Tyred of it all.

[pistonpopper]

I was wondering how you all feel about the tyres on your car. In my opinion this isn't one of those things that you should skimp on, the bigger, heavier, and faster car you have, the better quality shoes it should wear. However, after buying some new tyres for my Mustang at about £200 a pop I got talking to a friend of mine who said he bought four budget tyres brand new for his M5, for about £200 The set! Now, I doubt that my Mustang is anywhere near as fast as his M5, but in his opinion budget tyres are just as good as the more expensive branded tyres. So, am I just throwing money away being some sort of tyre snob by fitting Good Years to my car instead of fitting Shandong Ling long tyres like my friend. What is your experience with tyres?

[zeberdee]

I have fitted the cheapest tyres i could find to my van .
In the dry , couldn’t fault them , in the wet it was like driving on ice .

After not learning anything from that , i fitted the cheapest set of tyres to my next van .
Again , in the dry amazing , but this time in the wet they were really good as well .

Not sure of the point I’m making , but maybe not all cheap tyres are rubbish ??

Edit to add ,

My vans are normally empty & driven more like a car . 😃

[joem83]

My Mustang came on Acceleras on the rear and it was dangerous.

Changed to Michelin PS4 and it was like a different car.

Budget tyres generally suck, I wouldn't want them on a GTI never mind a M5!

I have put them on cheap stuff that that doesn't have much power and they have been fine, but they have no place on performance cars or anything that is going to be driven enthusiastically.

[astranaut]

I generally buy the best I can afford, used to go for partworn good ones over new budgets, but not knowing the history of the tyre worried me, so generally get mid range new now.

[joem83]

This is basically what I had on the Mustang when I bought it, although the front tyres were 2 year old P-zero's that were already age cracking!


I changed the full set, the rears probably only had 500 miles on them

[stealthstylz]

I think it depends on the car. I run the highest wet grip/low noise tyres I can get on my Delica, usually Joyroads or similar and they're ace. Much better than the BFG's and another premium brand that I can't remember that were fitted before, and I cane the living daylights out of it.

I also cane the living daylights out of my Clio, which until a couple of months back had 2+2 mismatched budget tyres on. It was fine in the dry and driveable in the wet but had that skittish edge that makes it a bit of a bum clencher sometimes. I switched to 4 new Uniroyal Rainsport 5s (which are still very cheap TBF, 30 quid a corner) and they are absolutely insane. In the dry they're good, in the wet I've never driven on a tyre like it. On my private test track (definitely not the A1 North past Ferrybridge if anybody knows it) it'll sit at 3 figure speeds in several inches of standing water and not feel any different to doing those speeds in the dry. I used my dad's Honda Jazz (budget tyres same size as Clio) a couple of weeks ago to take it for a MOT and nearly binned it doing 75mph over a regular standing water patch as I forgot what cars normally do in that sort of situation.

[rattlecan]

I seem to go both ways (ooher) I buy cheap tat for my van (2012 Vivaro Sportive) goes pretty well & even with cheap stuff on, can’t say I’ve had a problem, handles good, I’d throw it into any corner wet or dry with no issues. Then on my cars (weirdly) go for more expensive stuff. Not sure why, I might stop doing that

[rattlecan]

Mar 19, 2022 19:16:49 GMT stealthstylz said:

I think it depends on the car. I run the highest wet grip/low noise tyres I can get on my Delica, usually Joyroads or similar and they're ace. Much better than the BFG's and another premium brand that I can't remember that were fitted before, and I cane the living daylights out of it.

I also cane the living daylights out of my Clio, which until a couple of months back had 2+2 mismatched budget tyres on. It was fine in the dry and driveable in the wet but had that skittish edge that makes it a bit of a bum clencher sometimes. I switched to 4 new Uniroyal Rainsport 5s (which are still very cheap TBF, 30 quid a corner) and they are absolutely insane. In the dry they're good, in the wet I've never driven on a tyre like it. On my private test track (definitely not the A1 North past Ferrybridge if anybody knows it) it'll sit at 3 figure speeds in several inches of standing water and not feel any different to doing those speeds in the dry. I used my dad's Honda Jazz (budget tyres same size as Clio) a couple of weeks ago to take it for a MOT and nearly binned it doing 75mph over a regular standing water patch as I forgot what cars normally do in that sort of situation.

[br

The (Not A1) does not have ‘several inches’ of standing water (maybe a few cm’s) unless a river has broke its banks & flooded. That aside if you are doing ‘3 figures’ (as you claim) in the pi55in rain then you need to be taken off the roads & never be allowed on them again because you WILL kill someone. What a total plank

[kevins]

I have good and bad experience, the mx5 had 2 brand new Chinese tyres on it when we bought it and it was terrifying in the wet, but then when you look at the wet grip rarting it was awful, I have also bought cheapies with a good wet grip rating for the TR7V8 in the past and found them fine, they wear quickly but when you are only doing a couple of thousand miles a year that's not really a problem.

[Paul H]

Even on a small, low powered car, I still wouldn't run cheap tyres. It is worth watching some of the proper tyre test videos to see the differences in actual tyre performance, rather than just what the official ratings say.  A friend is a motoring journalist at one of the big name modern car mags, and a while back I quizzed him about how accurate those (often sponsored by a premium brand tyre...) tests actually were - his reply was that that they were 100% legit.  Given the big differences in wet weather braking between the known brand names and the (often oddly named) cheap stuff, I'm sticking with the decent brand tyres.

As for real world experience, having gone from a set of decent tread, not old but ditchfinder brand (on the car when I got it) to a new set of premium brand tyres on my 1.1 commuting heap, even in the dry the difference was extremely noticeable, as with the premium rubber it would corner at 10 mph faster on one particular bend but still feel more stable and further from the limit. As a result, I dread to think what the difference would be like on a high performance car...

[bmcnut]

Over the years I've had tyres at both ends of the spectrum. Nice new falkens, Goodyear, etc etc right down to those of a questionable age and quality that came on a variety of snotboxes. My worst experience was a mk6 escort I had that locked up in the rain when I was doing about 10mph and hit a wall. On closer inspection the tyres seemed to be made of plastic, not rubber. Up until that point I was happy to use almost any tyre and assume that if I didn't hang it around corners then I probably wouldn't even notice the difference. After that little wall experience I will always buy the best I can

[igor]

In the late '80s and through the '90s I used to buy second-hand import part-worn light truck steel-belted radials for use on my then daily ADO16 and, later on, my daily EN1 Civic. They were hard as hell and consequently lasted a very long time which was good because I had very little money. No major issues with loss of traction but neither of those cars have the power or speed to really get into trouble.
That said there was this one time in '99 that my son left his raincoat at school so he and I went back in the Civic to get it. The street outside the school is reasonably steep and it had been raining. It was well after school hours by this time and there being no one else around except the school cleaner I decided to have a little fun. Went flying down the hill past the school, flicked the car around on the handbrake at the bottom, and kept the power hard on. It peeled all the way back up to the next intersection.

[vitesseefi]

Quite simply, I don’t think you can judge purely by price.

The scariest I’ve had were cheapies. Triangle brand tyres on a 4.2 A8Q. Like a supermarket trolley on ice in the wet. And sounded like 4 failed wheel bearings. The 4 “Runways” purchased as temporary emergency replacements absolutely transformed it and became permanent replacements. Possibly didn’t last very well (didn’t keep the car).

Second scariest were matching Michelins swapped onto my Dolly 1850 from my broken Sprint while I refurbed the identical alloys from the 1850. I very nearly crashed (spent a butt clenching few seconds bouncing along the verge after taking a bend on a road I drove daily at my usual speed. Road was damp but not really wet. The tyres I was used to were “Couriers” (remember those? cheapy Pirelli brand iirc). They went back on pronto!

I have cheapish Falken SN832 tyres on both Triumphs and they are outstanding in the wet, as proven on a couple of biblically wet track days where they enabled me to mix it with machinery I shouldn’t have been able to get near.

The managerial TT came to us with a matching set of Continentals. Premium brand and butt clenching in the wet. And cracked to hell. Old then, you might think, but just 5 years by their date stamps….. and less than half worn.

It’s a minefield…..

Nick

[Dez]

There’s just as many bad expensive tyres out there as there are good cheap ones. I’ve bought cheap tyres than have suited certain cars, ride height and wheel combos better than tyres that were 3 times as much.

I took off dunlops and replaced them with nankangs on one car as it was boarderline dangerous to drive. Totally transformed it.
Also had another with falkens that were meant to be the plums. One had some sidewall damage I missed when I bought the car, So I bought a pair of super cheapos. It drove significantly better on a pair of landsails, the cheapest black and rounds possible.

There’s also a huge aspect of emperors new clothes with them too. Of course someone who’s just spent 4x the price on a set of premiums is going to want to think they’re better. As I tend to not keep cars long or destroy tyres for other reasons, I tend to buy cheapies for these cars and am constantly surprised how good a lot of them are.

One things for sure, the gap between ‘high end’ and ‘cheap as possible’ has narrowed considerably over the years. In the 90s cheap tyres were a long way away from premuim pranks in all respects. Now, no so much.

[rblote]

I buy the best that is available but 9 out of 10 times second hand. I bought a nearly new set of Khumo tires for my 4WD for less than half price. My wife's car is on a set of Bridgestone tires. Also second hand. Paid $150

[75swb]

Bridgestone ecopias are the most dangerous tyres in the wet i've ever used. Will never buy them again! It was more like sailing than driving. Put on a set of goodrides, gripped well but dead after 12,000km...

[pseudonymous]

I used Dunlop SP Sports for years on my old Mazda but whilst they were very good, they were made out of cheese and the wear rate was very disappointing.

My E46 came with Bridgestone Potenzas all round and I'll probably stick with them when replacement is required as it drives exactly as it should. No tramlining, solid grip and no issues in the wet. Some reviews said they generate a lot of cabin noise but I haven't really found that to be the case.

[silver63]

When I first started driving/riding in late 70’s I rode a bike for 2 years before doing my car test.I suppose because of that I have always thought about tyres first.Over the years I have tried cheap and expensive.Have always gone back too Michelin for both wear and grip on both cars and bikes.

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

Part worns all day for me

[Midland Performance & Retro]

If I’m fitting a new set of tyres, it’ll be Michelins every time. PS4Ss if it’s a high performance car, or PS4s if it isn’t, or whatever is available.

Happy to match Continentals, Pirelli’s, Dunlops, Goodyears or Bridgestones.

Falken, Kumho or Uniroyal I’d match on a low-powered car.

Anything else goes in the bin.

Your tyres are the only part of the car that touches the tarmac (unless something goes very badly wrong!), don’t skimp on them!