I’ve had my first MX5 for the last week and been enjoying top down driving immensely .
This morning was a different story. It was raining steadily all night and the roads on the way into Aberdeen were wet with some areas of standing water. I had virtually no grip from the back end even in a straight line with moderate acceleration. She fish-talied spectacularly. This might sound like fun to some but I genuinely couldn’t predict what the car would do next. Not great with loads of traffic around… If this is what she’s like in the wet, I’d never get to work in the snow…
So, when I got into work I had a quick check of the tyres.
Fronts = Hankook Ventus Prime
Rears = Hifly HF201
I’ll check later (i.e. when it stops raining) what the tyre size is and also whether both fronts are the same and both rears are the same.
Plenty of tread on all tyres, but according to the service record she’d only done 2700 miles in the last 2 years. I’ll check the production date of the tyres also. They might be a few years old which might be part of the reason why there was no grip.
In the meantime does anyone have any recommendations as to good wet grip tyres for your MX5? I value wet grip above all other characteristics (especially this morning!).
I was all for taking the car back to the dealer and getting something more sensible when I parked up. I hope it doesn’t come to that…
It’s the tyres Dave. Hancooks are not a bad brand but the Hiflys are about the cheapest out there, £35 compared with (unfortunately) £140 for Bridgestone oe must tell us something.
Is it 1.8 or 2L? Whichever, the best thing you can do with a newly aquired MX5 is get a set of quality tyres and a 4 wheel alignment. Did that on ours the first week and it transformed it.
There must be so many of these cars running around where the owners will never know how good they really are. What’s the point of a sports car if it has rubbish tyres?
Only had my Mk3 for about a month and it’s still got the original Michelins on it. They seem fine so far but still getting used to the car so haven’t really pushed it. Having had Mk1s for the past six years my own experience is that you can’t just trust to buying a well known brand name. My first Mk1 had Avons fitted which were good but a bit noisy. I replaced them with Barum Bravuris which were cheap but got good reviews and I was very happy with them. My second Mk1 had Pirelli P6000 fitted all round and these were not at all good in rain or snow. That’s why I say you can’t just go by brand name. I fitted a pair of Toyos on the front and these were very good but I never managed to wear out the rear Pirellis. General concensus is that the P6000 is a good tyre but not suited to the MX-5.
Have a good search on the forum for recommendations. Don’t just go by general tyre review sites. What’s good on a heavy front wheel drive saloon my not be at all suited to your car.
In the short term it might be worth swapping front to back.
Personally, I’m very happy with Uniroyal Rain Expert tyres and there have been some some good reports on here about Uniroyal RainSport as well.
A full 4 Wheel alignment by a company that knows MX5’s aslo makes huge difference - Wheels in Motion did mine and it made a big inprovement to the handling.
The other thing to take account of is tyre pressures, I find 26psi all round good.
A friend who owns a Golf just a couple of years old proudly announced that he had bought a new tyre for it at 57quid!
Why oh why would you negate all the technology built into the vehicle by putting rubbish tyres on it.
He says he never goes over 80 and I answered that I wouldn’t go over 20 with that tyre on and wouldn’t even put it on a wheelbarrow!
I spend a lot of my time with tyres about at eye level and you would be surprised at the horrors I see; even on newish cars. I’d go as far as to say that 50 percent are rubbish!
Opinions differ as to the best tyres for the MX depending on what you want to do with it but notwithstanding that buy good quality ones.
I’d also advise getting the car properly computer aligned which will cost about 100 pounds but will transform the thing completely - in any case it did mine. I used DTS tyres in Worthing and rarely go anywhere else for alignment or tyres.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find that a lot of cars (most newer ones are adjustable on all four wheels) come out of the factory with the wrong settings.
Much obliged for all your responses folks, and any more that come in.
Rich, for info it’s the 2.0L model. First registered in 2007 she has 40k on the clock from 2 previous owners and is in extremely good nick. I’ll update my profile soon when I get the chance.
The Hifly HF201 tyres on the rear look to be the culprit. Real ditch finders. Cheap and not that cheerful. Some awful reviews on the web. I’ll switch them to the front as Roadie suggests for starters, but I’m probably going to ditch them altogether before they ditch me…
Do any of you run different tryes between the front and the back? I’ve always ensured all tyres are same same on any car I’ve owned (aside from switching the front pair for Vredestein Snowtrac 2 tyres for winter driving in my old Skoda Fabia).
Fangio, TerryM, I also hear you about getting a proper alignment done. There’s a guy where I live who has the full Hunter 4-wheel alignment kit so I’ll get along to him once I plump for a new set of tyres. I’m leaning to replacing all 4 at the moment. Will have a hunt round the MX5 forums and see what gets the thumbs up.
I would highly recommend Uniroyal Rainsport 2’s. Like you I had 4 generic cheapy tyres all round when I first got the car so swapped the backs for some Rainsport 2’s and that made a huge difference (to the point where it was hard to make the back end kick out they were that grippy) I waited about 8 months before putting a matching set on the front as the car seemed to be handling ok and they had a fair bit of tread left on them but once I had a full set or Rainsports my god did it make a difference, the car grips every corner with ease!
Just as a side issue, £140 for a Bridgestone tyre Rich? I had four Bridgestone Turanza T001 tyres fitted to my car five weeks ago, £247.20 They are an update on the original tyres fitted. I find them excellent, and, driving in the rain last Monday, very good grip on the wet road.
I try to take a picture of any car I see with front end damage and the tyres they are on, they are generally budget tyres. I have a lot of pictures! I get a lot of owners come to me and say “I just want something to get it through the MOT” I despair, I think that will be another picture in a few weeks’ time.
As you have found there are some total shockers out there, Pirelli P6000 has been mentioned, Marangoni Verso is another appalling tyre and unfortunately less than 24 hours ago a lady was asking me what was wrong with their car as it now felt very twitchy since she had had 2 Barum tyres fitted. Sadly she had paid as much for them as a decent tyre would have cost her. You don’t have to be doing track day or driving fast to exceed the limits of certain tyres.
You do not need to spend a fortune however to have decent tyres on your car. Kumho make a very good product with sizes for all MX-5’s which will also be good in the wet.
If you have the 205 45 17 the Kumho KH39 is excellent, it should come in well under £100 fitted and I can post you them for £81
If you have the 205 50 16 then the Kumho KH31 is also very good, I am fitting 4 of these and 2 of the above at the Northampton OC meeting on Monday along with a set of Hankook K110 Again this tyre should be under £80 fitted and again I can post to you for £60
After that there are many others that work. The rain sport has been mentioned, however some find it wobbly. As a “budget” choice there is the General Altimax UHP, which is a budget brand from Continental that won’t let you down. The T1R can be snappy in the wet, but the Avon ZV5 is an honest tyre. The Dunlop Fast Response and the Vredstien Sportrac 5 work well. Do avoid anything from Pirelli though.
Thanks Nick D. Very useful reply. The ‘Mazda On Track’ logo at the bottom of your post should give everyone reading it a lot of confidence in your views. Nice to know that there are some good options available at fair prices. The idea of using the cheapest tyres regardless of quality is obviously not what any of us would do. However how many people given the choice of Pirelli or Kuhmo would go for the Kumho if they hadn’t read your post. Thanks again.
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Just as a side issue, £140 for a Bridgestone tyre Rich? I had four Bridgestone Turanza T001 tyres fitted to my car five weeks ago, £247.20 They are an update on the original tyres fitted. I find them excellent, and, driving in the rain last Monday, very good grip on the wet road.
Regards Geoff Peace
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Hi Geoff,
Yes current Turanzas are really excellent. We had a set of 16" fitted on our Mazda 6 for about £300 last year and are very pleased. Dunlop Fast Response are also great.
However they don’t do them for the Mk3 if it’s on 17" and all the premium brands are around £140 each fitted. Because of that you do find some absolute horrors fitted to Mk3s as Nick says. Nick rates the Kuhmo so I’d go with that as a budget, or the oe fitment which we went with, Potenza RE050A, expensive, but 2 years on I’m still very pleased and would buy them again.
I have kuhmos, they are a great Tyre would happily recommend them. I’d say they are even better than the toyos that I had on before and still cheaper to buy.
My little car still has the P5000s it had when I bought it but I read here that Pirelli don’t suit the car.
I broke a lifetime rule and did not replace the tyres when I bought a used car but they were newish and I was new to the MX; they will get replaced shortly though and I like the sound of the Kumho tyres mentioned (16 inch wheels). In the long run not replacing the tyres gave me a chance to explore the car and so any change should be obvious.
What I wouldn’t want to do is loose the ‘self steering’ effect accelerating through and out of a corner. The way you can position the car with the throttle which is a response that only came alive after I had the thing laser tracked. This is the first car I have owned that has this trait in such a pronounced way.
Tear wear is not that important but grip and response are so I’d welcome any suggestions. The car will only be used on the road and not on the track and my favourite roads are the A271/272 if anyone knows them.
It’s not a summer only car either as my favourite driving time is a bright cold winter day with the hood down.