Best brand tyres? Please can someone advise?

martyp

Hi all,
I'm looking around for a new pair of tyres for the front of my car which will have good traction and will help me get up a fairly steep slope to where I live in the snow. My car is FWD so front tyres are quite important. The tyres are 185 60 R14 and I've compared online prices to local places and there doesn't seem to be much difference but I'm really ensure on the brands and what might be a bargain. These are the prices I have got so far:
Uniroyal - £48.25
Firestone - £47
Goodyear/Dunlop - £53
Michelin - £60
Kumho - £50
Budget brand - £33
Maxis - £45
Avon - £47
Marshall KH35 - £44

I'm totally clueless as to which are the best brands and all the places were saying positive things about different brands so I'm hoping for some impartial advice on here as to which of the above might be a great brand at a great price?

Many thanks

mikey72

Get the uniroyals

Weird_Nev

I would avoid "budget" and "marshalls" but any of the others will do you fine.

For true snow performance you need actual winter tyres though... whole differnt kettle of fish.

martyp

Many thanks both, I must admit I hadn't considered the uniroyals as I wasn't sure of them so I appreciate the suggestion there. The Marshalls were offered to me at a reduced price to compete with another price I had been given.
I'd had Goodyears and Michelins before and they seemed great but the Michelins are a bit more than I would want to spend really, I was aiming at up to around £55 max.
I think I'd go for good all season tyres as I wouldn't really want to keep swapping them around (and pay for the service) twice a year.

gilbert_and_sullivan

At those prices i doubt any are winter or genuine all season spec.

Out of the list i too would get Uniroyal Rain Experts.

If you want decent winter/all season your are leaving it a bit late to find bargains.

agrinnall

It's been said on most threads about winter tyres but a good option (if you have storage space) is to get a set of steel rims with winter tyres on and simply swap the wheels yourself once the cold weather arrives. An advantage of that is that it saves your nice alloys from the ravages of winter weather and road salt. It's what I do myself - I have Firestone Winterhawks and they have been great all through last winter and today when snow arrived here,

martyp

I just realised something with two of the dealers at least. The one that offered me the Marshals as a means of competing with another dealer also sell Uniroyals. On the website of that company (F1 Autocentres) they advise that they will match any online quote + an extra £5 per tyre...
So if I play my cards right I might be able to get the Uniroyals for £43 as I noticed F1 stock those. The other place offering the Uniroyals for £48 is a smaller more local dealer but also state on their website that they will beat any price locally or on the internet...
Hmm... could be doing a few calls tomorrow
The chap at F1 seemed really keen to give the best price so might have a bit of fun here.
I'm never sure how things work when you have 2 or more companies who guarantee to beat each others prices? How far would they go???

marywooyeah

OP where did you get the firestone quotes from? my front 2 need replacing and I've been quoted £96 each at the garage!

martyp

agrinnall wrote: »

It's been said on most threads about winter tyres but a good option (if you have storage space) is to get a set of steel rims with winter tyres on and simply swap the wheels yourself once the cold weather arrives. An advantage of that is that it saves your nice alloys from the ravages of winter weather and road salt. It's what I do myself - I have Firestone Winterhawks and they have been great all through last winter and today when snow arrived here,

Thanks for the suggestion, sadly my storage space is limited (I would love a garage one day!) so couldn't really accommodate 4 spare rims with tyres. I feel bad that my bike is in the back garden and suffering a bit in the rain (the cover keeps blowing off when it's windy!).

martyp

marywooyeah wrote: »

OP where did you get the firestone quotes from? my front 2 need replacing and I've been quoted £96 each at the garage!

Sorry marywooyeah, they're a small local firm with a few branches around here but confined to the West Midlands which might not be worth the journey for you? I'm happy to PM you with their details if you did want to follow it up, bear in mind how much the prices fluctuate for different sizes, is it 185 60 R14 that you need?

martyp

The uniroyals do look good after reading up on them a bit. My car is small and very light so tends to suffer a lot with loss of traction when pulling away, the front wheels often slip a lot especially in wet weather.