Quality* tyres

[jonathan_dyane]

My new Saab benefits from being fitted with a *quality 'Dark Horse' tyre which got me to thinking what other dreadfully awful tyre brands are available.

 

Another belter is the 'Golden Boy' motorcycle tyre I removed from one of my MZ's before it was able to kill me.

[cms206]

I had a Double Happiness on an old coach of mine; my last shift bus before I came back to this company had a full set of Bassoon tyres.

[Bren]

"Kingpin" radial.

[spike60]

We have Double Happiness and Double Coin at work, site only to fair though. I always though the Achilles  was strange choice of name for car tyres too.....

[twosmoke300]

Fate , Dai yung , Bangalore tiger grabbers , kadgagogo white walls !

[srad34]

Nothing screams confidence like 'Cheng Shin'.......

[kinkersaab]

My snow tyres are "sunnys". Go figure...

[fordperv]

We have evergreen tyres on our tourneo at work

[kinkersaab]

^ seem pretty good those evergreens, we use them at work... I likes maxxis as a budget tyre, not seen them for a while.

[Ghosty]

Old Man went to the place that he had the Civic's MOT done to ask what a set of 16" Dunlops would cost, fitted to rims not attached to a vehicle (for the Bini), after they did him two 14" Dunlops for £100 fitted.

£400 (£325 on blackcircles). 

 

They proceeded to offer him Landsails as an alternative*...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

'I had a double happiness on an old coach'

[Ghosty]

^ seem pretty good those evergreens, we use them at work... I likes maxxis as a budget tyre, not seen them for a while.

Maxxis make a lot of bike tyres IIRC.

[Jazoli]

Maxxis make a lot of bike tyres IIRC.

Maxxis are rebranded Chen shing tyres as mentioned earlier in the thread, not heard any bad things about their bike tyres.

[Hendry]

Not my car but we have some Volvo XC60s at work, mostly fitted with decent Pirellis but the space saver spare tyre is made by "Chao Yang" who I've never heard of, don't fancy using that on one of those things.

 

Have also seen a few Jinyu tyres, and my old man has had "Wanli" and "Federal" budgets fitt d to his cars before.

 

Worst tyres I've ever had were either Durun a-Ones or Forceum D800s

[saucedoctor]

My snow tyres are "sunnys". Go figure...

I have those on the spare wheels for the X Type. They're not bad at all. You can 4 wheel drift in snow at 5 MPH if you break the traction.

 

I had Kenda tyres on my Honda MT-5. even on a "bike" with 0.0 BHP they were shit. And noisy. At less than 20mph, which was almost all the time, the bike weaved about all over the place. They were "knobblies" and you could move the "knobs" by a significant amount by pushing them with your finger. My father bought me Michelins...

 

As a side note, I'd like another MT-5, just for old times' sake. HAVE YOU SEEN HOW MUCH THEY ARE THESE DAYS?!?!?

 

 

[Inspector Morose]

Englebert,

Esso

And a good few on trabbis with no markings whatsoever to name but a few.

 

Double coin on the buses and coaches. They do the job.

[captain_70s]

The tyres on my Dolly 1300 were a marque I've never head of and can't recall but were proudly produced in Montenegro, any ideas? When I put the car on new budget rubber it was a revelation!

[strangeangel]

Maxxis are rebranded Chen shing tyres as mentioned earlier in the thread, not heard any bad things about their bike tyres.

I once had a scooter fitted with Maxxis tyres and they were dire, absolutely rock hard, so it doesn't surprise me to learn that they are related to Cheng Shin. From a 2-wheeled perspective other tyres to avoid include Vee Rubber and Sava. Especially the latter's shitty whitewalls.

[Jerzy Woking]

Had Maxi tyres fitted to a GSX-R 1000CC as that was all the shop had in stock. They were surprisingly good, with good grip in the wet as well as lasting quite well. It went straight back on Road Pilot 3's when they wore out.

 

Tarmacadam were pretty dire bike tyres - not much grip wet or dry. No wonder when a rear one would last 15,000 miles on my GSX-R750.

[Barry Cade]

Autogrips. Surely one for trading standards, Nexxen are doing bike tyres now, and I have heard they are fairly good.... Wasn't Maxxis part of BF Goodrich?

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

I bought a Metro with 4 Camac's, the drive home in the wet was an un-forgettable experience, only surpassed by a set of Duramold remoulds on a Series 3 Landy in the dry.

[Ghosty]

Camac? More like Caramac.

I'm trying to remember the brand of the rear tyres on Old Man's Civic, last one had Nexens on it.

 

According to the blackcircles website, they sell own-brand tyres. Wonder what they are...

[PiperCub]

The name 'Fate' on the tyres on an old Mk1 Fiasco I had when I was about 18 didn't fill me with hope - justified when I drove it in the wet. At least no-one in trading standards could criticise their naming strategy.

Sava was another beautifully named winner.

 

Cheng Shin bike tyres? Holy crap, how many of us does that name strike fear and loathing into our minds.

(At this point I'll do similarly and say Avon Speedmasters/Skidmasters/Deathmasters....)

[Richard]

The worst tyre I've experienced in recent times was the Hankooks that my Transit came with. Zero grip and I had two blowouts with them. If I bought a car that had any Hankooks I would replace them before I used it. Federal and Vredstein are the other makes on my shit list. After my experience with Continental bike tyres I hate them so much I won't even eat a continental breakfast.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

No Chinese tyre can ever beat that all-time great of the shite car world, the STOMIL. These eastern-bloc death rings were description-defyingly shit, with no grip to speak of, impossible to balance properly and a 100% chance of going egg-shaped or getting a big swollen blister on the sidewall within a year of purchase. Utter bollocks.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Not my car but we have some Volvo XC60s at work, mostly fitted with decent Pirellis but the space saver spare tyre is made by "Chao Yang" who I've never heard of, don't fancy using that on one of those things.

Have also seen a few Jinyu tyres, and my old man has had "Wanli" and "Federal" budgets fitt d to his cars before.

Worst tyres I've ever had were either Durun a-Ones or Forceum D800s

Ironically Volvo and Pirelli are also Chinese.

[PiperCub]

No Chinese tyre can ever beat that all-time great of the shite car world, the STOMIL. These eastern-bloc death rings were description-defyingly shit, with no grip to speak of, impossible to balance properly and a 100% chance of going egg-shaped or getting a big swollen blister on the sidewall within a year of purchase. Utter bollocks.

 

Forgot about Stomil - Polish weren't they? Had some on a Metro I owned for a few weeks - a scary few weeks at that, awful wet or dry.

[stripped fred]

How about linglong? Are they as shit as they sound?

[Shep Shepherd]

Does anyone else remember Pneumant tyres from East Germany?

[Norbert]

Although I'd heard reasonable things about Landsails, when I tried one it was awful, wore quickly and suffered an internal failure that cause a massive steering vibration, sacked it off rapidly after that.

 

I've also has problems with Federals - eggs in the sidewalls and seemingly oval outer diameters made me think they should put 'Offence' after their name.

 

Mind you, I'll never moan about a budget tyre's grip after we collected Mrs_N's Mk1 Mini, which was on crossplies - this was only 5 or so years ago (but they were only a couple of years old, you could still get 10" crossplies for the originality buffs). Hilarity* ensued as grip levels that a Chengshen user would have nightmares about suddenly became apparent. No problem - just had to re-calibrate our driving styles back about 40 years or so.