There is the EU (remember them) tyre rating label system - AR1s score E for ‘Wet Grip’, which seems about right, and the AO52s on my other set of wheels a ‘Wet Grip’ B, which again seems about right. They also score fuel efficiency and noise.
Track tyres aside, I think ‘Wet Grip’ is a good proxy for will a tyre chuck me in a ditch or not - I had some brand new E rated tyres on a Toyota HiAce many years ago (newly fitted before I bought it) and I came to the conclusion E was basically (very) unsafe in the wet. The Continental VanContacts I now use on it are night and day better, albeit more expensive.
Thanks for the heads up just checked mine and glad to see Chinas belt and braces initiative had no hand in the production of the PS3’s I bought in 2021
This is an extract from John Cadogan who runs the YouTube channel Auto Expert. ~He is a straight talking Aussie and is very knowledgeable on most things automotive. I thought it might be informative to some of the contributors who doubt the importance of buying quality tyres.
There are about 12 million cars on Australian roads, which means - ballpark - 50 million tyres. And that means replacement tyres, even in a global backwater such as this, are big business. I get several recurring questions on this, which all boil down to:
Which tyres should I buy?
The basics are: They have to be the right size - and the right load rating. You can choose a tyre with a load rating greater than the minimum, but not less than that. That’s a detail the tyre retailer usually looks after.
I’m kinda passionate about tyres because for five or six years I ran all the Wheels Magazine annual tyre tests. We conscripted the assistance of a lot of local tyre engineers to get the testing protocols right for those tests, and as a result, I learned a lot more than I ever thought I would about tyres.
So the first thing you need to know is that the manufacturers of quality tyres all have a real problem: Tyres are all black and round, so the really good ones look exactly the same as the really ■■■■ ones. It’s a marketing challenge par excellence.
If you’re a non-technical person, it can be quite hard to believe a good tyre that looks exactly the same as a ■■■■ tyre, but costs maybe $100 bucks more is actually that much better. But - trust me on this - it is.
There are a great many urban myths on various tyre brands - like some are allegedly quieter. Some are allegedly better at grip in the wet - whatever.
Having stood on the side of the track, set up the timing beams, briefed the race driver, consulted with the expert engineers, I can tell you those brand-based myths are bullshit.
The number one thing to remember when you’re buying replacement tyres is that all the known, quality brands: Pirelli, Dunlop, Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental, Toyo, Michelin, Yokohama - et cetera - you know the ones I mean - all those quality brands perform about the same as each other, for a particular size and category of tyre.
Obviously a Pirelli on a Porsche is very likely to out-perform a Yokohama on a Yaris. We’re talking apples-for-apples here.
I’d include Hankook and Kumho on that ‘quality brands’ list, too - they are definitely up there, at least they are today. And I say this on the basis of trackside measurements - testing - that I actually conducted. There’s no doubt. And FYI - I have no commercial affiliation with any tyre manufacturer.
The number two thing is: Don’t ask for brand-type advice at the retail coal face. Retailers are incentivised by different manufacturers - so there are different agendas at play. The retailer invariable recommends the tyre that’s right for him, commercially, not necessarily you.
I’d get three different quotes on three different quality brands, over the phone, and go with the cheapest one. It really is that simple. But asking brand advice from a tyre retailer is like walking into a Mazda dealer and asking him if Toyota is any good. It’s not a place where unbiased advice is forthcoming.
maccy’s post, in a nutshell, says you might as well do that age old thing of sticking the ‘tail on the donkey’ as there isn’t, in effect, much difference within two or three price bands.
That makes sense to me. Bonus! I can now worry about something else now that out of the way
I would mainly agree with that. In most circumstances, under general driving conditions, then many tyre brands offer similar results when comparing same tyres on same cars. But I would very much disagree, as you get to the very sharp end of performance, that tyres are the same in how they deliver that performance. For instance a Goodyear Supersport and a Conti Sport 7, would post near identical dry lap times, but deliver that performance in a totally different way. However, there is a great difference between the two in the wet at the limit. You also get down to things like balance between front and rear and difference between wet and dry performance.
It is personal preference at the end of the day.
That’s all very well until something unexpected happens which is outside your control. The car in front stops suddenly; a child runs out on the road; something falls off a lorry; whatever.
That’s where the difference between a good and a bad tyre can make the difference as to whether you can steer/stop in time or not.
But also for me - looking at purchasing second hand cars. one thing i always look for first or second is the rubber. Decent tires usually equates to someone who cares about the car
I bought my 30 month old ND2 from a dealer last January. It had 2 newish rear tyres from Comforser….
Never heard of them and not convinced of the handling, changed to Unisport Rain tyres.
I am a firm believer in that you get what you pay for, and as others have pointed out, your total grip on the road is about 4 average size handprints so I for one am not interested in ultra cheap tyres
Yes! The tyres are the only things keeping us on the road.
I usually expect to replace the tyres when buying any second-hand car, regardless of the apparent condition.
On a couple of occasions in the last six decades we were pleasantly surprised to find four good quality new tyres on an old car. Alas, those were the rare exceptions to prove a general rule. Newish tyres were frequent, but usually mismatched ditch-finders.
And in a modern car with either of the two usual TPMS systems they should be a four of a kind to keep the computer happy. Even my old 1996 Vextra-B complained about a spare of a different make with same specifications and dimensions that measured identically to the other three - it had a different rolling resistance.
On the two NCs I’ve bought both had the OEM rubber with lots of tread and no damage or punctures, showing the previous owner had been a careful driver. BUT the tyres being Bridgestones, and old, their grip was non-existent. NickD to the rescue in each case.
Because in the dry, if you are not taxing the tyres, so actually doing 30 or less, not the 36 which people seem to think is OK in a 30, then the stopping distance is pretty much identical regardless of tyre and the variances are going to be your reaction times and the maintenance of your braking system and quality of pads and disks.
We used to perform braking tests at Rockingham on the wet grip area and from 30 just about every car and small van stopped in 7m in the dry, which is half the distance you travel at that speed in one second. Modern ABS systems and geometry meant is didn’t actually change much even with two wheels on the Basalt tiles which simulated ice. However, put the car fully on the wet area, (not the ice area) and the differences became stark and the ice area even more so to the point people thought their brakes weren’t working as they sailed 70m + down the course.
We had a Mercedes SLS AMG with the poshest tyres known to man out braked by a Ford Transit Connect because it’s narrow tyres cut through the water better and exerted more force per square inch on the rubber that touched the ground. Water makes things very different.
That’s making an assumption that the car will never go above 30mph. I’ve been told that there are roads where one can drive at 40, 50, 60 and even (imagine!) 70mph without exceeding the speed limit.
I also hope that you really didn’t mean to suggest that you expected ABS to reduce the stopping distance of a car under braking…
Oh here we go!
The typical MX-5 driver that only goes out in the dry and on “runs” and views the car as a vehicle that has an opening roof rather than something that they get pleasure from because of the potential dynamics, and that follows the guidance of the Highway Code is exceptionally unlikely to find any significant dry barking advantage regardless of what tyre they fit, assuming they are not 14 years old, like many I have changed at National Rallies. I would be far, far more concerned about the integrity of the braking system and quality of brake pads. The straight out friction coefficient of the rubber at ambient road driving temperatures is pretty similar and carcase design and tread pattern are not particularly involved.
As for ABS, dead right it will stop you quicker because, in the senecios that you are posing, when someone mashes the brakes in a panic, they are not thinking about threshold or cadence braking, (which is still less efficient) or even changing down gears as they slow, but praying that they are not going to hit whatever it is that has caused them to panic brake. And Fiddle brakes aside, I have yet to see any form of right foot, or left for that matter that can provide different brake force left to right to allow for differing grip levels one side of the car to the other and optimise for them.
Again, it’s not in normal driving that the tyres will make that much difference - it’s in emergency situations (when that SUV that hadn’t seen you starts to move into your lane and you need to swerve out of its way…) that a better tyre might just make the difference between an accident and a close call.
The situation you mention (one side of the car being wholly on a much less grippy surface than the other) is going to be found vanishingly rarely. In most real world circumstances, foot-to-the-floor braking to the point of lock-up will give the shortest stopping distance. What ABS gives you is the ability to steer while braking, and again the batter tyre might just make the difference between bang and no bang.
The very worst tyres were probably JDM ones that were fitted to some grey import Roadsters. It’s unclear whether they were intended to be a very hard compound - some say Japanese drivers expect tyres to last the life of the car - or just aged. Anyway, “Nippon Nogrips” was the pejorative nickname, and you can guess what they were like on wet corners.
In west cornwall, ie, small rural roads it’s very common to have less grip on one side of the car. We have a lot of agricultural traffic; god help you if you can’t follow the ‘tramlines’ of previous vehicles.
OK - but if ultimate grip were a priority you wouldn’t be driving an MX 5 , let alone a vintage or classic car . And it’d be compulsory to drive 911s with ceramic brakes and big aero. Actually, I could live with that…
Failure to anticipate , bad driving and poor observation cause far more accidents * than crappy tyres ever did .
*The police have decided that no accident is unintentional so now refer to ‘collisions’ - as if it made a difference .
Parcel firms use Chinese tyres and they seem to go fast enough , Pirelli’s on my bmw are full of micro cracks and no were worn out so all tyres have issues
