Remoulds

Not cheap though. Are they worth it? I actually *can* be arsed leathering the car when I clean it...

I can't - mainly because I wash the Passat at least once a week (first impressions are everything.....), so the Flash thing gets a decent finish in less than 15 mins. 20 if you count getting the hose out and putting it away again.

Works by applying some sort of water-repelling 'wax' to the paint, and then doing a final rinse with filtered water.

You get funny little bubbles bouncing off the surface of the car when you're hosing it off. Strange.

Not that expensive, I tend to extend filter life to double what they quote, the wash solution is only a tad more expensive than a decent car shampoo and the starter kit can often be bought for quite a lot under a tenner in pikeymarkets.

I blame the scabby Vista calculator and a scabby keyboard making me miss out a zero at some point :-) I thought it looked VERY excessive, but had recently finished a few night shifts so to my brain it was the middle of the night :-)

I think I'm pretty safe in that. State-of-the-art tyre manufacturers tend to A) be VERY much larger with the facilities and money to do extensive R&D and B) not use other people's s/h carcasses.

I know but that doesn't go anywhere towards indicating how good it is. Just means all the competitors are on the same level playing field even if that's crap.

Again, FIA approved doesn't = good. It just means fit for purpose.

You're aware of the line of business I'm in? That means I know a lot of people who compete in every branch of motorsport, race, rally, sprint, hillclimb etc, and who have actually tried the things. Opinion on Colway remoulds varies from "Fairly OK if you don't have the cash for really good tyres" to "s**te". Yes they'll get you to the end of the event. No they won't grip or last as well as 'proper' tyres. Yes they're a reasonable compromise if you're strapped for cash.

I wouldn't hesitate to drive or be driven in a car with them fitted if I really had to get somewhere, like the hospital when I was choking on a chicken bone and there was no other car to go in. I just wouldn't buy them for my own car if I wanted the best grip money could buy.

What do seem to be getting quite a good rep in motorsport these days are Matador tyres from Slovakia.

No idea what their road tyres are like but the sports ones ranging from slicks to M&S are proving to be grippy and reasonably long lasting for a fraction of the cost of big name brands.

The detailing bods have worked out a cheap way of doing this. You get filter particles from a pool or plumbing place IIRC, make up a filter body with a bit of PVC tube and it lasts for ages and costs not a lot. It's the filtered water that's the special bit - means you don't get water marks.

I've said it many times before, my old SO-2s with 1mm tread gripped better in the wet than the half worn Marshalls did when I first got the car. Good tyres can transform a car if you want to drive hard. ...but let's say you've got an old Rover and drive everywhere like you're taking your grandma to church and you only do a few miles every week, then sure fit remoulds if that's your thing.

If the carcass happened to be from the best brand and model in the world and ended up being available because there was a fault moulding the tread pattern, would it make it bad?

Well, it's an old Rover I have but drive it pretty hard. And am still impressed with my Colways. After tonight's drive I'd say they're better in every way than the Avons they replaced.

Ask anyone who knows and they will tell you that most tyres are better than Avon, I'm not sure if I would include remoulds in that as I have not sold any road versions in the last 5 years.

In article , Fred > impressed with my Colways. After tonight's drive I'd say they're

Avon certainly once made decent tyres. When did this change?

However, the Avons replaced Pirellis and I can't say I remember thinking they were so much worse. Nor were they particularly cheap.

Like any tyre company it's not just about good or bad tyres overall, it's about each particular tyre model. The Avon Tech M500 has got very good reviews in the states but isn't sold here. However our ZZ1 tended to come close to last in the tests I've seen and got superceded fairly rapidly by the ZZ3 which I haven't seen tested yet. Then they have a few tyres which have been around for yonks, mainly for Rolls and Bentleys, like the CR228 and the Turbosteel which I imagine are fine for their intended use which probably won't include many track days or blats round country roads in the pissing rain :)

Their bike tyres used to be well thought of. I've done plenty of miles back in the 70s on the Avon Roadrunner and also their basic long life bike tyre the Speedmaster which actually hung on pretty well even in the wet. Not a patch on the Dunlop Red Arrow though which gripped so well in the wet I could almost get the footpegs down. Wore out like the clappers mind you.

I think being realistic about it all the tyre which is the flavour of the month so to speak changes very rapidly these days if you're looking for the absolute ultimate in performance. It was Yokos a while back, then the Toyos got a good rep, also the Goodyear F1. However you still easily find that the best tyre in the dry is crap in the wet and vice versa so you can't please all the people all the time. Most people aren't going to be very fussy and happily accept whatever Kwikfit are pushing at the time because of the mark-up they get.

Tyres tend to lose performance as they wear, especially the Pirelli P600s I tried which stopped gripping at all in the wet, so you tend to think your new tyres are fine because you got used to the old worn ones. In a back to back test with both sets new it might be a different story.

Dave Baker ( snipped-for-privacy@Dave.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

The ZZ1 was (IIRC) what I had on the back of the 75 v6 - and they kept that nicely tamed.

I agree that Avon did make good tyres but when Cooper Tires bought Avon in the mid 90s I think that is when the change took place, even before that I think most Avons were made in eastern Europe ?

The only brandname worth it's hype is Michelin, they are better overall than most other tyres. Some tyres regardless of brand/quality do not work on some types of car, even a slight difference in the compound or casing construction can make a big difference in an identical tyre made by the same company. Bridgestone make a tyre for the Lexus and they also make the exact same size and pattern for anything else, the tyre that is not made for the Lexus is horrible if fitted to a Lexus yet it looks identical. So when people say that *Insert any Brand* are crap, they may have been awfull on an Escort but are perfect on a Cortina . And then their is Driver! some drovers are just going to fall off the road no matter what tyres they have on.

It was so good, bikers of the time named it the Deathmaster.

On 7 Aug, 10:05, "Fred"