My front tyres are getting a bit low on tread and will need replacing soon. Just wondering to save $ I could throw the spare on the front and use the worn front as a spare?

if your spare is the same as the ones on your car, i don't see why not

couple of things, How old is the spare? (the week and year of manufactor is stamped on the sidewall somewhere ie 5108 is this week). If it is greater then 5 years it should only be treated as a very temporary spare, as rubber ages i.e get me home or to a tyre shop only spare. If the spare is less then 5 years old then make sure you can still get the same type of tyre for the other front, i.e bridgestone er592 to bridgestone er592, don't mix and match i.e bridgestone er592 to bridgestone er300 or dunlop or good year. But if everything checks out then all should be good and save your pennies!! I've done this with my cars from the past.

couple of things, How old is the spare? (the week and year of manufactor is stamped on the sidewall somewhere ie 5108 is this week). If it is greater then 5 years it should only be treated as a very temporary spare, as rubber ages i.e get me home or to a tyre shop only spare. If the spare is less then 5 years old then make sure you can still get the same type of tyre for the other front, i.e bridgestone er592 to bridgestone er592, don't mix and match i.e bridgestone er592 to bridgestone er300 or dunlop or good year. But if everything checks out then all should be good and save your pennies!! I've done this with my cars from the past.

Spot on! You can usually pull this trick once, assuming the tyre company involved condescends to keep the particular tyre in production for more than 10 minutes. I've been caught out with OEM tyres going out of production in the time it took to wear out one pair of tyres! These days, I keep the spare in regular rotation.

+1 - Wholly agree with Blue Lightning!

What is the tread depth difference between the two? isnt it very bad for the tranny to run different tread heights?
Im sure it says that both tyers must be replaced at the same tome to make sure there isnt a height difference in the tyres so not to cause transmission damege.

What is the tread depth difference between the two? isnt it very bad for the tranny to run different tread heights?
Im sure it says that both tyers must be replaced at the same tome to make sure there isnt a height difference in the tyres so not to cause transmission damege.

yeah but he is using his spare (which presumably is brand new) and then only has to buy one brand new tyre (which will be the same as the spare) for the other front wheel.. so you have 2 brand new tyres on the front, but only had to buy one..

then you have a worn tyre for your spare.. its common practice among car yards when they replace tyres on their trade ins so they dont have to spend as much money on buying 2 tyres when they can get away with just buying one.. or buying 3 instead of 4..

Will still have 2 new identical tyres on the front, so there will be no issues with the tanny etc..

Not sure about SA but in Vic tyres are no longer a roadworthy item in so far as mixing tyres on the same axle. Ie you could have a bridgestone on the front right and a dunlop on the left as long as they are the same size and height

Is crazy, Familywagin is 100%, running different tyres from left to right can do damage to your driveline, not so much form a mm or 2 but any significant difference will be all bad.

AWD owners must be VERY careful when doing tyre rotation also. A worn tyre versus new tyre on left/right variation can cause serious driveline wear, as mentioned by madmagna above. The AWD diffs do not like this at all.

AWD owners must be VERY careful when doing tyre rotation also. A worn tyre versus new tyre on left/right variation can cause serious driveline wear, as mentioned by madmagna above. The AWD diffs do not like this at all.

This is basically correct, although minor ( 1 to 2 mm) tread depth differences shouldn't matter in the real world. With this in mind, I am doing tyre rotations on my AWD every 5000 to 8000 km, including the spare.