Choosing tyres for the tintop

I'm running my current car on Michelin Pilot Primacy, and had the same fitted on my previous car. They're excellent tyres, though not as razor sharp as you might experience your current Dunlops. I guess that if you're looking for a performance tyre offering decent comfort, these are a good option.

Cheers,

Edo

Bruce

Don't forget if you are only changing 2, the new ones should go on the back(if front wheel drive).

Howard

BigH

I was thinking about that, the conclusion I reached was that losing grip at the back was more significant than losing it at the front in terms of safety so I should put the new ones at the back. It is a 2WD not Quattro.

It therefore struck me that changing the back tyres will make less difference to ride comfort (if I find a more pliant model) because the heavy diesel must mean a front weight bias.

So I'll probably just buy the same after all....

Check out the mytyres.co.uk website. They have scorings on there for the various criteria and links to reports.

On top of this their prices are competitive to the point that my local dealer admitted that they pay more than the price mytyres charged me for a new pair of Bridgestone Potenza RE050s!

So, I ordered them from mytyres (£283 delivered for a pair of 255/35/18s) and the local place fitted them for £15 all in. So that's under £300 for a pair of tyres that a lot of places charge well of £200 each for!

Matt.

Low profile tyres do not equal comfort.

If you want comfort change the car. Reminds me of one of the Comic Strip stories. If you want soft toilet tissue then go to Hotel Gay Boy

I went to change my front tyres at Costco last week and they gave me that garbage about putting new tyres on the back. They just wouldn't put the new ones on the front. They said it was their new policy.

What a load of crap. All the steering is done at the front (obviously) and 90% of the braking. I went home and swapped the new ones to the front. Now I'm happy.

They may have found that, statistically, the average woman driver can't handle a car properly and so the rest of us have to suffer.

Bruce, if you are getting as fussy as wanting more compliance in a tyre for a road car, I suggest you look elsewhere to improve the handling. For free, you could reduce the tyre pressure for a start.

On a race car, the pressure is different on each tyre and is changed dependent on ambient temp/weather.

Road tyres really aren't that good to distinguish compliance, believe me.

quote:

Bruce, if you are getting as fussy as wanting more compliance in a tyre for a road car, I suggest you look elsewhere to improve the handling. For free, you could reduce the tyre pressure for a start.

Great advice so now you are tellinng people to break the law. Better(cleverer) people than you have decided what pressures to run the tyres at.

quote:

On a race car, the pressure is different on each tyre and is changed dependent on ambient temp/weather.

Just look at the problems they have.

H

quote:

When only two tires are being replaced, Michelin recommends that the new tires go on the rear, whether your car is front-wheel, rear-wheel, all-wheel or four-wheel drive.

"The new tires will grip the road more effectively and evacuate standing water more efficiently than the worn tires," said Ron Margadonna, technical marketing manager with Michelin.

This becomes especially important when travelling and braking on wet surfaces. If the front tires have more tread than the rear, the rear will lose their grip and begin hydroplaning first, creating a very difficult situation for even a seasoned driver to control.

"This is far less likely to occur when the new tires are mounted on the rear," said Margadonna. "If there is any loss of control from hydroplaning of the front tires, the driver is more likely to feel it in the steering wheel early enough to make the necessary corrections in speed and/or steering to remain in control of the car."

If you were someone I thought worthwhile, I'd state reasons.

You're not. You don't hit the right note with me.

P.S. Even your road tyre pressures should be altered depending upon ambient temp and car load.

Count,
You seemed to be stating that it was a good idea to play around with tyre pressures to the extent of having different pressures at each corner. Well, the race teams don't have any idea what pressures they'll be using until they have tested the car at race speeds then measured the tread temperatures at at least 3 points across the width. Are you suggesting we all do that? I hope not, because that will vary not only with weather, load etc, but also which road is being driven on.
As for tyre fitment, I have been known to be a bit of a hooligan and I really don't like dangerous 'snap' oversteer which is what will happen if the feel from the steering leads you to believe you have a lot of grip available through a long corner, for example, and the rears disagree.
A race-driver friend of mine works for Pirelli. He would never recommend fitting new tyres to the front.
On balance though, perhaps a keen driver would never let any of his tyres wear to the extent where they are dangerous.
One point not mentioned is that by fitting new tyres to the rear then moving them to the front later on increases their life, on fwd at least, due to the lighter load being kinder to the tread and allowing the tyres to 'run in' for a few thousand miles.

Tony

BTW, if you're looking for a substantially different kind of tyre, don't change only two of them. Comfort-oriented front tyres and stiffer rear ones (or the other way around) will be a bit of a weird drive.

Cheers,

Edo

Count d. and others

Turned out the fronts were worn and one rear was damaged by a pair of punctures, one not in a good site for repair.

So four new boots.

Intrestingly the tyre-fitter said that he thought it was fair enough to put a pair on the front if only these werre being changed, especially with an ESP fitted car, and providing the rears were not bald.

I did change model (a different Dunlop), and the new tyre has made a slight difference, feeling quieter (and possibly a tad 'softer') over the grottier road surfaces at least. Looking through the manufacturers websites it is hard not to ignore the range of models, and the claimed differences between them. I'm not over surprised if it is largely bull@@it. If I was looking for a big change in ride/handling I'd clearly do other things but I was just curious if I could tweak it a bit. In the end I bought the other model because it was in stock!

As for changing pressures, I'm afraid I do not tweak them much on the Audi unless heavily laden, but I do on the Caterham. A few PSI really makes difference to ride/grip, possibly because it is so light. Caterham actually advise a wide range of possible pressures.

Bruce

Sounds like you've noticed the difference between new tyres and old. We recently changed all 4 PZero Neros, and the noise, comfort and fuel consumption were all noticeably different.
Caterham? I'm not green with envy at all. I used to have an excuse for not having one (I'm 6ft 5) then years ago they introduced the longer cockpit version. Damn!

Tony

Mine is an SV, slightly longer cockpit/wider etc. You'd still be pushing it, and picking gravel out of your forehead above the screen.

Your excuse is intact!

Bruce

Phew, the dream is intact then. Cheers Bruce!

Tony

count d arrogant tosser still I see.

Tony, I only suggested the race car scenerio to illustrate how important tyre pressures are in influencing handling. And as you pointed out, if the driver has let the rears wear to the point of possible aquaplaning, then he shouldn't be surprised when he crashes.

Dropping the four tyres pressues equally by 2lbs could give Bruce the feel he was looking for. You will be amazed at the pressure range a good quality road can tolerate. My race car ones are used in a range from 14-29.

Bruce, you basically answered your own question. The blurb that manufacturers give is pretty much irrelevant. The road tyre is such a compromise in performance, durablity, price and very importantly it's storage ability.

Now we're all talking sense!

Tony