Life of front tyres on hard driven fwd cars

Michelins do tend to last longer they are a harder tyre , but they also offer slightly less grip when driven hard into corners and under severe braking . If you stuck a set of tyres with a softer compound on you would find that you could corner faster and brake harder

Modern traction control antilock braking , brake assistance and stablity control will have a marked effect on tyre wear as they prevent to some extent you taking your vehicle to the extremes and if you do they automatically correct the problem so your michelins will feel gripper than they are

My Fabia vRS (similar weight, 130 bhp) has just had it's 3rd set of Conti sport contact 2 on the front in 35k miles. I cahnge tyres well before the legal limit, but a fair amount of my mileage is motorway, but I do tend to corner fairly hard off the motorway.

The Pilot Primacies are actually very close to the top of the traction range. Not quite as sticky as the latest compounds such as the Goodyear Eagle F1 but not far behind. Certainly 'cooking' Michelins for non sporty cars use hard compounds and less grip to achieve long lifetimes and always have done but the Primacy is very much a no holds barred sports tyre. I think it's more a testament to the R&D they put in that it achieves such grip without sacrificing life. The F1s are also rated to last very well btw. Much longer than their grip levels would indicate compared to other tyres. I have a pair waiting to go on the front when the Primacies finally expire.

20k front, 35-40k rear, (changed at 3mm) Continental PremiumContact2 on a 1240kg 130hp 2.0 97 Nissan Primera cornered pretty hard, mostly driven on fast flowing dual carriageways and 40-60mph country lanes. Michelin Primacies don't grip as well as these going by a direct comparison on a nice handling 99 Hyundai Coupe 2.0, and I've never seen any Michelins near the top of any tyre tests in AutoExpress. They do last longer though but they usually cost more than other makes so I can't see much benefit really.

24,000miles and still have 4mm, but don't drive like some idiot of boy racer. A 2litre Focus isn't exactly "fast", it's more towards the lower end of the performance scale. Suspension doesn't keep tyres "flatter". A least go and learn how a car works. Michelin 205's 16", ABS, no traction control.

One thing I find from reading dozens of tyre tests over the years is it seems to depend very much on the vehicle used for the test as to which tyre comes out best. A tyre rated as crap in one test can be near the top of the range in another which serves only to make me wary of the scientific rationale behind many of these tests.

However, sticking to the tests done by the American Tire Rack company who use the same vehicles on the same track to perform dozens of tests each year you do get a picture of which tyres consistently perform best and what sort of g force they can pull under cornering and braking. They only tested the Pilot Primacy once with BMW 330i test cars

but it blew the other three tyres tested away for dry cornering, wet cornering, dry braking, wet braking and lap times both wet and dry. 0.93g dry cornering force used to be supercar territory a few years ago but seems to be the norm nowadays for the ultimate high performance tyres. The trick though is getting wet grip as well as dry grip. Usually the best tyres in the dry are the worst in the wet. The Primacy also pulled 0.83g in the wet which was more than most cars could manage in the dry a few years ago. Only the Bridgestone E30 came close in overall performance.

On their replacement BMW 325i test cars there are more recent tests of tyres such as the Goodyear F1 and g force is up to 0.98 in the dry. How much of this is the car or the tyre is open to debate.

All I can say is that both the dry and wet grip when I got the Focus transformed my opinion of how fast a car could go round corners. Much of this is down to the Focus itself which is immensely more capable than some of the old nails I've had before but the Mondeo I had immediately before it was generally renowned for cornering ability and yet had nowhere near the speed the Focus could pull round the same test bends. The Mondeo did have some horrible no name tyres on it which were no doubt much of the problem. It was still a lot faster than its predecessor Fiestas on decent tyres though.

My main concern is wet grip because most modern tyres are as capable as you need in the dry unless you're a complete idiot but the Eagle F1 seems to meet this criteria too which is why I've bought a couple.

Eh? A big part of suspension setup is keeping the tyre at the correct angle to the road. Whilst you're likely to have negative camber on your outside wheels, the usual aim of this is to keep the contact patch something approaching flat when cornering.

Ok shit for brains. I'll go and do that. I'll try and make time if I have a spare moment running my race engine business. I admit I'm a bit vague about how these new fangled horseless carriages work but thank god we have experts like you to keep us on the straight and narrow.

It's the tiscali idiot. He pops up, posts some crap, then runs away again. Must admit I got suckered a few days ago, but realised my mistake fairly quickly.

cheers, clive

I now run Pilot Premacies in preference to Goodyear Eagle F1s. The Michelins don't have just quite as much grip, but you know when you're starting to loose grip. The Goodyears would just let go, and then eventually grip again once you were heading in roughly the same direction as they were pointing.

Combine that with the fact the michelins last about 4-5k longer on the front, and they're roughly the same price, means the michelins for me are the far better tyre.

I had a MK3 Golf |GTi as a company car years ago. I managed 3000 miles from a set of brake pads, and 5000 miles from a set of front tyres. They were Goodyear Eagles IIRC..

VW replaced the pads under warranty as they presumed they were faulty...

Mike P

Like you know what you're talking about .... I think you should actually find out what people do for a living before posting such s**te about them...

Mike P

about 9K from a D reg 900 turbo 16S (mildly tweaked, 200hp) and cheapo falken tyres.

I'm running a 1.8 merc at the mo so tyre life is not a problem ;-)

Yup. Different tyres suit different cars. No one tyre is the best.

Many years ago, 'Which' carried out a test where 4 different makes of premium tyres by Dunlop, Michelin, Pirelli, and Goodyear, were tested on 4 different make cars. Forget what the all the cars were, but 2 of them were a Cortina, and a Mini.

The tests were back in the 60's but I think the results are still relevant today, even though tyre technology has moved on since then.

They were all tested for wet grip, dry grip, straight line braking and longevity. For the tests, each car ran all makes of tyre on all 4 wheels until they were worn out.

AFAIR it took well over a year to complete all the tests. (there were more than 4 cars in total BTW) Longer than was anticipated because one of the cars was stolen halfway through the tests. Meaning they had to buy another and redo the tests.

No single make of tyre dominated all the tests in each category. A tyre which came top on say straightline braking on one car, could be the worst for straightline braking on a different make of car. As far as wet and dry grip went, each car was tested on the same circular track until it broke away, and then points were given according to it's speed at the time. Points were also given for straightline braking, and longevity. . The overall results were quite surprising. Each make of car seemed to perform better with one make of tyre than another. ISTR that Dunlops were the best overall for Mini's, but Goodyear were the best for Cortina's.

Remembering those tests is enough to convince me that any personal recommendation for a particular make or type of tyre by users, only has real value, if they're fitted to a similar car. It doesn't necessarily follow that it will give equal results on a different make of car. Mike.

Pilots are pretty soft, I reckon they'll have come with the car and the previous owner put the new Firestones onto the back and switched the Pilots from the rear to the front, so your estimate of 6k on the fronts is likely to be incorrect.

Yes they do grip though; I had pilots on my Zafira GSi and 200bhp ate them in just over 20k.

That was one of the reasons I stopped buying Conti Sport Contacts. Some of the fleets won't buy them because of their short life.

I don't thing that's *that* bad. The car has a reputation for waering front tyres: lots of torque and a heavy diesel engine over the front wheels.

Har. You should do a Dave Baker style car clinic column...

No, I agree it's not. A colleague had a Fabia VRS (now got an Octavia VRS

170) and Pirelli P Nero Zero's did even worse. He had some Dunlops at the end and thought they were good - I'd always thought Dunlops were crap. It was actually his lease company who told him they wouldn't fit Conti's.

I get about 20k on the front of a 206 HDi 2.0 with Conti Sport Contacts - but BF Goodrich Profilers give me over 30k and the performance difference is negligible, and I pay for my own as I've opted out of the lease scheme so the £25 per corner is also a factor.