Tires, 300TD

Stupendous Man ha scritto:

Usually Michelin makes good tyres. For Europe, they are still the best choice. I don't know where you are from, but usually a good alternative are the traditional German manufacturers, for old german cars. I.e. Continental, Goodyear (the european production). If you are worried by the weight, remember that every tyre is usually marked with following information: width (for example, 185) width-side ratio (normally not shown for 80, might be /70 which means side is 70% of width) R which means Radial

82 (*load max per tyre'... very important for you!!! Higher letter means heavier load admitted) A letter, which means max speed admitted (R, S, T, U...)

Try searching 'tyre marking' with a search engine... ;-)

I like Dunlop SP Sport A2 Plus tires for all season.

They are "H" rated, which means they can handle a heavy vehicle and are tested to be safe at 140 mph, I think it is.

$68 in 195 70 R 14, which is the size for my 1982 300 TDT

Yes, check with tirerack.com for choices and see what the ratings are by the survey.

I personally don't like Michelin... mediocre tire.

I have Goodrich Traction T/A's on my 300SD and have been very happy with them. Previously I had Pirelli CN36, Mich MXV's and others. By far these are the best. With all the others I had problems with wet traction, easily spinning the rear wheels from a start on wet pavement. The T/A's are excellent on wet pavement and an all around nice ride. Also, less expensive than many others.

I got Sumitomos for mine and am not happy with them. they seems to have nice firm sidewalls, which give it good response, but not too solid that the ride is too firm. However, the wet weather brakign performance is horrible. I have locked up the brakes on wet roads twice now while not even braking that hard. It was pretty scary the first time it happened. I was braking at about half of what I woudl think a car shoudl be capable of in the wet. So no to sumitomos.

I have toyo HPT4s on my wife's car though, and they are wonderful. Might be a little sportier looking than you are looking for, but I am very happy with the performance for the price. I think I paid about 75 bucks each.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com ha scritto:

As already mentioned, I'm writing from Europe (Italy) so I can't assume that we have same models available. But: I'm using Michelin on a 1982 MB 207 D (well... an RV made by Hymer, a German manufacturer and based on the naked chassis of a Mercedes Van 207 D). They are the only tyre that can resist to the stress of living under a van always at full load. All the other tyres break down after very few years. So my suggestion on using Mich is based on the question 'because the car is heavy'....

I don't suggest using Yokohama. Expensive and in my experience (with a Toyota Celica) very noisy, skiddy and ovalize very easily.

I don't know if you can find them in the USA, but an interesting brand might be Nokian. A spin out of the giant Nokia (yes, the mobile phone manufacturer), they manufacture excellent and not very expensive high performance tyres. At least... not very expensive in Italy...

Nokian in USA is expensive... but it is a great tire... especially the snow tires.

I was in the city yesterday and saw some nice uniroyals that will fit, I will get them next friday. I have passed on the Sumitomo and "Weeliot" confirms my suspicion.

will see how they do, but any new tire usually feels great compared to the old set, its usually only after about 20K miles that a review is qualified Thanks

I'd probably would try General Altimax due to size limitation before I would buy any Uniroyal tires.

Stupendous Man ha scritto:

Yeah. It's another german brand name and could fit well on a 300TD; as a matter of fact I've seen may MB with those tyres in Italy (I don't know anything about the specific model, btw). I'd suggest to drive carefully for the first 2-300 km, just to remember that tyre is not perfect (it takes some time to adapt completely to the wheel and to remove the detaching substances used in the mould, from the surface of the tyre).

Michelin - they have a model for you. Call a Michelin dealer and ask for the best model. If they can't tell you, ask them for the national Michelin help line phone number. Or just call the Michelin headquarters in Greenville, SC and ask for customer service. I have been drivng Michelin tires for over 30 years and have never had a problem with them. Some new cars came with non-Michelin tires and I have had problems with them. I had problems with other brands before switching to Michelins. You sound too busy saving the world to worry about tires, so go with Michelins.