Replacement Rubber

Hello Mr Palin
Yes, Michael Palin a most interesting all round presenter & performer.
Bite the bullet 4 new tyres front & rear be it Continentals, Dunlop, Kumho or whatever.
4 matching tyres is generally accepted as the best for all MX5’s.
Stick the Bridgestones on Ebay, somebody will surely buy them!!
Stay Safe
Keith

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Each to there own of course, but the best advice as above, (in my opinion). :+1:

Couldn’t agree more and for same reasons/experience with STI Bridgestone. Pilot Sport all round on mine.

Many thanks, I’m ordering them today.

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Hi Keith, looks like all 4 is the vibe. I reckon i’ll crowdfund (unlike crowdsurfing which is dead and buried!) to finance the rubber! :joy::sunglasses:

Certainly the Bridgestones on 60’s motorcycles were atrocious.
However the current breed of motorccyle tyres they make are up with the very best. But on bikes the compound has a great deal to do with every day grip, some of the OEM tyres they make are still substandard, but that’s common across all the makes.
Do you want race like grip or lengevity is very much a trade off.

I’ve decided to replace the original Bridgestones on my 2014 NC, there’s life in them yet, but wet or damp grip (or lack of it) is frightening. I think at almost six years old they’ve probably not aged well at all.
The rubber seems unusually hard to the touch, the rear is so easy to lose.

So new Boots it is. I’ve found great prices on Black Circles, almost £200 pounds cheaper than my usual tyre supplier.
£440 fitted balanced new valves for a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4’s being fitted Saturday .

If you still have old tyres on you really need to consider replacing them.

Rears are down to 3mm after 20k miles …realistic? :thinking:

Be more than happy with that to be honest :+1:

Cheers :sunglasses:

Regardless of how good any tyre is new, after 6 years you can’t expect them to be much good. My original Bridgestones (2013) were still legal when I changed them but wet grip was poor. I won’t have to worry about the PS4’s ageing as I doubt they will make 2 years or 15k.

Any preference on fitting centres? I’ve got Mr Tyre, Formula 1, ATS and Kwik Fit all local. Tbh kf always piss me off with their smug attitude, but i appreciate it can be an ‘on the day’ issue. :sunglasses:

It’s pot luck but if my experience at ats is anything to go for they will spend more time trying to upsell other services than actually fitting the tyres. They will overinflate the tyres and they may even leave a forgotten brake fluid tester on the scuttle panel for me to find when i got home.

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Welll, just go with your instinct.
You could bugger around for weeks. :+1:

Once fitted it would make sense to have a proper 4 wheel alignment on a hunter machine or similar. Trade tyres at Shenstone have one. See www.AlignMyCar.co.uk ( no affiliation) other local members may have other recommended specialists.

I used to use event tyres, who used to come to my home or work. But they were bought by the AA and effectively stopped trading. I have used tyres on the drive for my wife’s car recently and they were fine. Usually cheaper too. Kwik fit have always been ok, but I always get an in line price first and negotiate with them and they have always matched a real quote.

Hi, you have quite a lot of good advice here, here’s my 2p worth.
Think about the type of driving that you prefer and settle on a preferred tyre, I chose Toyo’s but there are many to choose from.
Look online at “my tyres” and see what’s available they will deliver to your door. I then get my local independent tyre guy to fit (£10 a corner) for which I get careful balancing and a rim cleanup to prevent slow deflation.
Finally in my experience fitting 4 identical tyres is a revelation on an MX-5. When I bought my first 5 it had mixed tyres front and rear, I could not understand why it was so soggy on corners - the 5 is sensitive to tyres.
Cheers

Here is my play for local tyre fitters. Ask them for a price on your chosen tyre. This buy it from My Tyres, which is all European warehouses, does not make make them cheaper, requires them to be shipped from Europe and leaves you with any warranty issues since your fitter did not supply them and the hassle of getting 4 tyres in your MX-5. I have just looked at a typical tyre, 225 45 17 in Conti Premium Contact 6. I would pay £5 less than would come from the trade site of My Tyres, where the prices are cheaper than what the public pays. Also the cost of recycling tyres has trebbled since the start of the year and so £10 for fitting is looking a bit optimistic these days.

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Hi, I have just fitted Falken ZE310 Ecorun all round to my 2007 NC 1.8. So far I am impressed with them in the wet and dry with the limited miles I have covered. They are also quiet if you check the claimed decibels. Hope that may help your decision I spent hours deliberating during lockdown and think I made a good choice.
Cheers
Keith

Exactly this…

I priced up 4 Kumhos for my daily driver, £267 delivered from Black circles. Whilst having said car MOTed at my local garage I asked how much to fit 4 tyres, I’ll supply the tyres, reply was £14 per corner.
Collected the car from MOT and asked how much for them to supply and fit said tyre (I hadn’t previously told them anything about what tyres I wanted fitting) reply was £312 and they’d also throw in a tracking check and adjust where necessary.
So the maths said just let them do it. 2 days later tyres were fitted, no faffing about waiting for a tyre delivery.