Safe Speed Forums

I need new rear tyres as the tread is getting fairly low. I have previously bought michelins but I am beginning to question whether they are worth the extra premium. A quick search on the kwikfit website for a pair of 205/55w16 comes out at nearly £220 which in my opinion is a lot of money, alternatively I could get some 'debica' (never heard of them before) tyres for £130 which clearly, is a lot cheaper. I drive a 100bhp smallish hatchback do about 12000 miles per year.

Which tyres should I get? Are premium tyres worth the extra premium or are they an expensive waste of money? Likewise are cheapo tyres a potential death trap or severely inferior to michelins?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Personally, I always buy premium tyres, I'm happy to spend a few extra quid on basically the only thing keeping the car stuck to the road! I'm a Goodyear Eagle F1 man myself, and while it's very difficult to compare tyres objectively -- after all, you only swap them when your last ones are worn right down, so fresh tyres always feel great -- I've found they offer a lot more grip than anything else I've tried (P6000s included which I've heard people rave about).

Anyway, never pay Kwik Fit's standard prices, in all the years I've been buying tyres I've never paid anywhere near the initial asking price - these sorts of places will always haggle with you. Go to mytyres.co.uk and get a price from there. Then ring around your local tyre places telling them you've already got this price, and will they beat it. They nearly always will. Once you're happy you've got a half-decent price, go to Kwik Fit with it, they normally have enough margain on their stock to match it, if not, go with the next cheapest place on the list.

I regularly get >20% off the initial asking price this way, though it takes a bit of effort ringing round.

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Carl Prescott

another vote for decent tyres being as they're the only thing between you and the scenery. Bridgestones are my current personal preference - not that it's exactly cheap or easy to compare various brands on your particular car or anything.
I've used Black Circles for my last few purchases.

Ring round, I rang round for tyres for Ms Ree.t, Kiwik Fit ~£150 for two contientals local garrage £120. I will however have to try haggling

I have Dunlop sp 3000 (17R 45/215)on my car, they are good.
I did have goodyear eagles (15R 65/95) they where okay too.

I was told once by a friend who got some buget tyres, they where almost imposible to wear out (which can be good, but with grip comes friction, with friction comes wear.)

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Whatever you do, do NOT f*ck about with tyres.....they are the ONLY thing keeping you on the road.

Check out National Tyres.....last September I bought 4 Avon ZZ3's (Z rated) in the exact size you require for £290 all in (fitting, balancing, VAT, etc).
Granted the spotty 17 year old grease monkey managed to damage all 4 alloys when he was fitting them, but all that happened when I complained about that was that all 4 wheels were completely refurbished, brand new tyres were fitted again, and I was given a 50% refund on the money I had just spent.

The tyres themselves had a very low noise level, and an astounding amount of grip (which is just as well, because I used to drive the old lady's Mondeo like I had stolen it on occasions).
The wear factor appeared to be very good as well, we had that car for a further 8000 miles before selling it and the amount of tread left was more than 50%.


EDIT:
Just looked on the NT website, you can have a pair of Avon ZZ3's (again, Z rated) for £173 all in. If you don't need such a high speed rating, then you'll probably get them for less than that.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I keep hearing and reading that well worn (pun intended) phrase about 'the tyres are the only thing keeping you on the road, so spend spend spend...'

Abject nonsense. There are some superb lesser known brands of tyres, an excellent example being the Kumho Ecsta 712. Sadly many of these companies sold relative rubbish in the past as they tried to establish themselves in the market, but Kumho products are now an match for some overpriced brand names that trade on their name and little else! Good enough for VW to fit them on the production line!!

In fact at one time Bridgestone were a 'don't touch with a bargepole' brand. Another excellent tyre is the Nankang NS-2 (although don't confuse it with the older NS-1 which is rubbish).

Cheaper doesn't necessarily mean rubbish, and be grateful that there are budget brands that can hold their own as I'd rather the cash strapped motorist was buying them than taking the risk with 'part-worn' premium branded tyres at the same price...

I've had quite a few michelins on my cars (being standard fit for Citroen) and without fail have loathed them, they have good wear (I've managed 60K out of a pair, replaced at 2.5mm) BUT in the wet have found them to be very iffy. And bloody expensive.

I've had the following and never paid more than £55-00 with new valves, balanced and fitted:

Uniroyal (A budget brand og Continental) found to be a very good rain tyre on the Xsara.

Continental (If you're feeling flush) (These were original fit on a car so not sure on price, sis has them on her Golf at 60 quid a pop)

Avon (As well as the 'high performance tyres' they do a 'budget' tyre for commuter cars the C322 IIRC again had on the Xsara and worked well, folks have got them on thier Nissan Micra and so far so good)

BF Goodrich (Owned by Michelin but the BF Goodrich tyres are cheaper AND they work in the wet)

Not sure where you are but If in Essex, check out Supertyres in Maldon, alittle independant, they are a knowledgable bunch and good on price.

Something else to consider, what car are you driving? It makes a big difference. With the Xsara I could get to the limits of the car before the tyres with all of the above. Likewise mileage and type of driving, low mileage and general commuting around town it ain't worth fitting 'high perormance' tyres, if your punching up and down m'ways go for the better specs.

Budget tyres - I can't comment as I haven't used them sorry!

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Yep definately, Im a big fan of Kumhos.

I used to get through a set of fronts every 3 months on my old van so could have fairly accurate comparisons and and the Kumhos outperformed Pirellis which were a lot more expensive. I would say the Kumhos were the best, closly followed my Contis, the true budgets(Fate-O) and lastly Pirellis! They were awful, although the budgets were only marginally better.

Unless you drive a high performance machine hard then theres no need to go stupid on the price of tyres. Personally I would have a check on owners forums see if there is any general theme for which is the best tyre for the money. But everyone I know who has used Kumhos have had positive things to say about them.

Last week I bought a pair of 175/65R14 Bridgestone B391 for my car. It was from my local friendly indendent emporium. I went straight in and was out again within 20 minutes in exchange for £108.

Don't know weather it's cheap, expensive or indifferent, but I didn't feel like punching some one like when I've been to Kwikfit. There was free filter coffee, I didn't partake and wouldn't have time to drink it anyway.

I have arrowspeeds on the front... And camacs on the back... Both 155R13s... I didn't like the arrowspeeds at first, they spun on damp roads too easily, but after a while they seemed to get better, although maybe I've just become more concious of them and been a bit gentler...

When I get a job I'll change them all to the same make... Maybe continentals... That's what the car came with I think...

I also know that mixing tyres isn't a great idea, but it wasn't my choice, I'm at the mercy of mum and dad on this one... I don't do that much motorway/long distance stuff, it's usually just up and down to school, about 10 miles each way, at 40mph...

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Mike

Mixing tyres shouldn't be a problem on an everyday car so long as the front and rear pairs both match.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Phew... That's okay, thanks I wasn't panicing over it, but I just was concious of the fact... When I got the car at first I had 2 different ones on the front, at different stages of wear, but when the worst one got worn to the point where I was getting worried about it we changed them both...

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Mike

I found this, which says:


If a tyre company (who have a vested interest in selling tyres) says it's OK-ish, it's a safe bet to assume it is.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Go on then! I'm bursting with curiosity! Which 100bhp hatchback needs "W" rated tyres?????! They're supposed to be fitted to cars that can manage speeds up to 168MPH! I WANT ONE of those hatchbacks!!!!

More seriously though, I can heartily agree with most of the comments above. A couple of months ago, I bagged myself a "bargain" set of rims for my car on Ebay. Two of them had almost new tyres on. I patted myself on the back and went for a drive. They were "Maxis" brand. AND THEY WERE TRULY AWFUL!!!!! The car they had come off must have been standing for a long time because they had flat spots and it felt like driving on 50p pieces. NOTHING I could do made them go round again! Even worse, the first time I went out in the wet, I found myself understeering quite noticeably at very modest speeds!

Last week, I binned them and am now the proud owner of a set of Kumho Ecstas - having heard good reports on them from some of the track day boys. Don't know that they're like yet because they're going to need at least 500 miles to "scrub-in" but at least they're round!

I then looked at the EC Directive on tyres because I thought there must be a law against making tyres with so little grip in the wet! As it happens, there isn't (yet)! The Directive only tests for load carrying capacity and for speed capability - not grip. I think there is a proposed amendment out to address this though!

Other personal experiences are:

Michelins. Last a long time but very expensive.
Bridgestone (ordinary) - fine but the car felt very "wallowy". Had very flexible sidewalls.
Bridgestone (Expedias) fantastic in the wet but not much longevity.
Sava (Goodyear's budget brand) Really quite good for the money!
Fateo (awful in the wet).
Firestone - good all rounder but nothing exceptional.

I think there's a lot to be said for going with the manufacturer's recommendation. Some tyres just work well on some cars and others don't!

Last thought, don't overlook your local independent tyre place. Mine really seemed to care - never used an air wrench on any of the wheel nuts and was very careful about where he jacked the car up. I got several quotes (including blackcircles online) and he was also the cheapest.

I had Michelins as OE on my car, and lasted 37,000 miles, which IME is extremely good for FWD.

Replacements were Avons, which are a well-known brand, but were a bit cheaper than new Michelins or Goodyears.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Whilst the rating is labelled speed, it is a little more complex than that.

If speed where the only factor, then nobody driving in this country should need tyres rated above N (87 mph) as we have a 70 mph limit.

What is more important is that the tyre can handle the torque reversals of higher power without damage - and this is the basic reason for having higher rated tyres on higher powered cars.

In the early days of Mondeos, I had a 2.0 GLX. It came on a higher rating tyre than either the 1.6 or 1.8 Mondeos. If the tyre wasn't needed to handle the extra torque and power, then Ford would have saved themselves the extra pennies that the higher rated tyres cost - they don't throw away money; even pennies saved per car soon mounts up when you make 1000's.

When the fronts needed replacing, the lease company would initially only agree to the cheaper lower rated tyres. I insisted on the same rating. They were adamant until I pointed out that they were voiding the type approval.

205/55 R15's from a local supplier? £65 per boot.

Toyo Proxes.

Yay times better than the OE Bridgestone Turanza's that were fitted.

And (most importantly), they have a cool tread pattern

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Simon

Yeah but "W"???????!

Interesting about the torque reversals - I didn't know that but would have thought that pretty much any car can give the tyre a similarly hard time under braking? Only the acceleration would differ. My wife's car needs "V" rated tyres despite the fact that its a few MPH off the limit. I'm pretty certain that it's only because it's 2.0 litre (hers is the 1.8) stablemate can JUST crawl a few MPH over the limit for a "V" rating and the manufacturer could save more money by buying larger numbers of "V" rated tyres than he could have done by buying smaller numbers of a mixture of ratings. Either way, as you say, whether it needs them or now, we'd invalidate its approvals by fitting less and (more importantly!) her insurance!

If the government ever does get round to speed-limiting all vehicles, does anyone reckon they'll let us fit "N"-rated tyres?

Best tyres I've ever purchased. (But there are a lot of modern brands and tyres that I haven't tried.)



That's weird. Firstly there's the mould release agent problem that makes new tyres feel horrible for the first 50 to 100 miles. And secondly there's much more 'tippy-toeness' and tread block squirm with new tyres. In the dry I like worn out tyres best. In the wet, there had better be enough tread to clear the water...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The only Michelins I ever used were as hard as nails and I was amazed they were approved for road use. I imagine they would have lasted practically forever. I made a pretty determined effort to wear them out a Silverstone the day before I replaced them, but I hardly made a dent in them.

People have mentioned cleaning off release compounds and buffing the surface of new tyres, but so far nobody has mentioned curing them. For all tyres, but particularly for soft compound high performance tyres, the tyre performance improves dramatically after they have been put through a couple of heat cycles. This hardens the rubber by continuing the vulcanisation process. Once they have been cured like this, the wear rate is reduced substantially but more important the grip is increased. Tyres won't get hot enough in normal use to cure them, particularly if the owner thinks that the best way to 'bed them in' is to drive gently for a few hundred miles. They need to be brought up to around 50C, which is very hot to the touch but not enough to burn, and then allowed to cool naturally.

In the mean time, new tyres work best with slightly lower tyre pressure than worn tyres, this increases the contact patch area and reduces the sheer stress in the tread, which reduces distortion and tyre squirm. This is particularly important for brand new tyres before they have been fully cured.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)