Quality* tyres

[twosmoke300]

What about Barums ? Oe on rwd skodas iirc . Hard as hell and passed from one generation to the next

[dollywobbler]

I've found Hankooks and Savas (budget Goodyear brand) perfectly fine. Certainly an improvement on aged Michelins.

[Taff]

I bought a E36 328 which had Jinyus fitted, I often wondered how on earth there was enough of a market for a tyre firm of their reputation to be making "performance tyres" as it were.

[gordonbennet]

I'm surpised that Vredestein got mentioned here, never heard a bad word before and good own experiences,  we've had lots in the family.

 

Years ago my boss at the time bought a new Daf 2500 tractor unit and presented it to me, nice little lorry actually and perfect for the job i was on....he pissed me right off though by removing the 4 drive axle tyres before they got used (all 6 tyres the same in those days so saving 'em for steering axles) and substituted as set of fuckin Kenprest remoulds...i had much to gob off about this.

However had to eat my words as to this day they were the best gripping set of drive axle tyres i've had on a artic in 39 years, you could not unstick the buggers come rain or shine.

 

Worse wet gripping tyres on a lorry in my driving life have been half worn Michelins, worse wet gripping tyres on a car were Michelin X closely followed by ZX, had a set of ZX's on a Ventora which went where it effin well pleased unless bone dry, put a set of the then new Goodyear Unisteels on it and the car was transformed.

 

Saw a otherwise well presented vacuum food tanker artic a few months ago on Double Happiness tyres...WTF.

 

My one and only recent foray into far eastern budget makes i tried a set of Federal Formoza's on the MB as an experiment to see if previous tyre prejudices were still founded, they are, felt OK for a while comfortable and silent in the dry, but once the damp arrived had two unprovoked full on broadsides and wheelspin far too easy, removed with 7+mm still remaining.

 

2 x daughter experiences...one on Arrowspeeds equals awful, BMW compact on Sumitomo equals learn how to drift to save your life.

 

 

edit for Honey Badgers post below

 

It must depend a lot on what car tyres are on, P6000's gripped well on a very quick Merc E320 estate, and Toyo T1R's to date still the best gripping (but noisy as fook and hard ride) tyre i've ever had on a W124.

[Honey Badger]

I've used Hankooks on the S2000 and the current Lexarse RX and they have been very good, the commercial Hankooks on my Brava pick up were good as well.

 

Bridgestone Potenzas get my vote as shit tyres, rock hard sidewalks combined with compound that's softer than cheese I was lucky to get 8k out of a set on the S2000, bloody noisy as well. P6000s on my R8 were also abysmal as we're Vredstein and Toyos.

 

Had a mini with a set of stomils on it and it was terrifying swapped for a decent set of Dunlops as soon as I could save up the cash, bloody thing would spin at the drop of a hat with the Stomils.

[Wilko220]

My experience of Hi-Fly tyres is that the name sums up their ability to grip the road.

[fordperv]

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

To be fair I was expecting them to be much worse than they are

 

Maxxis on the other hand, I had a pair of ma-p1 on the back of my saph and as soon as there was a sniff of damp in the air it was like ice skating in slippers as soon as you breath on the throttle. The falken ze912 that replaced them were much better and cost about the same

[oldcars]

Linglong. Linglong and prosper, or not as the case maybe.

[Station]

I had Sunny tyres on my CRX. Imagine Red Rum doing the Grand National in flippers.

[Andrew353w]

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.

 

I couldn't agree more!!! My F.S.O. 125p was shod with Stomils when I bought it and the handling was awful, but I assumed that was how the car drove... The off-side front tyre blew out as I was driving at the M40/M25 junction (I still have nightmares.....) After I'd put the spare on (ANOTHER Stomil!) and driven gingerly to my regular tyre depot I changed all 4 for Michelins; the result? A transformed car-BRILLIANT! I could throw the car about much more; it stopped perfectly, went where you pointed it and cornered silently!

[jonny69]

I was looking for some 155R13s for mine recently and most of the places I looked (including Kwik Fit) didn't even specify the brands of their budget ranges, so you had no idea what sort of lucky dip was going to arrive in the post

 

I'm doing some work with the tyre industry at the moment. It's interesting that so may budget brands have popped up and really hurt sales for the big companies like Dunlop, Pirelli etc. It's actually not that many of these budget brands are rubbish, because many of them aren't, it's the bigger companies have had to differentiate their product somehow to remain in business and they've done this by ploughing millions into research and developing higher-performing tyres. It's not so much that the budget tyres are rubbish, it's that the new premium tyres are so much better. However, it's very much a Europe thing. Go outside of Europe where the miles are way higher, less traffic and people don't drive as fast and the priority really starts to lean towards longevity over performance. Tyres that we view as crap are way more desirable if they soldier on forever.

[CortinaDave]

I had stomils fitted to a Sierra 2.3 ghia.

 

ALL FOUR blew out within the space of the year I owned it. Absolutely terrible tyres.

 

I see Barums have had a mention - I actually don't mind these, have had them on a few motors and they've been alright.

[sierraman]

I really rate Barums. Hold the road really well, wear decent. Made by continental, I think they are OE on some cars Skoda I think. Some tyres like Pirelli are wildly overated, general rule is avoid the cheapest ling long shingles rubbish but then don't waste money on a set of Michelin Pilots on a 12 year old Astra.

[oldcars]

I couldn't agree more!!! My F.S.O. 125p was shod with Stomils when I bought it and the handling was awful, but I assumed that was how the car drove... The off-side front tyre blew out as I was driving at the M40/M25 junction (I still have nightmares.....) After I'd put the spare on (ANOTHER Stomil!) and driven gingerly to my regular tyre depot I changed all 4 for Michelins; the result? A transformed car-BRILLIANT! I could throw the car about much more; it stopped perfectly, went where you pointed it and cornered silently!

Dad had these on a caravan. A motorway blowout was a truly pant filling experience.

[Coprolalia]

Got a fresh set of Dunlop Blueresponse on the fronts of the Scirocco. Made a huge difference compared to the bald Arrowspeeds they replaced. Proper grip in the wet, quite quiet, don't spin up on acceleration, just get the power down nicely

Rears are matching Runway Enduros. Always rated these, as although a bit spinny in the wet, they just seem to last and last and last and last.

This led to a proper tankslapper drift last weekend in the wet, where the rears let go and the front kept gripping. Hope all those on the M5 Weston-S-M exit enjoyed my driftin'-skillz-yo.

 

Got a matching set of Firestone Firehawks on a spare set of alloys to try next.

[sierraman]

Always found Arrowspeeds ok but they crack very quickly. Worst ive had was Roadstar Radials. Absolute plastic rubbish, I'd go as far as to say dangerously unpredictable.

[forddeliveryboy]

Best to buy All-Season if buying budget - more likely to give some grip in the wet.

[320touring]

Linglong. Linglong and prosper, or not as the case maybe.

Fine on me polo-lift off oversteer frw

[xtriple]

Speaking as a 'biker' now.... back in the day, all Japanese bikes came with (surprise, surprise) Japanese tyres and they were universally hated and binned asap for Dunlops, Avons or somesuch.

 

I bought a brand new Honda CBX (1050cc, 6 cylinders) and of course, it came with Bridgestone tyres. I was going to bin them straight away but as we were all in the habit of wearing tyres out in about 800 miles (!) I thought I'd do a few burnouts with the Bridgestones and kill them.  With the front wheel locked, plenty of revs on (new bike, running in?) and it just pushed the bike forward.

 

I was rather surprised....

 

The only way I could reliably do a burnout was by wedging the front against a wall. Those bloody Bridgestones stuck like shit to a blanket and, I suppose, the beginning of the end of that bad reputation. I certainly looked at them differently from then on.

 

Incidentally, I was no 'burnout virgin' as me and a mate used to do rolling burnouts from the lights... constantly!

 

On cars, the only tyres I've ever had real problems with have been 'premium tyres'!  Had Michelins on a Merc once and they were truly awful and when I ditched them, three were out of shape! Also, when I bought my MX5 last year, it came with mixed (but new) budget tyres and one Pirelli. Guess which one constantly went flat and generally felt shit?

 

I don't think most of the cheapies out there are too bad, so long as they aren't ancient.

 

I had Nexxens on my Merc SL 500 in huge sizes (235/40/19 front and 265/35/19 rear) and they were fine! Gripped absolutely spot on wet or dry. They had just been fitted when I got it and I was buggered if I was going to ditch them as the prices were... eye watering!

[Honey Badger]

Anyone else make tyre choices based on the coolness of the tread pattern?

 

I once spent an inordinate amount of time searching through a big pile of part worns to get a full set of Goodyear Eagle NCT2s for my Sierra for the only reason that I loved the wave pattern of the tread.

[Albert Ross]

Dark Horse. Also known as Jupiter, Nexen, Arrowspeed (For KwikFit only IIRC) Prestivo, Road Champ, and many others. Not the worst tyres out there. That award goes to Victoria or Danubiana. I have seen the treads come away from the carcasses within 100 miles of fitting. I used to put Hankooks on my Sierras, they were actually rather good. Ventus Plus 2 was the tread pattern. I was waiting for them to being out the "Plus Four" so I could fit a set to a Golf. My current favourite of the Budget "perceived cheap and nasty" tyres is Matador. It's Continental's budget brand, and performs rather well. I only run decent tyres on the LR, for safety reasons.  I run Goodyear G90s, which have recently earned themselves rather a poor reputation for disintegrating. Founded, yes, but generally because the MOD parked them in bright sunlight in Desert areas.

[CHRIS1980]

EVENT tyres,anyone used these? If you haven't ,don't bother. There made from oil impregnated granite. They look like a tyre......they are black.....that's it.

[Stanky]

It amuses me greatly to eyeball the tyres my new colleagues fit to their <7 year old cars at work. Cars which I strongly suspect cost more for 3 months finance payment than my Nissan cost outright.

 

So, popular choicesinclude: Landsail, Evergreen, Rockstone, Sunny, and EVENT. Now, I'm no tyre snob, but I do do my homework before committing to new tyres. I only ever buy 4 matching ones, new, and rotate them after about 12,000 miles. This way I get between 25,000 and 30,000 out of a full set, costing in the region of £200 fitted.

 

The price difference between a no-name widowmaker and a mid-range in my experience tends to be less than £10 a tyre. Having experienced the frankly terrifying performance* envelope of a pair of Camac Komets (see my avatar for evidence) I always buy brand new midranges these days. Things like Yokohamas and Kumhos - and to this day I've never managed to provoke understeer, oversteer or wheelspin in the Nissan. Just harmonious neutrality. They were even alright in the snow we had a little while back.

 

It might not be the autoshite way, But I won't scrimp on tyres any more. Mercifully the two times I have lost control due to poor conditions, poor judgement and poor tyres there was no-one else around to be hurt. I was very nearly a witness to a pedestrian's demise quite recently when a chavvy Corsa C turned across the traffic while I was stopped at the lights, obviously off the power with bald rear tyres, the back end swung out, the corsa went broadside and hit the pavement side-on, almost rolling over in the process. Had it done so. the bloke waiting to cross would have been crushed. Mercifully he escaped with severely brown trousers and white hair. 

[cms206]

I'll have a nosy round our fleet tomorrow morning for shite boots. We ran Wanlis on a Merc 709D minibus which delaminated after about half a shift, and at one point every one of our Volvo B10M service buses were shod with Triangle tyres.

 

At the moment we're generally running GT Radials on the steer axles and Bandag remoulds on the drive axles though we had some howlers in the past.

[sierraman]

Does anyone remember Admiral tyres? Not too dissimilar to their nautical namesake they cornered with the prowess of a QE2.

[Justin Case]

Help please. I will shortly need a couple of new tyres for the Mazda. Mrs Case recently had a couple of Uniroyal Rainsports on her car and they do what it says on the tin, so at present they are favourites. So far this thread has warned me off all the vaguely round blackish things with comical names, but is there anything out there that is reasonably priced and performs as well or at least almost as well as the top priced tyres?

[HH-R]

I've used most of the shite tyres mentioned in this thread (maxxis, arrowspeed, sava, prestivo etc) and TBH not really had any bother, all on run of the mill family FWD. I spun my Micra on ice on Arrowspeeds (I think), but I had just passed my test and it was my own ineptitude. Never even had a puncture. I'm running on Maxxis and some other make that I've forgotten and thought they'd be horrendous, but they're not bad at all. Managed a wheelspin in the wet, uphill and pulling away quickly (bad junction) the other day but it rained today then the roads were greasy and they felt perfectly fine. The Hi Fly and Infinity tyre on the front of my Panda stood out as shit because there's a junction that's busy on a morning I have to use and you have to go for it if there's a gap but it was impossible in the wet, the wheels just spun, could still wheelspin with Rainexperts though! I suppose there's only so much grip 155 section tyres can give. I usually just find cheap tyres don't like pulling away in the wet and don't feel amazing on roundabouts but never had any hairy moments. I think even in the budgets there's acceptable and shite, that and I drive pretty sedately.

 

Still, I tend to buy a mid range tyre like Toyo or Uniroyal. Trouble is every car I buy comes with mismatched budgets!

 

I sometimes look at the makes of tyres on cars if I'm walking along parking bays. Most have Jinyu or Nankang, that sort of thing. GR8 4 TAILGATIN IN WINTA

[sawdustman]

Stomil.

Me dad had one snap a steel belt, didn't realise till he took it in a kwik fit to get the wheels balanced and one of the treads was very unevenly worn.

I guess he was only about several miles away from joining the stomil blowout club.

Didn't stop him buying a-fuckin-nother Stomil though.

I got some BCT tyres for my Merc. They're pretty good for £45 a side.  

I just wish I could remember what the last brand I put on my Peugeot 306 was so I could warn you off 'em. When it rained they might as well have been made of soap.

[Wilko220]

Turns out Stomil got swallowed up by Michelin...

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomil_Olsztyn_%28company%29

[Ghosty]

Hankooks are good.