The car I am buying has mixed tyres. 3 x Evergreen and 1 x Bridgestone. Does it matter? The tread on each of them is 6mm.
I haven’t heard of Evergreen tyres before - any good? does anyone know?
Thanks in advance.
My understanding is that Evergreen are Chinese tyres.
Some taxi drivers in my area insist on them because
they are reasonably priced and long lasting.
Evergreen are a budget brand, they will be on the car because it needed 3 new tyres and I expect they would have been close to a third of the price of Bridgestone, and I would expect the remaining Bridgestone is not long for this world. This however does not by default make them a bad tyre, it depends on what you expect and how you want to drive, there are plenty of car in this country running around on mixed tyres. The main issue of mixing tyres is that it can cause a handling imbalance if you get near the edge of adhesion. Many people get nowhere near that.
Typically the rarely heard of tyres suffer in the wet as it is the compound that makes the difference and in particular long life or hard tyres had far less wet ability. Although Yoko and Pirelli would not be anywhere near the top of my list of “good” tyres. Again it depends on how you drive and what you expect.
You won’t instantly die because you have mixed tyres on. Is it ideal, probably not? Are they the best you can get, again probably not?
Well it sounds from a previous response that they ARE regarded as long life so I guess they are not the best for driving in the wet. My driving style is not particularly fast unless conditions are perfect, I like to have lots of power for accelerating/overtaking/ getting out of situations and I guess half the fun of an MX5 is to corner without needing to brake too much. I wont be going for track days just yet! Its a second car so will probably not do much over the wetter months anyway.
I will change all four when they get down to 4mm I think, and drive with your advice in mind until then. Though if they are longlife that may be some time.
Thank you for your advice. I am forewarned.
If you are going to use 2mm of the tread before you change them and they are budget tyres then that’s probably about 50 quid’s worth of tread. Don’t know what model you are buying but they are all pretty light. A hard wearing tyre isn’t going to give you much grip. Is it really worth it?
My previous car was a Mk1 that came shod with Pirelli tyres with lots of tread. They didn’t really suit a car as light as an MX-5 but I thought I would get my money’s worth out of them. It was on a trip to Scotland with myself and my wife in the car and the boot fully loaded that I found myself facing the wrong way on a sliproad to the A1. Yes it was raining, yes it was on a bend, no I wasn’t driving hard. The back end just let go. I know I wasn’t pushing it because my wife praised me for getting it back under control after a 180 degree spin. If I had been driving like an idiot she would have given me an earful.
You will get a decent set of four matched tyres that suit the car for not a lot of money. High price and well known brand doesn’t always mean better. Nick D will do you a set of excellent 17" Kumhos for a Mk3 for under £300. If your wheels are smaller than that you will pay even less.
Nobody likes throwing anything usable away but just balance the risk with the savings involved. You want to enjoy driving not be constantly thinking whether you have enough grip.
Winter’s coming. If it was me, I’d get a decent set of matching tyres.
Well that sounds good advice. Kumhos is not a brand I have heard of either. Ill look into them and maybe contact Nick. The tyres are 17 inch. I was also thinking of going to Chassis Clean as they are nearby and getting the underside done. Going to have to watch my extra spending but I guess underside and tyres will earn their keep.
Thank you
You won’t be feeling so evergreen after they deposit you in the nearest tree-line.
Ok I now have my car!! 2013 2.0l Kuro coupe.
It has 3 Evergreen and 1 (very worn) Bridgestone.
After talking to members on here and looking online I have contacted Blink Motorsport, as they are near to me, and asked them to supply
4 x Kumho Ecsta Le sport KU39s for my 17’ wheels
Also, to align the wheels at the same time. Good idea?
I have taken the sizing from the tyres already on there as 205/45/R17 88 W which is the size of the 3 Evergreens.
However, the Bridgestone size is slightly different 205/45 ZR17 84 W
Does anyone know if the Bridgestone or the Evergreen tyre size is the one I should go for? The 88 seems to refer to the load. This is a light car so I
thought the load would not be great. Is W (which I think is to do with the speed) sufficient? I wont be going to any race tracks just yet!
Thank you in advance for any advice.
The Bridgestone is likely to be one of the original tyres, so I would use that as a guide. The 84 and 88 does refer to load and if I remember correctly the difference between the two is something like 60kg The 88 will in my experience give a harsher ride than 84.
Gra
Thank you - that does make sense. The car has done 32k miles so perhaps it is one of the original tyres. I confess I don’t know how many miles a tyre will do!
84 W is the correct load and speed rating for your car, if in doubt just put your registration into Blackcircles.com to check.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on tyres, there are lots of threads on the forum on the subject and many mid range tyres seem to suit the MX5 perfectly. I have Avon ZV5s on my mk3, partly because it already had them on the front when I got it, so replacing the rears with the same seemed sensible, and partly because I got them fitted for £75 each.
Congratulations on the car, by the way, enjoy it
Phil
Same here! Brand new ZV5s on the front and some budget Italian-sounding things on the rear I’d never heard of; go figure. Did a quick Google and it was nothing but bad news. Matched up the rears as the first job and pretty impressed with the grip in the wet and particularly in the dry; not too noisy, either.
Glad you are getting rid of the Evergreens. I have them on my C4 and they are the worst tyres I have ever had. Yes they are long lasting but they do not stick. I will be replacing them before the winter.
I can see that my attempts to educate people on load rating have failed.
Anyway, first up, Bridgestone made the 84 load rated tyre obsolete over 2 years ago. MX-5 came on 88 rated tyres from the factory at that time. They may also have come on Continental tyres. I have personally fitted the 88 load rate Bridgestone to many Mazda UK cars at manufacture events.
Load rating refers to the weight or load that the tyre can carry in normal operation and is not related to the squash of the sidewall. It is a run flat tyre which will, be design, have less flex. It is, in basic terms, a measure of how much air you can put in the tyre. If you pump a 88 and 84 load rated tyre to the same pressure, you will feel the same things.
If Blink would like 4 tyres bringing to Donington next week, tell them to let me know.
Thank you everyone for advice and good wishes. I will indeed let Blink know that you can supply them Nick. Which day is Donington? Only would like them sooner rather than later? I have had a supply and fit quote from Black circles of £282 for all 4 (inc vat) and Blink are working to beat that, just so you know!
I am still a teeny bit confused. So the 88 can take a greater load than the 84, but you say they are both a little inflexible. And you are saying this lack of flex is because they are run flat tyres. Are all tyres run flat tyres? Do we put run flat tyres on our MX5s because we have no spare tyre? Is there a big improvement in the grip etc if we put on “wont run flat” tyres and just call out the AA when we have a flat tyre. No being facetious, just wanting to fully understand this point.
Thanks for your patience with a newbie!
OK,
The MX-5 does not have run flat tyres. Run flat tyres are often associated with jiggly ride because the bead area is very stiff to prevent the tread collapsing on to the rim of the wheel.
I am not saying that 84 or 88 rated tyres are stiff at all, far from it. The essential difference between standard and extra load tyres is the strength in tension of the side wall belts. Think of tow rope, a stronger rope will pull a greater load, you still can’t push with it. At a given air pressure, the two tyres will have the same amount of squidge. Additional stiffness only comes from increasing internal air pressure.
Donington is next weekend.
Thank you for that. I realise now that I misinterpreted something you said in the previous post about run flat tyres.
I have mentioned your offer to Blink, by email, but not spoken to them yet. Hope you get the business but either way it is great talking to an expert and apologies for my slow uptake!