If you read my earlier posts you'll find that this doesn't apply now. They are quieter, more comfortable and grip better than the Avons they replaced.
My experience is the reverse. It's better to drive than it was before in every way. Now some have said the Avons as previously fitted were a poor tyre, but I don't remember that being noticeable when they were fitted to replace the previous Pirellis. So perhaps they were a 'poor' tyre too?
If I read the blurb right this doesn't happen these days as they stick to one make of carcass. Of course years ago when remoulds were common this might not have been the case, but these days carcasses have a negative value so they can afford to be *very* picky about those they choose to remould.
You are assuming the remoulds are of poorer quality in some way with no proof whatsoever - since you haven't tried recent ones. Or perhaps you can point me to a decent review?
My other car is fitted with Continental Ecos so I have some basis for my comparisons.
It's quite interesting that judging by the comments here tyres tend to be some form of religious believe - a bit like our US cousins insisting on
I'm probably one of the most vocal posters in here when it comes to tyre choices. I absolutely refuse to fit no-name South American / Korean s**te to my cars. However, I would fit Colway remoulds.
My thinking too. And decided to try the Colways after my brother's positive experience with them. Now backed up by my own findings - although of course it's early days for those.
I just thought my experiences might help others who want reasonable tyres at a keen price.
I'm sure that remoulds are of adequate quality in terms of them being fit for purpose and not unsafe but I think it's vanishingly unlikely they'll have the grip or life of state of the art tyres. You only have to look at the difference in tested performance between top named brands anyway to realise that there's a huge spread of ability in cornering grip and braking in both wet and dry conditions.
Best tests on the web IMO are the tirerack ones which give you cornering G force, lap times, braking distances in both wet and dry conditions and more. For example 11 tyres of the type I'm interested in (high performance) are compared here.
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Wet grip is what I'm mainly interested in on the basis that any tyre will be good enough in the dry if you aren't actually racing. In fact the spread of dry grip G force isn't that big. 0.95g for the best tyre (which also had the worst wet grip) and 0.88g for the worst. However there's a much bigger spread in wet grip. 0.82g for the Goodyear Eagle GSD3 and only 0.67g for the B F Goodrich and Kumho. That's a 22% spread which is huge. It equates to a
10% drop in cornering speed. In fact it's pretty staggering that the Goodyear grips almost as well in the wet as the worst tyre does in the dry. To put it into perspective, 30 years ago an average family car like an Escort or Capri wouldn't generate 0.8g in the dry on the best tyres you could put on it. In the wet god only knows. Probably about 0.6g. Nowadays a nothing special car like my Focus or the BMWs tested will pull well over
0.9g in the dry and 0.8g in the wet on the right rubber. About half the improvement is down to modern suspension systems and the other half due to increased tyre grip.
Similarly the worst tyre took 12% extra distance to brake from 50mph in the wet than the best.
Best overall tyre was the Goodyear and it's been the winner in other tests I've seen too. It does everything very well, wet or dry. Now how that sample of specialised high performance tyres compares to lower performance ones or even remoulds is anyone's guess but mine is that remoulds won't get close to even the worst of the premium tyres. So let's take price and wear into account too. Looking online for 205/50/16's the Colways are about £35 delivered so add a tenner each for that if you know a friendly tyre place and you get £45 all in. Maybe it's possible to better that if you have a local supplier. Best I can find for the GSD3's is about £90 fitted.
So exactly half the price. Now if they perform as well (vanishingly unlikely) but also only last half as long, which is my previous experience, you're much and such but if they also only have 75% of the wet grip you're well on the losing side of the equation. At 1/4 of the price of the best premium tyres they'd be damn good value but at half the price it's looking less promising. Nonetheless it would be interesting to see a set put through the same tests.
Some scary stuff here about what happens to wet grip as the tread wears down too.
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So anyway I guess it's down to horses for courses. I wouldn't want to turn my Focus into a bread van by putting rubber with only half the grip on it. I'm too used to being able to hoon round corners wet or dry at speeds that I wouldn't have dreamed possible a few years ago. Equally if I drove an old nail as I have done many times in the past I wouldn't waste premium rubber on it for general pottering around purposes. However I'd no longer want to drive said old nail at all because one day, if that truck with your name on it does pull out in front of you from a side turning in the wet, the Focus on good rubber will stop in time and save my life while the old nail is sliding under the trailer at 40 mph and decapitating everyone in it.
I wouldn't fit remoulds, after seeing the state of one after a short
60mph motorway journey on my Dad's cortina back in 1978. They may well be better now, but it scared the crap out of me.
I can't comment on modern remoulds- no experience of them- but I do have a thing about cheap tyres, I'll admit it. Our Lupo has some foul cheap shit on the front- When we test drove it it had Contis on, which i thought were borderline. However, it failed the MOT before delivery with them, so they put cheap tyres on. I'd have rather they gave me the money so i could have put something a bit better on it. I now find myself wanting to swap them, but disinclined to throw away 1/4 worn tyres on a second car that does few miles. I wouldn't consider them dangerous, or they wouldn't be on it. I just think it would be better on something else.
SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
They aren't. At best they're using somebody else's "last year" carcass technology. Oh, look, they now do "run-flat" - and claim that's at the forefront of re-tread technology. How long've they been out on BMWs and they like?
Sponsorship's a wonderful thing.
And they're very widely used in rallying because they're the only easily available tyres in car sizes with specialist tread patterns for tarmac, gravel etc rallying.
Again, sponsorship probably goes a long way towards explaining, as does the fact that they really don't need a long life - and specialist tread patterns and compounds can be had easily in "normal" car sizes.
Chris Bartram ( snipped-for-privacy@delete-me.piglet-net.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
I know the feeling. The Saab's got a pair of thoroughly middle-aged P6000s on the back - and near-new Fate-Als on the front. I can't decide which set to throw away, and may well end up just buying four new decent-brand...
When I acquired my old man's Xant for him, it had a pair of K-F own-brand crap on the front. Again, near-new. They went in the bin, and a pair of Avons went on. They *transformed* the feel of the car.
The Kumho used in that test was the KU15 MX , that tyres is designed and sold as summer a dry weather tyre suitable for trackday use! As for the GSD 3 being top that depends on where they are made! most of the ones on eBay and mail order are made in China! And the Proxes T1-R was bottom for Dry Performance score! That is just plain bollocks and shows the test to be worthless.
SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
'bout a month ago, shortly before the three and a half wk, 3,000 mile trip round Sweden by 2cv, from which I returned on Monday... So rest assured the Frog Fetish is alive and well, even if it has been (re)joined by the Elk fetish.
The XM is sold, and now lives in Ireland - just as well, as I'd already acquired a '90 900T16 3dr in a moment of weakness...
I always swore I'd never have another black car after the black CX, back in '93. So quite why I replaced the black XM with a black Saab, gawd knows...
I keep trying to persuade Mrs H to do a long trip like that, but she's not happy about it. Mind you, my plans involved the Nurburgring, the Alps, Reims and Spa.... on the VFR.
Nice choice. I was kind of hoping you'd bought a Chavalier in drag just for the piss-taking opportunities.
I should never have doubted that you'd have bought a C900, I suppose.
Black cars look the business when clean. Unfortunately, they never remain clean for very long.
(I need to get a leccy polisher and cutting compound to sort out the 156
- Mrs H insists on parking it in a pikey part of Newport, 'cos it's free parking, bloody thing is covered in little scratches and paint marks from other cars. Looked lovely when we bought it... hope I can get it largely back to the way it looked)
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