Tyres!

On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:27:00 +0000, Stephen H drooled:

Option B, though you could try Avons or Uniroyals. Sell the Alloys to offset some of the cost, and when you come to sell the car, the buyer won't think you are a tasteless chav who drives a modified car badly ;-)

This. Maybe.

Or possibly a set of 15" OEM alloys.

Uniroyal make decent budget tyres - Rainsport or Rainexperts are recommended.

Surely that's a 1.9, if it's MK4?

There's your problem. Never heard of them.

Make sure they're the right offset as well. Preferably OE wheels.

You have ditchfinders!

Good.

Personally, if you're after the best cost/improvement ratio I'd inspect the spare to see if it is OK, and get a set of 4 OE 15" wheels, alloy or steel, and buy some decentish rubber for the 4. As others have suggested, sell the 17s to finance some of it.

Treat the spare as a get-you-home, as it's probably the original, and past it's best. If it's knackered, buy 5 tyres.

As far as decentish rubber goes, lot's of people rate Uniroyal Rain Expert for price/performance. I've had good experience with Kumho KH31 for a mid-price tyre on SWMBO's Lupo, if you don't want to splash for premium brands.

I wouldn't rotate the spare. Swap front to back to even out wear if you want, but I just leave tyres where they are and replace as they wear. If you only do 6k/year then swapping may make sense to avoid the rears lasting too long and perishing- my annual mileage means my tyres don't get too old.

I have, either a Which or an Adac review. It's fair to say they aren't good.

but I'll bet they were cheap!

I would also bet you are right :-)

The person who bought the alloys could not s(h)urely afford good tyres too, then he would have bought a car with original alloys.

:-) Charles

Looking at boy racer alloys in Halfords is always enlightening for previously unknown tyre brands: Sunny, Nankang, Fullrun, Autogrip etc. Makes me shudder to think of some of the worst drivers on some of the worst tyres!

My daughter had the events on per pug when she bought it the handling was fantastic (for a skid pan) massive understeer and your better off opening the door and sticking your foot on the ground in the wet, the first time i drove it i took it straight into the local tyre place and stuck decent ones on it

They should ban them they are bloody dangerous

Yeah, if you drive dangerously, otherwise not.

More pearls of wisdom...

Chris

I'm very cynical after reading too many fatal accident reports in the local papers... They go something like:

"Tributes were paid to XXXX, who died tragically when his (insert hot hatch) left the road and hit a (tree/lamppost/wall). No other vehicle was involved. The accident happened at 2:45 am after he had been celebrating his 19th birthday with friends, who survived the accident but received various injuries.

He was always the centre of any fun which was happening, and his school headmaster said that he was a bright if somewhat unruly pupil."

With a very heavy right foot?

If you bother to read the independant reports they point out how dangerous these tyres are , many of them have stopping distances 30% further than a decent tyre,have inconsistant compounds , one batch were deamed not safe over 30 mph

That can't be true, such tyres would not pass MOT on a car and hence could not be sold. So you just drive accordingly to the hardware, then it's not dangerous.

Since when did the MOT start testing tyre grip?

The tyres must have correct load and speed ratings, have sufficient thread pattern and be free of faults. Most tyres far exceed the requirements for urban traffic, e.g. V and Z rated tyres.

Yes, and where does that say that they check the grip?

As said, they check the standard of the tyres; that it meets the spec for the particular car, is suitable for driving at the rated top speed. Hence you often require V and Z rated tyres even when it's a total overkill for normal traffic.

All the speed rating does is define that the tyre will not overheat at the rated load & the rated speed. It tells you nothing about the grip (or noise,wear or anything else).

These tyres have all the correct paperwork, but like a lot that comes out of china , once certification is in place the quality goes out of the window , the favourite is crash helmets they are tested in three places the chinese manufacturers build the helmets to pass the test not to protect the riders head hence you can pick a cheap helmet up for 20 pounds , a helmet that will properly protect yor head will cost 10 times tat at least because these manufacturers implement the construction standards throughout the helmet