When I had my 05 and I was going to change the rear tire I was looking at switching brands. The sales person said that if you are going to switch the brand for the rear you have to switch the brand for the front. Something about tracking.

Any truth to this or is it just a wives tail?

 

BS....

 

Were you wearing a dress?

 

sounds like a good sales pitch to me!!!

 

Well thats what I thought, and no it wasn't a dress more of a skort !!!

 

Thats been one of those "they said" things for decades. I've mixed Dunlops and Metzlers on my bikes before and didnt notice a thing.

 

You don't HAVE to switch ..... but .... most of what you are "feeling" from the current front tire, will remain...... Tracking, comes from concentric tread pattern on many front tires, the tire will track, the tar snakes... the grooves in the road, etc.

No reason to swap both out.... unless you wanted to. When I did my OEM rear tire, I opted to replace the front at the same time.... more because I WANTED to... than any problem with the D-402. I went with Metzlers..... then I went to a Dunlop E-3 rear.... no problems

 

I was told the same by my local Dealer Lawdawg. I was changing from the stock 402's on my 08 UC to E3's. I checked some threads here on the forum and found that to be BS. In fact iclick told me he ran an E3 on the rear and a 402 on the front for a year. I couldn't wait that long. It felt so good to have the new E3 on the rear, I went ahead and changed the front too.

 

i agree BS!! Been running E3 on rear for 11,000 miles with Metzler on front with no problems. Now that E3 on back is worn out, front getting low on tread am going to replace both at same time just because I want to.

 

Having different brands is OK.
You don't want to run drastically different tires for example radial and Bias. There are some combinations that will make the bike handle funny in some situations.