse to do any repair on any tire over 5-6 years old regardless of the amount of tread left. This is do to the issue of old tires failing at a much higher rate than newer tires.
And I would respect that if they told me that they felt unwilling to do the work and to “go home with my tires” if I felt differently. But the fact is they didn’t, they invented a law that they have no reference to and lied to my face, they even raised their voice so that it made me look more the ass for questioning them about their law in the already quiet waiting area.
So maybe you want to know how they lied to me, they cited another reputable tire place in the area as one of the “other guys” that is following the same policy, but I was talking to them @ 5:30PM this other place had already closed for the weekend, however when I called them this morning and inquired about a law they only stated that there was no law and that they always suggest putting the new tires on the rear, but would never force me to do so…
I took this question to one of our Counties largest tire supply and fitment centres. They smiled when they said that the industry dictates that they should fit the best tires on the rear, but unless instructed by the customer otherwise, they always fit the best tires to the front.
I have had high speed blowouts on both the front and the rear of cars I have been driving and never once has it made the car swerve, only slow down.
The “rear fitters” are basically catering for the idiot drivers who drive faster than road conditions permit. In my book these idiots should not be on the road in the first place.
I’ve met more than one officious tire seller with some kind of a boner for putting new tires on the back, but it can’t possibly be a law. This would result in the tire wear becoming even more uneven, and that’s even more hazardous the next time you rotate the tires.
If anything, there should be a law saying that if the older 2 tires have enough tread to stop effectively in wet weather, then the newer 2 tires must be mounted on the front. If the older 2 tires don’t have enough tread, then it should be illegal to remount them at all. THAT makes sense.