is there any noticeable difference between tyre brands?

rodenal

sunshinetours wrote: »

Wife's car has Pirelli P6's - they are pretty poor on dry and wet grip. Last well though - presumably pretty hard compound

I have Conti Sportcontact 2's on my car during the warmer months and they grip fantastically. Not cheap tyres by any stretch, so if you can fuind on offer go for them

Any tyre with legal tread will be better than you currently have, especially at this time of year

Premium contact and sport contacts are different tyres, the premium contact are stil la good tyre though

sunshinetours

rodenal wrote: »

Premium contact and sport contacts are different tyres, the premium contact are stil la good tyre though

Oops yes indeed - didn't read OP very well

Weird_Nev

90% of the time it makes no difference.
Sadly, the other 10% of the time is when tyres are of critical importance!

That said, stick with new tyres and known brands and you won't go far wrong.

BenL

I have 205/55R16 on my Astra and this time have £63 each BARUM BRAVURIS 2 on the fronts, I had Khumos on last year and they were not as grippy as these current ones. However, I have lost fuel efficiency on these Barums.

The car came with Bridgestones from new and I had a couple of sets of those over the time of having the car, they were pretty good but didn't last as long as the Khumos. I will be lucky to get a year out of the Barums, the Khumos did a year though between MOTs.

I do between 25,000 and 30,000 a year.

The original rear Bridgestones did 65,000 miles i think, the Khumos are still on the back and have done 40,000 and do look like they will outlast the original Bridgestones.

The next ones up for me are Firestone TZ300 and Avon ZV5 at £71 each

Goodyear efficientgrip come in it at £73 along with Dunlop Fast response. Next time I will spend an extra £10 a corner and see if over the miles they work out better than these.

The saying "buy cheap, buy twice" does come to mind.

Have a look through a few sites (I use tyre-shopper.co.uk) and see what balance you get between price and the name you know. Sometimes there are special offers that bring a better brand than you would expect e.g. the Dunlop fastresponse are down from £131 each to £72.50.

Ben

split_second

i'm in a dilemma at the moment, spending roughly £75 a corner i can get either dunlop sportresponse, yokohama c-drive, or spend £80-ish a corner and try and match up the continental ones

am i right in thinking that most garages through these sites will have maybe 1 or 2 makes and if i book a week or so in advance they will order what i want and have it ready?

[Deleted User]

For someone who never checks their tyres and happily drives around on them illegally until told so by the MOT test. I wouldn't have thought which brand to buy would have made any difference.

mikey72

split_second wrote: »

i'm in a dilemma at the moment, spending roughly £75 a corner i can get either dunlop sportresponse, yokohama c-drive, or spend £80-ish a corner and try and match up the continental ones

am i right in thinking that most garages through these sites will have maybe 1 or 2 makes and if i book a week or so in advance they will order what i want and have it ready?

Somwhere like blackcircles will book in advance, then deliver them to the fitting garage in a couple of days.

jase1

Avoid the very cheapest private-brand tyres from unknown Chinese manufacturers and for the most part the rest of the market is much of a muchness.

Yes there are better gripping tyres and ones that last longer (but generally not at the same time, which is something to look out for -- I'd take grip over lifetime any day), but the difference between a decent budget/mid-range tyre like a Maxxis/Nankang/Khumo/Hankook/etc and a premium tyre is in the order of a few percent.

Even the very cheapest tyres don't all grip badly. Look at the "treadwear" rating on the tyre -- if a cheap tyre has a low treadwear it probably won't last very long (not an issue if you're a low-mileage road user) but will most likely grip competently.

Every time I've driven a car recently where I've thought the tyres are suspect in the wet (and this doesn't just mean cheap tyres -- some Michelins are decidedly dodgy) the treadwear rating has been 400+ -- I avoid such tyres.

rodenal

jase1 wrote: »

Avoid the very cheapest private-brand tyres from unknown Chinese manufacturers and for the most part the rest of the market is much of a muchness.

Yes there are better gripping tyres and ones that last longer (but generally not at the same time, which is something to look out for -- I'd take grip over lifetime any day), but the difference between a decent budget/mid-range tyre like a Maxxis/Nankang/Khumo/Hankook/etc and a premium tyre is in the order of a few percent.

I couldn't disagree more with some of that - in my experience driving reasonably powerful mostly rwd cars (200-260bhp) there is a massive difference between the "high end" budget tyres like nankangs (NS2's for example -complete ditchfinders) and mid rangers, usually only fully apparent in wet conditions when you really need them to work. There is generally a far less noticeable difference between most mid range tyres and premiums but you're right in that there are stinkers in every range (i.e the Pirelli P6000).

Crabman

Stay away from the unknown Chinese brands, the quality is so variable it's a wonder they are even allowed to be sold in the UK.

These days a tyre costs roughly the same, if not less (with a bit of negotiating) than a tank of fuel.

So call a few local places and find out what the best price is for a well known brand. Completely agree with what Weird Nev says in post #14.

I found this site very useful in reviewing tyres: http://www.rezulteo-tyres.co.uk/