Ever heard of DIAMONDBACK ditchfinders?

[Craig the Princess]

Quite the worst tyres I've ever experienced on a car were some type of Avons, on a 1.1 mark 4 Escort. Not a quick motor, but it handled like a hovercraft on these tyres.

 

/\ This. I bought a pair for the front of my Rover 200 Coupe and it has handled poorly very since, that said thay are half worn already at 10,000 miles, the Polish directionals that were on before were great.

 

Firestones - last about 5 minutes

 

Not found this with the 4 I bought for the Ambassador and that did 5000 miles on the Allegro with no real wear. That said I do generally drive like aunt Maud.

[CIH]

Ok, here it is, a list of who makes what:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tire_companies

 

No mention of Diamondback though

 

Mrs A's Almera has a pair of Debicas on the front (Polish subsidiary of Goodyear) and they seem to grip ok in all weather conditions. They don't seem to have worn much in 7,000 miles so perhaps the cheaper tyres made by the big manufacturers may be a good compromise. The only drawback is a limited range of sizes and speed ratings, I gather that they don't make the rubber bands for Audis, BMWs etc with the large wheel options, but I don't think that will concern many here

 

I use to laugh at the cheap polish tyres but then the chinese cack came along. They also have a very distinctive smell. Not really a pleasant smell, just remind me of being in my first job at kwik-fit years ago.

They use to make KF's Arrowspeeds, incidentally, but now the chinese churn them out too.

[Morgan84]

A mate had Diamondback tyres on the back of his 206 GTi,and claimed it wagged its tail in a side wind like a excited dog !

[M'coli]

At last, a way to make a 206 GTi evoke the spirit of the 205 GTi! I have to admit that if I am ever forced into insipid modern shite then it's good tyres on the front, cheap tyres on the back so that some of the inherent understeer is dialed out.

 

On another tyre point, anyone had experience of Maragoni winter jobs?

[tooSavvy]

I have posted elsewhere on here.... FTP 'power on' incidents with RIKEN 185/70x14 on MrSavv got me cross...

 

For 125 beertokens I skipped them for 2x Goodyys.... GR9

 

 

Safe for SPEED 

 

 

TS

[MarvinsMom]

and i thought that diamondback made push bikes....

[Lacquer Peel]

At last, a way to make a 206 GTi evoke the spirit of the 205 GTi! I have to admit that if I am ever forced into insipid modern shite then it's good tyres on the front, cheap tyres on the back so that some of the inherent understeer is dialed out.

 

On another tyre point, anyone had experience of Maragoni winter jobs?

 

I haven't had experience of Marangoni winter tyres, but their summer tyres are horrible.

[greengartside]

I've got Landsail tyres all round on my Astra and they are actually pretty good for a budget tyre - road noise is minimum and they grip well to the road.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[2MB]

+1 on the diamondback / push iron connection. I thought BMX tyres on cars was a joke until my father proudly showed me the set of Kenda meats that he'd had fitted to his Audi 80 for 9/10ths of fuck all. They managed make the bald michelins that they'd replaced look absolutely amazing in every way, having a detrimental effect on road noise, grip, feel, fuel economy and anything else people compare tyres on. For this reason premium partworns > budget new ones imo

[Lacquer Peel]

What ever happened to L_A_U?

[chaseracer]

Someone hammered a smaller................

 

[PhilA]

It's been a while since I've bought tyres in the UK.. had little luck with Michelin, they'd make the Fiat tramp and the Bluebird got very tail-happy in the wet which was scary because the steering was approximately 23 turns lock to lock and there was no hope of catching it.

 

Over here it's just as much of a joke.

 

I have had several brands of tyres on my vehicles.. General Ameritrac look, feel and seem to be a good tyre until you drive in the cold or the wet; most tyres sold here are "60,000 mile guaranteed" which means the compound is fine in the hot weather (25C+) in the dry. Not on concrete. Or slightly worn asphalt. Braking hard induces a growling whine as the tread slips by the floor, accelerating hard produces comedy wheelspin and copious quantities of black dust.

 

I replaced those (factory-fit) with BF Goodrich which meant the thing didn't go crabwise over the lift-bridge here, which has a metal diamond pattern grating as the road surface. At over 30 it would force the truck at a diagonal into either oncoming traffic or try and hit the kerb. Odd tread pattern, I guess. On such a heavy vehicle the difference is stunning, and what's more is they've lasted better too. Better than the Coopers I had, one of which blew out a sidewall after about 50 miles.

 

The Falkens on the Renault are kinda grippy, but they are a very soft compound and are beginning to crack up and go nasty. It doesn't make much difference here winter to summer, it's mostly a case of having decent rain tyres so picking decent rubber can be an interesting task.

 

There's so much cheap tat, and some of the expensive stuff ain't much better.

 

They don't make rubber like they used to, that's for sure.

 

-Phil

[M'coli]

I haven't had experience of Marangoni winter tyres, but their summer tyres are horrible.

Their winter tyres turned out to be alright, bought a set for the Cavalier and ran them through summer too with seemingly no ill effects to the tyre. The winter before dissolved the rear chassis leg, however...

[PiperCub]

As I see it, the main problem with buying cheapo tyres is that you just never know what you are going to get. With most decent brands (that you may have previous experience of) you can be pretty safe with but cheapo stuff is often really shite but sometimes surprisingly good albeit not lasting as long.

 

Had good experiences with Nexen's which were cheap but amazingly good wet or dry on my 406 estate some years ago (downside was they wore quite fast) and some amusingly named 'Fate' tyres on a hack Fiesta about ten years back.

 

The current hack, another 406 diesel has Barums all round, not too bad but I'm sure I'm not alone in being a bit scared at the mention of the name of Barum if you've ever had the wonderful experience of riding eastern-bloc motorcycles with Barums (if so, I salute you - you too know fear).

 

On the whole, I'm a pussy and buy decent tyres for the stuff I'm keeping for any length of time but go with what I can on the hacks as I'm not keeping them for any length of time so I just drive slower! (Appeciate that doesn't always work out though!!!!).

[dollywobbler]

as I'm not keeping them for any length of time so I just drive slower! (Appeciate that doesn't always work out though!!!!).

 

Indeed. It's not until you have to make an emergency stop or swerve that you really notice how good/bad your tyres are. Which is why I'm quite sniffy about tyres these days. 

[PiperCub]

Agreed.

As I said, the Barum name initially scared me a bit but they are a full set (an indicator of a prev owner who gave a shit IMO), have plenty of tread so I thought I'd give them a try before winter. If they were bad I'd have changed them but they are pretty reasonable wet or dry, not to the standard of the premiums on my keepers, but nowhere remotely near as some junk I've experienced!

 

As with anything in life you tend to get what you pay for and while it'd be nice to have best quality boots on everything, everyone has limits on what they can/want to spend.

[Sloth in a bowl]

My recommended cheap tyre is Khumo KH17 which can be had with fitting for about £45-60 per corner (depending on wheel size) and do all normal driving in mixed conditions without any hassle.

I've used them on my V40 and the Pride. They aren't too noisey, have predictable understeer and don't seem to aquaplane in the wet unless you are dong something silly.

 

If you're coming down from the best tyres, you will notice a difference

If you're going up from really cheap tyres you will notice a difference

[Station]

Can't ever recall having a problem with mingebag tyres on any car. In fact some really cheap ones lasted for thousands of miles, including one set I had on four different BXs because they never seemed to wear out.

Probably different if you have a fast car and hammer it round corners though to be fair.

 

*In fact the only problem I can recall with shit tyres were fitting some brand new 'Victoria' 750x16s on a (TK, iirc) horsebox years back. Every bloody one had a nasty bulge in the sidewall so got sent back to the manafacturers.

Nor have I! The difference must be extremely minimal at normal driving speeds. I put mingebag tyres on the front of my Astra to replace Michelins - exactly the same.

[HH-R]

I've not really had many problems with cheap tyres either, only cars that weren't shod with cheap unknown mismatched tyres have been my two Pandas. Certainly never had a blowout or even a puncture.

 

Spun my Micra on ice at low speed once, but I'll put that down to inexperience/bad luck. Only other issue I've had with cheap tyres is pulling away in the wet. The ones I've just binned off just left you pulling out at 3 MPH and wheels spinning until you came off the throttle completely then accelerated again which was a bit of a pain.

 

Would never knowingly buy cheap tyres though, I usually go for a mid range known brand like Toyo or Uniroyal and they're worlds apart in cornering without feeling like you're going off into the ditch/pulling away ability. Don't drive wild so don't need anything too high performance.

 

Funny how some people sing the praises of the mid range brands like Kumho for example, and some people say they're absolute shite. Must depend on which car they're on and driving styles.

[sierraman]

People laugh at me but I've always found Arrowspeed to be pretty reasonable for the money. I think so long as you stay way away from the Chinese Love-you-longtime tyres then you should be ok.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I have a new set of Landsails to test - just waiting for this bastarding snow to melt so I can get them on the car. I am prepared to be surprised but I'd never normally go this route when I can get 5mm of part worn Michelin/Dunlop etc for the same coin.

[HillmanImp]

I got some Arrowspeed on the Visa in the summer to replace the Michelins which were totally fooked, as I needed the car and they were all the place I went to could wang on at short notice. 

 

 

When I set off home the car was fucking awful to drive. Absolutely shit. It was like driving a different car. I am putting some winter tyres on in the next few days as the Visa is now on winter duties and will be ditching the ditchfinders in the spring.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Surely there must be EU/ British standards for tyres? I'd have thought they have to pass minimum requirements. Unless you're Stirling Moss it ain't going to matter if you're tyres are a bit hard or wear badly.

My Ovlov has Nexens currently, which are fine, it's gonna handle like a demented tram whatever tyres go on it.

If you own a Lambo murchellargo you can afford to piss 2 grand up the wall at Longstone tyres.

[Pillock]

They do for construction but I'm not aware of any grip limits.... The Touran has got something awful on the front, definitely budget. Roundabouts in the wet get my arse twitching more than when my mum scrolls through photos on my phone.

[Sigmund Fraud]

People laugh at me but I've always found Arrowspeed to be pretty reasonable for the money. I think so long as you stay way away from the Chinese Love-you-longtime tyres then you should be ok.

 

The older, Polish-made Arrowspeeds were indeed not bad. I had a set on my MX5, and they seemed to grip reasonably well (albeit not as well as the Michelins they replaced !).

 

The newer, Chinese-made ones are rubbish. My Megane came with a brand new pair of them at the rear, and I decided to keep them because I'm a miserable cheapskate. They've done 22K so far and they still have 3-4mm of tread ! As you would expect, grip is simply absent and you have to be very careful to avoid OMG DRIFT moments in the wet.

[pshome]

who cares about the rubber, design is all that counts!

[explosive-cabbage]

I have a set of Diamondback Off road Race tyres on one of my Niva's -

 

 

They are really agressive tread, like Insa Turbo Special Tracs and grip like shit, and roll fine right down to about 5psi.

I don't know what they are like on tarmac though, The steering is that unpredictable (knackered steering box) that I daren't go for a spin on the roads yet. Plus the fact the car is not road legal yet!

[Albert Ross]

I just treated my posh car to a set of Matador MP47s in 225/45/17 flavour. They're basically Continental's budget brand, and so far, in all this hard compacted ice/shit, they've been unworryable. I shall monitor their wear and grip as the years go on. Impressed, especially at £232 a set.

[HH-R]

I was reminded of this thread yesterday when I was wearing dress shoes with soles made out of the hardest plastic known to man with no tread and fell over on the ice.