Fifth Gear: Continental tyre ditchfinder...

jase1

This week's Fifth Gear reported on tyres, and an interesting result came out.

They compared a Renault Scenic's factory-fit Continental eco tyres with a set of very average Matadors at half the price.

Although handling was inferior on the Matadors to the Continentals, they put the car through a standard wet-road braking test at the end of the report.

The Continentals took a full seven metres more to stop from just 40mph than the Matadors. The reason given was the trade-off between grip and economy.

Since we often see people dismissing budget tyres on the strength of similar results going the other way, this was a very interesting and illuminating insight into the dangers of driving with eco-tyres, even good ones selected for a car by the manufacturer.

Loganfire

If you watch it again he say and quotes Matadors are a mid range tyre, he also explains what the difference is. He also show part warn winter tyres and they do better at stopping in wet than the Matadors. All depends on what you want from your tyres.

Hintza

I would hope most of us on here have the savy to realise that "eco tyres" will compromise on stopping ability.

Everything with tyres is a compromise unfortunately.

Rolling resistance
Stoping ability
Wear
Noise

Improve one and you reduce the efficiency of another.

jase1

Loganfire wrote: »

If you watch it again he say and quotes Matadors are a mid range tyre, he also explains what the difference is. He also show part warn winter tyres and they do better at stopping in wet than the Matadors. All depends on what you want from your tyres.

Agreed -- I did take all that on board.

The surprise to many though is in the area I highlighted. It is a mistake to categorise tyres based on brand, clearly. There seems to be this idea that because the larger tyre companies spend a lot of money on R&D, that they can somehow defeat physics. This piece demonstrates that the compromise applies to eco tyres as much as it does to any other.

And yes, I realise that Matadors are mid-range (and not bad tyres at that). Which is why I referred to them as 'average' -- precisely what they are.

BertTheRaccoon

For the money I don't think you can go wrong with the Toyo Proxes T1-R, plenty of wet & dry grip and usually around £60 a corner unless you're running drug dealer size alloys

Angry_Fanboy

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

...unless you're running drug dealer size alloys

And if you are?

BertTheRaccoon

Angry_Fanboy wrote: »

And if you are?

You'll get dry bummed for tyre prices, unless you buy ling long plastic types

Angry_Fanboy

Dry!!?? :rotfl:

King_Nothing

Yeah, I'm thinking of dropping back down to 18" from 19" to try and save a bit money on tyres now.

BertTheRaccoon

Ride quality is generally rubbish when you're running on 40 or 35 profile rubber bands, especially on our pot hole infested roads

flyingscotno1

Off Topic but never understood car manufacturers liking large low profile tyres on humble hatchbacks.

It's a British thing though as sometimes the cars on the Continent are specified with different size tyres as standard.