Lee,
Asked around about tyres today for you in France, the sized you asked about was not listed, I found one listed as 31x10.5-15, and even with that one listed as a stock tyre, the response was the equivalent of "not a chance in hell" of having one in stock!! (followed by the obligatory huff and shrug!)
So I guess it'd be a good idea to get an extra spare!
Matt
Jesus H. Christ, for that price you'd best hang them on the wall rather than cut them up off-roading! £102 for an off-road tyre, you're turning more spendy than nige!
Yep... just a tyre tart and I admit it , it's my weakness but at least it's not bling and may be useful oneday :-). That said I'd rather run a cheaper motor with good tyres than a expensive motor on retreads / partworn / budget tyres. Swept up at my share of fatal collisions and had to follow up the enquiries and family liasion. No point in sitting outside the pearly gates checking what change is in my wallet as theres no pockets in shrouds as they say.
:-)
On a lighter note - aren't they just beautiful.... too good to get muddy! ;-)
Lee D
Too true, after having a near very serious accident (still can't believe we didn't actually crash) due to someone putting cheap re-treads on a van I bought, and one de-laminated, blowing the tyre with a full load on board at 75 - I am now a real tyre freak when it comes to condition and quality.
Oh yeah!!!! I want them, but sadly the Disco has near new tyres on it and I'm not sure SWMBO would be impressed by the "but look how beautiful they look!" line when explaining them away! Especially after having just spend the better part of 400 euros getting it French registered.
Matt
I'd agree with that in the case of road tyres, but for off-road tyres, they're crap at stopping anyway, even in my landy I don't go above 60 on motorways on my mud patterns. On my audi and the old lotus (when it was running) I'd go for the ones that are best reckoned for wet stopping and don't bother with remoulds.
On the landy and the pinz though, after having had two blowouts on the landy, one on expensive BFG tyres and the other on the remoulds, I'll go for the remoulds as I can afford to replace them the moment they get some nicks in them. It was nicks in the BFG Trak-edges that caused the sidewall to rip a 5-inch gash at 80MPH on tyres that had hardly seen 3,000 miles. Nowadays I check the tyres and if they've got cuts, it's time to get new ones and at £55 per wheel there's no need to delay. That's my reasoning for not getting spendy on tyres that are going on the rough stuff, they need to be disposable so I can get rid of them when they get damaged. I don't quite go down to the £35 specials though!
Remoulds are apparently pretty good these days and don't do that kind of thing as much as they used to, I also know of someone on a Lotus mailing list I'm on who had his car written off due to an original tyre delaminating, so it's not unique to remoulds. You see truck tyre carcasses by the sides of the roads a lot but truck drivers (or companies) go for the absolute shittest rubbish they can lay their hands on as long as it's cheap!
BTW I've had three blowouts, two in the landy at quite high speeds, not come close to crashing in any of them yet, all quite tame. I did notice though that dabbing on the brakes made the vehicle swerve violently, not sure if that's what gets blowouts their bad reputation.
Here's what I'm using, 6 of them.. Not quite as pretty I'll grant you..
Well, I'm not sure why it ended up going so wrong - I had a blowout in the P38 (turned out to be a 'fixed' tyre inherited from a previous owner
- something else I won't do!) aside from the noise I barely noticed a thing in terms of handling, but the Transit ended up sideways across a busy 4-lane French motorway after coming within inches of the steep unprotected 8ft ditch on the hard shoulder. A lot of wrestling with the steering wheel (non-PAS) was going on to keep it remotely close to safe. Very scary, and very lucky - especially with a 7-month pregnant wife in the passenger seat. The recovery truck that turned up out of nowhere about 5 minutes later was a big relief, helped us get on our way and wouldn't take a thing for his trouble. I only wish I'd taken photographs of the skid marks all over the motorway to show just how much we had swerved around and how close we came to the edge - but it wasn't at the top of my mind to preserve the evidence at the time!
Matt
Yeah I see your point but I'm sat at a comfy 55 to 60 with the TD , roof rack , full rear dawgy cage and the Caravan on.
I was a Bronco convert but a google on grizzly claws should throw up some scary reports from tyre specialist. A few people I've spoke to are unhappy with Colways. I've had Bronco AT pattern retreads go pourous and I've got Bronco Terminators on Percy (A BFG MT Copy) and I'd not personally take them the other side of 60. Mainly down to personal experience and protection of family jewels and other road users. Still doesn't stop shit happening mind.
Lee D
If you don't mind spending top dollar then why not go for road tyres and some muds on spare wheels? Expensive tyres on a mostly road-going truck are all well and good but if you off-road it a lot you'll have to replace them frequently or they get dangerous due to damage. If I had to cart around a caravan etc and was worried about stopping distances etc I'd chuck the muds in the caravan and put the fat road rubber on the landy for the long journey, if you're doing a long trip it's probably worth the hassle of changing over for the added safety. Trying to stop a landy on muds is hard enough without a shed attached to the rear!
No I don't really take any MT the wrong side of 60, mine are all rated way above 60 but the BFGs blew at 80, and a technic tracker blew at 70 due to tube issues it seems. Not a problem on the pinz, it won't get to 60 anyway! The tyres on it are rated to 70.
I've never yet on my Landies had cause for concern even with muds regards the stopping distance even when running Bar slicks on the ambi. Driven within there limits they are fine. I have a Renault Laguna And Disco with road tyres for general pootling around. As for sticking a set of Mud tyres in the Caravan ---- you've not met Mrs_D yet then? ;-)
Lee D
You get my total agreement on that - I've spent a goodly amount of my life in the sweeping up role too (normally after cutting the victims from the remains of their vehicles).
These are my pick for a reasonably priced MT tyre (around the 60 quid mark for the common sizes). When I had my garage I sold several hundred of them and never received any complaints, and I'm on to my 4th set on my own vehicles with no problems.
Better ass the URL
I was thinking more for the long-distance trips in the landy, some road shoes might be an option, however if you're not too worried about the stopping performance of the MTs then not much of an issue. To get around the missus problem with the muds in the caravan you could get some nice pretty tyre-cosies made up with ickle flowers an' cows an' birds an' stuff on them! Maybe that might work ;-)
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