Tyres Question

Fairly common practice, but has ended up with many XJ40s having ugly looking wheels. Chavtastic five spokes seem to be the commonest fitment and they don't have the style of the Jaguar originals. I dont' knwo why the aftermarket alloys were so vile, or indeed why the owners simply didn't buy the later XJ40 16" or 17" wheels.

Hmm. My dad's car is on genuine Jag teardrop alloys, but runs normal tyres. ISTR they're specified in the manual as normal sized, but also think they're

Simply because they were looking for a wheel/tyre combo that was cheaper than the tyres alone - which means chav-o-matic 5 spokers.

What's 'strange' size tyres got to do with anything, you didn't mention that until /after/ the statement above.

You said you don't want to pay high prices for tyres, yet you don't agree with non-branded. That means you won't be wanting anything with big wheels, which sort of leaves you stuck with poxy small cars for the rest of your life :)

There were two teardrops, the 390mm (expensive tyres) and the 15". IIRC the 15" were fitted to all XJ40s from 1991 onwards, from 87-91 they were the metric rims.

Yebbut, given the frequency with which XJ40s are scrapped you can get a set of alloys and part worns for about £300, which easily creeps in under the £600 it costs for four new tyres. OTOH a couple of distributors advertise metric tyres in the JEC magazine for £70 excluding fitting, balancing, valves etc.

Don't corner so fast if the car can't take it. Look to your suspension setup before blaming your tyres

We had Eagle F1s on the back of the BMW through the winter, the nankangs it had on when we brought it lasted equally as long at less that half the cost.

Mason

Agreed.

The nankangs didi have noticably less grip on the back of the BM thats F1s but only_when_pushed and lets face it if your driving your car so hard everywhere that you jnotice the limit of your tyre's capabilites then you probably should be on the roads.

I don't consider it scrimping when we put nankangs on the BMW through the summer, the mrs uses it to commute all of 6 miles to work in mainly 30 zones. As Nom said i'd consider it value for money.

If the car was due for a hammering (it doesn't get tracked due to the paint) then I certainly wouldn't leave it on a)17" wheels or b) cheap tyres

Mason

There is a big difference between driving like a nun and the type of driving that means you'll be cool on budget tyres, as I've said if you are regularly driving your car to the point that tyres let you down you shouldn't really be on the roads.

Mason

Ding!

Exactly. Is conor seriously suggesting that he's felt that his driving on public roads as been at the limit of cheap tyres capabilites regularly?

Mason

Not in my experience. F1s maybe lasted marginally longer that the budgets but not 2 or 3 times longer so is the price justified? Not for Sarahs car. (moderately powered RWD car).

I can twitch/slide the BM on budgets or branded tyres equally comfortably there may be a small amount of grip but not so much you'd notice. At the end of the day that small difference probaby wouldn't make enough difference during a mistake to make the difference between me not being able to react in time and me being able to react in time.

Mason

It was at this point I realised I'd been spelling nangkang wrong in every post :o)

We're hardly on massive wheels but at 40 profile on 17's the price difference is large.

Normal speed does not equal normal accelleration, if the car is breaking then your being too heavy with the old right foot.

I've never had an issue keeping a RWD car in a straight line when driven sensibly.

Mason

I have had no such problems in a RWD car with no traction controll/driver aids at all.

User error.

Mason

Heh, there is a bloke in the next village along from us who sold his escort cosworth to buy an R34 vspec 2 spent the next four days shouting about how amazingly it drove on the twisties.

Now i've seen clarkson try and spin on of these on a track, he only managed it once. The rest of the time the computing power of the'liner saved him. These things are amazing.

Six days after buying aforementioned skyline it was upside down in a field just off some of the lovely (and quite busy at night for some reason ;) ) B roads we have near us.

My point? Idiots can break anything, even the most advanced driver aids ;)

IIRC correctly the last time I drove past the blokes house he was washing ford focus.

Mason

Or you need to be trying to avoid somehthing in the snow? Tiff made a very good demonsration of why we should all have ESP the other week on fifth gear.

Mason

The point I have been trying to make.

How often is conor in the position on the public roads where he thought "f*ck my tyres won't hold me"

Mason