Tyre reviews/comparisons?

You should be aware that tyre performance can vary according to the vehicle they're fitted to. IOW a tyre which performs well on one car, will not necessarily perform as well on a different make or model of car. If you're thinking of a particular car/tyre/wheel combination, you might be better asking in a n/g or forum that is for owners of similar cars. Mike.

Which Guide do some tests. but I bought tyres once on there recommendation and they where overpriced rubbish.

Andy

The best reviews I've seen on ordinary/slightly sporty tyres are the Auto Express weekly magazine ones. They have been doing an annual test every approx Aug/Sept for a few years now, very thorough tests with regard to wet/dry handling, cornering, braking, rolling resistance, noise. The only test of theirs I find fault with is noise, they don't find major differences, yet I certainly do, so they must be testing on smooth roads, I want someone to test on knobbly rough tarmac and concrete as that's where tyres show up their differences. One omission though is wear rate. I agree with the point that tyres can suit one vehicle and not another though.

To give you an idea of their last tests, the best directional tyres in the wet were Vredestein Sportrac2 and Goodyear Hydragrips, the directional ones do seem best for wet aquaplaning performance and cornering. The best non-directionals were Continental PremiumContacts, they came out best in the dry, and were top in the wet for non-directionals and were easily the best for low rolling resistance, using 5% less fuel than the worst rated Goodyear Hydragrips.

My old Mk3 golf 2.0 estate had good-year hydragrips, they where good in the wet, but got a lot of wheelspin very easily in the dry.

Andy

I agree

Many years ago 'Which' did a test of 4 leading brand premium tyres, using 4 different make cars. Each car was run for several thousand miles on a new set of each make of tyre, during which they were tested for dry and wet grip, braking efficiency, stability under braking, etc. After each test they were measured for wear. The results were surprising. Wear rates were the only factor that seemed to be fairly consistant, regardless of which car the tyres were fitted to. Apart from that, no one make of tyre performed the best on all the cars. A tyre that gave excellent all round results on one car, gave less than satisfactory results on a different make of car.

IMO when choosing tyres, the best way to avoid those tyres that seem less suitable for your particular car, is to look for feedback from owners of similar cars. You then have a better chance of not making a costly mistake. Mike.

I suspect that camber angles and supension characteristics affect how tyres perform on different vehicles. Carcass stiffness and tread pattern design are bound to affect how well a tyre maintains its grip over a range of angles between the road surface and the tread. P6000s were awful in cold wet conditions on my old Fiesta XR2i but are generally well thought of on most cars. The Fester used to roll like a garbage scow in a gale though and was probably operating at fairly extreme positive camber angles during cornering. On the other hand my Mondeo used to grip very well on any old tyre but then it has a much more advanced suspension system.

I still believe that over a range of vehicles a good tyre will always average out better than a worse tyre although there are no doubt examples where the scores overlap so that every now and then the worse tyre will outperform the better one in very specific situations because the suspension geometry of the car suits it well. Wide tyres are also much more sensitive to suspension geometry than narrow ones because they don't have so much flexibility under lateral forces. Insufficient negative camber can easily mean that a wide tyre is only operating on one edge under extreme cornering whereas a narrower one will flex to keep the tread flat to the road better. The potential grip advantage of the wider tyre can be lost completely if the car isn't set up to properly utilise it.

-- Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines

Ok thank you all for the replies. Which guide is out- too expensive because ill inevitably forget and get charged after the free period, I had a good scout about on Autotrader but it seems the tyre tests must be in the paper version only.

Otherwise, yes I agree different tyres may work differently on different cars however as a baseline I don't think the stats on most family sized saloons would vary much, however there's just nothing out there to get even half a clue from.

Oh well, back to the 'close eyes and pick one' method - hate doing it but I don't think I have much choice.

Cheers all

Damnit, I meant Autoexpress :-)

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Whats with Continentals? I've seen a lot with the tread seperating

A friend had the SportContact2 Continentals that did that sort of thing, evidently they cut rather easily which can start the shredding process. I've had PremiumContacts before with no problems, and have just had some more fitted, so we'll see.