^OPM^

After a pair of new front tyres for my focus, the tyres are size 225/4/18 been online doing a few checks and it seems to me that the more expensive tyres are no better under the new tyre labelling indicators then a lot of the cheaper tyres.

Infact found some fully fitted sailun tyres for £64 fitted each that are fuel rated 'b' , rain grip rated 'b' and noise level of 72db , these seem a bargain when i can go up to £200 each michelin that are fuel rated 'f', rain rated 'b' and 73 db noise.

In looking through i cant find a more expensive tyre that beat em, some are a tad quieter, but none are more fuel efficient infact most are a lot worse and non are better in rain.

Think im going to save myself a fair bit of wonga and get the cheap tyres

john banks

I've always bought premium brand tyres backed up by (biased?) magazine tests or user reviews. Hedgefinders the no name brands may be, but your report does make me wonder. How wide is the "b" grade for rain for example? In what I think are the US ratings for traction, temperature, everything seems to score multiple "A". More info needed I think.

BurtyBurg

iTrader: (2)

Cheap tyres are crap end of haha, I've had 3 sets of wheels on the car, One had fullruns which squirmed around and made loads of road noise, nankangs which were just ****e and now dunlop sportmaxx rt and they don't even compare the grip is insane...

WRX_Dazza

depends what car they go on? my Mondeo has some pretty non-descript tyres on it, but they being new, were much much better than 1/2 worn Pirellis, that were on it.

Im guessing by the tyre size that your focus is not a 1.6LX, so dont skimp on critical rubber... might save your life one day !!

i have seen some nasty sidewall blistering on cheap tyres fitted to scoobs, something to do with non, or not as well reinforced sidewalls, but i'm no expert.... Give Maggs a call at Ruislip Tyres, he can advise you. (Middlesex Subaru Owners Club member)

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

No one ever thought that like tablets... You paying for a name.
Boots pain killers 13p nurofen £3.99 and identical to the point they have the same licence number!
Expensive doesn't always mean better

john banks

I'm open to that idea RobsyUK, but if you ask any doctor or pharmacist whether genuine but unbranded ibuprofen and the same dose of branded neurofen are going to perform the same, they will all tell you they do. If you ask drivers, motoring journalists and tyre people the same about tyres they will tell you to go for a mainstream/premium brand and generally won't say much too bad about Michelin and Goodyear. I've never seen reports showing a hedgefinder budget tyre being incredible in testing, but would like to, especially if it comes in 20" runflat size as my tyre bills are £370 a corner presently.

Leslie

Do they tell you what sort of mileage you can expect from the different tyres?

Les

Moley

iTrader: (9)

Have you ever driven on budget tyres?

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Bollocks to op that is not true IMO, don't know where you read that but try compare them for yourself and push the car to its limits and see which tyre makes you crash, slide, wear quicker and brake differences.

daviee

I had Avon ZZ3 in my 18s for 3 and a half years 2 sets on front and 1 on the back. They worked well on wet, snow and the dry but the big plus was noise, I now have Pirelli p zero nero and the noise is so bad. They are no better than the Avons, infact worse in the wet and damp, but to be fair not had a warm day since I put then on in September to comment on warm dry roads. I am lowering the pressure a bit to see if it helps.

I would love to know who tested the tyres because both are rated at 72db but I know for a fact they are no where near the same noise level.

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Pirelli p zeros I hate, they have always been noisey like bearing noise, not sure on handling just got rid straight away on a car I had previously.
Best bet is to get proven recommended tyres and tested by real people on certain cars instead of reading the review junk that's out there.
Saying that I ended up with t1rs on a newage after reading owners reviews, what a mistake, my previous Avon zv5 were better. Suppose it depends on diffrent driver requirements and the manor of driving.
Although I read that they are ok on classics

addi monster

iTrader: (6)

I drive on the road like most others

john banks

Neither Avon or Pirelli are hedgefinder brands though? Unless Avon is? Sunny, Fullrun and whatever tyres my young neighbour has on his Corsa that I've never heard of probably qualify.

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Put it this way I found the Avon zv5 better than toyo t1r on a newage, although I think their both rubbish,(for me). Others may like.

jef

iTrader: (13)

never mind what the label says, its when its not removed from the tread area that pisses me off,

drive away and you can here every revolution, and i wander what the braking/grip performance of a plastic sticky label actually is lol.

i fitted tyres for many years, some were bloody awful,stunners, or any retread really. dont know why but michelins i always regarded as the best quality tyre - hated the tread pattern on the pirelli p600?? but the p-zero was ok.

these tyres are probably all obsolete now it was that long ago lol

PaulC72

I recently replaced the 2 front tyres on my insignia, if I had put bridgestones back on they were £240 each, I spoke to my local VX dealer who put me some Nexen on for £100 each and I must say they are a very good tyre so far and feel more grippy than the previous.

The Nexen are also made by one of the big makers (who I cannot remember which one).

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

I have given up on budget tyres. When I bought my focus, it had about 3 different brands of cheap tyres on it.

All replaced by michelin now.

I really don't get the new rating system. It says that the Michelin tyres I have are amongst the worst for wet weather performance. Not that I agree. Who decides on these ratings? I just don't believe them to be honest.

M444GY

iTrader: (72)

A lot of the budget tyres have similar ratings to the big branded ones this is true , and customers have asked me the same question , ..its all about the quality in the manufacturing I say , they may have similar stats but if you put a budget next to a michellin say ,you can see the difference in the rubber ,texture and feel , a lot of the budgets suffer from tread seperation ,warping , feathering etc which is very rare on a branded tyre , if you don't want to spend big bucks have a look at the new falken range ,914/453 patterns , they have excellent ratings and are good prices to and they are a main brand ,they seem to have stepped up to the mark with all the new patterns and are good value for money

^OPM^

To answer a few questions.

The car isn't a performance ford just cos it has 18" wheels, it is actually only a 1.8 titanium model just happens to have the optional handling pack on that gives it that size wheel.

Not all budget tyres are as good as high performance/price tyres on the grading system just these ones are, maybe its because they are a new manufacturer trying to break into Europe so are selling tyres cheap at first to try to get into market? a quick google search brings up that sailun are a Chinese company.

Here is a link first to a page telling you all about the tyre labelling system and explaining difference between a good tyre in terms of fuel economy and stopping distances etc.

http://www.blackcircles.com/general/...ing/tyre-label

And here is a link to a page telling you the options for my size tyres and prices fitted plus the relevant grading info.

http://www.tyresavings.com/order/sel...es-and-savings

Third tyre down you see the sailun ones at just under £64 each and the ratings for them, as you see 'b' grades for both, yes some of the other cheap tyres have rubbish grades but not these ones.

Scrolling all way down you cant find a better rated tyre so why can these not be a bargain?

jonc

Tyres are the the only things that keeps you in contact with the road. Why skimp on safety and performance to save a few pounds? Mid range tyres like Avons, Toyos, Falkens, Hankooks, etc perform just as well as some premium brands without costing the earth and some have motorsport heritage and development. But cheapo tyres like Goodride, Nanking, Sailun, Sunny, Matador, etc are only good for throwing on an old banger that you've put up for sale.

There's more to a tyre than simply relying on ratings for fuel savings and noise.

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

I had budgets years ago on a FWD TDi Seat Ibiza, never again!

If I was strapped for cash, I'd take part-worn premium tyres rather than unused budgets.

JackClark

Back in '98-'01 I had a company provided Subaru, petrol and tyres were included and I was going through them as you would, in the 3rd year the company insisted that I use cheap tyres, the difference was incredible, I gave them the car back as I felt it was dangerous.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I think this rating system is a load of b*llocks, much like the old American ratings (traction AA, Temperature A Treadwear 260 ) that came before it; Even the crappiest of tyres can get a A rated wet grip rating. Yet in the real world grip on a the typical UK wet and cold road is still inferior. Put simply; In my opinion the benchmark for these grip ratings is still too relaxed.

I still think the UK needs its own tyre rating system for its own year-round climate (not just London's or Brussel's climate ), with a stricter benchmark and ban tyres that fall beneath this.

With this incrased focus/media/marketing on getting winter tyres in the lesser extreme areas of the UK, does anyone ever remember that cars back in the 1980s cars didn't have such problems as they do now? Ever remember the tread designs these period tyres used to have, even the sporty cars? If you can't remember (or were still wearing nappies) I still have the original OEM period tyres off my 1982 XJ-S....150mph tyres fitted to what was once the world's faster car with a automatic gearbox (apparently - so I'm told), that also were succesfully used in the snow and wet as the car was driven all year round (until it started to rust ). Compare that to a modern RWD car on modern tyres. Whatever happened to our "all-weather" tyres? Everything now is rated as Summer use..since when did the UK have Summer weather that lasted longer than two months? .

Lack of sipes and concentric or 'V' grooved patterns show that many "A" rated tyres aren't really good in the wet as they claim, sure a groove allows water to be displaced, but what about the sipes and more importantly the compound? Very little is said about each tyre's compound, and this has a huge affect on wet grip. Additionaly some tyres only have the additional grooves cut a few mm deep into the tread so as soon as they start to wear their performance degrades rapidly, also the rubber compound's properties change as the tyre ages and wears. Do these ratings take this into account?

Some of these cheap Chinese/Indionisian/Korean made tyres are terribe for use in the UK, some of the M+S car tyres maybe acceptable, but only because they acknowledge they need to grip in the wet, even then its hit and miss. Some carry all the markings etc, but really aren't designed for use in the UK...think of how warm it can be in some parts of Asia (regardless of how wet), as well as the standard of road and speed the tyre is expect to be driven on.

Not only that, but as Mags says the quality can vary massively: I've seen tyres that are only three years old (the brand name escapes me, might have picture on the phone somewhere, but these were made in China), the rubber was so perished and hardened that it had cracked to the point you could see the cord through the tread AND sidewalls (MOT fail, and 3 points plus fine on your license if caught by plod). I didn't drive it (didn't want to) but I will guarantee the hardened rubber will give terrible grip in the damp. The owner of the car was oblivious, as usual. Why skimp on £20 a tyre? As thats usually the difference in price on a average car. Ironic they seemed happy to spend hundrens of pounds on new child seats for their kids...yet didn't even think of the four crucial items that could be used to AVOID accidents in the first place? Beggers belief.

This was only a Renault Clio, but it doesn't matter if its a performance car or not. I still remember the Roadchamps on my £150 Nissan Sunny; it was a joke in the damp; Wheelspin in 3rd gear from a 60bhp engine!! Braking and steering equally as useless, I chucked them for some Dunlops, best investment I ever made on that car (as well as tweeking the ignition for our modern "high octane" 95Ron fuel- it was originaly tuned to run on 90Ron fuel ). We also had a Peugeot 206 Van with Nankang NS-1 with the same issue...0-60 is about 20seconds....but probably 30seconds in the real world due to the lack of traction.

Carrying on with the quality, feathering is a pain in the ****. Come on Impreza owners...who has NVH issues from the rear axle? Regardless of it noise rating; The manner in which the tyre wears in combination to the car's factory geometry is a issue with some tyres. Its a chronic issue on VAG PQ35 platform cars (Golf, A3, Leon, Octavia etc), as the rear camber+toe-in feathers the inner tread on the rear....some tyres do it, some don't. Not always cheapies as Bridgestone RE050s do it too (not a good tyre for wet use anyway), but I've seen it loads on no brand tyres too. And when it does it, the noise will drive you insane on long journeys. Trust me I did 15000miles on a set of RE050s...6000 of them with the tyre noise, reversing the tyres on the rim and rotating on the car in attempt to even out the wear didn't work, had geometry checked: it was perfect. Often we get customers of PQ35 cars complaining they have knackered wheel bearings, quick look at the way the tread blocks have worn comfirm its the tyres, yet the Michelin and Goodyears don't appear to do it.

Its not all cheap brands, some branded tyres are poor too (Pirelli nero/Rossos/RE050s etc); especially "eco" fuel saving tyres. I belive the rating system has been geared and banded to make these look better for wet grip to encourage people to use them; Which is why you see so many A resistance rated fuel saving tyres with A or B rated grip performance; For example my Michelin PS3s have A rated grip, F for rolling resistance...yet you can get energy saver tyres with A ratings for both? Wich will will perform better? Take a guess, because I smell bullsh*t. You don't see any F rated tyres for grip...but I think Rossos and RE050s should be a D or F, and they are better than a lot of no-brand budget tyres I've experienced.

Rab555

iTrader: (2)

Had WANLI tyres on my old scooby sport...£120 for 4 brand new...these were comical to say the least lol, very dangerous!

urban

iTrader: (1)

Avon certainly used to be.
Many many years ago after getting my first Impreza, I ruined the original tyres in less than 5K miles

I put on Avon ZZ3's - boy was that a bad mistake.
Worst tyre ever, the car was so unpredictable damp/wet, less vague in the dry.

Matteeboy

Branding all budget tyres as bad and all premiums as great is a bit dumb.

A few cheaper brands are bringing out some good stuff - Hankook for example. Yet a few of the most expensive are just gash - Bridgestone Potenzas latest are just rubbish.

I've been using Conti Sport Contact 3s for ages now and can't fault them - last well, premium but not silly priced, unbeatable in the wet. Michelin Pilots have the edge in the dry but don't have that wet grip.

Keep an open mind when choosing rubber; top dollar is not always the way forward.

Not sure what they're like now but Goodyear Eagle F1s used to be a great tyre for pretty sensible money.

urban

iTrader: (1)

Not a patch on Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

I would be more concerned about putting a size 4 tyre on my car, there must be next to no rubber on it and wouldn't that be below legal limit before you start

^OPM^

typo meant 40

speedking

When Goodyear moved the manufacture of F1s from Germany to China they would not say whether there was any difference between the tyres, only that both complied with the necessary British Standards. I thought there was a noticeable difference in handling and grip before realising that my new tyres were made in China.

So although a standard may be achieved in lab testing, the wide range of acceptance criteria does not preclude a noticeable difference between tyres of the same grade when driving in real world conditions.