After reading about tyres on this board....

puddy

I decided to check the tyres I have on my car. The front passenger and both rear tyres are spider ceat 165/70/r14. The front drivers is a debica 165/65/r14.

what does this mean? why is one different from the others? I have a feeling that the 'odd' one is the one replaced by the bloke that did my mot and service in January, but cant remember. I think the others were from kwik fit

are these tyres any good? i havent heard of these makes (but then i would know really)

bigjl

The Ceats are a budget tyre, never heard of the Debica, but having different rolling radiuses on the front of your car, I assume your car is a FWD, is a bad idea, if you where to be in an accident it may even invalidate your car insurance, as the car won't conform to construction and use regs.

vikingaero

The Ceat tyres are based on old Pirelli designs. Some Pirelli's are pretty poor in the wet (Yes, they are supplied on hypercars, but I'm talking about general plodders). The Debica is more of a concern. They were/are often supplied by Kwik Fit and heavily promoted under their buy 2 or buy4 for £xx. Auto Express did a test of tyres about 5-8 years ago and included Debicas. They stopped in the wet some 20 metres after the premium tyres. We fitted Debicas to our family banger that had about 10 drivers and we changed them after a year because everyone who drove the car commented that the tyres were lethal.

forgotmyname

Odd sized tyres on the same axle = illegal.

Gloomendoom

forgotmyname wrote: »

Odd sized tyres on the same axle = illegal.

It should have failed its MoT too, if it had one tyre of a different nominal size or aspect ratio to any other on the same axle when it was tested.

puddy

yes, im growing more and more aware that the mot and service i had done is not worth the paper it wasnt written on. no receipt, no rundown of what was done and now this with the tyre. the original tyre was worn and so the pre mot check showed this up and so he put on that debica tyre and then the mot was done

i need to change that tyre this week

puddy

so should i get another ceat thing put on, by kwik fit? or go for continental, as our other car (my partners) is going to nissan tomorrow for new tyres, hes putting continental on his.

bigjl

My wife had Continentals on the front of her Clio, think they are Contact 2's or something like that, they have worn badly, especially on the shoulders, which the old ones didn't, they have only done 10k and there is only 2 mm till the wear markers in the centre of the tread.

The alignment has been checked and it is spot on, having had the full works done, not just "tracking".

I shouldn't be too upset as they were free, she had an accident when a car hit the side of her when driving along, and the garage fitted to brand new tyres as they had been damaged during the collision, so I had them put on the front and bought two matching for the rear.

I thnk I will be in the market for a set of Michelins some time soon. Might even get her a set of winter tyres to see her through the cold and wet weather.

Gloomendoom

puddy wrote: »

so should i get another ceat thing put on, by kwik fit? or go for continental, as our other car (my partners) is going to nissan tomorrow for new tyres, hes putting continental on his.

I'd be tempted to have a look at the cost of a pair of decent tyres on blackcircles.com (or similar) before going to KwikFit.

puddy

do i need a pair?

i dont understand how blackcircles or mytyres works. i put in the search option, fully fitted but when i search for a fitting centre it comes up with the nearest one 15 miles away and the blurb for it says that its 9.60 to fit each tyre?

do the tyres get delivered in the post? i cant wait that long, i need to get that tyre off, i do motorway driving every day (apart from tomorrow so need to do it then)

anewman

Not long ago got a new second hand car. The tyres were all new and had been fitted by Kwack Fit a good few months ago. I noticed on examining the numbers closely two were the incorrect size. Took car back with receipt and they replaced them for the correct ones, but yet another good reason I myself will never use the company.

The way blackcircles works is they send the tyre to the garage you select, the only downside to blackcircles is the date you can select is always a good few days away. I have found a good independent tyre supplier in my local area that supplies and fits Kumho tyres for less than the cheapest on Blackcircles, so will use them in future.