Tyre recommendation (a.k.a. rear arm bearings again)

TB2 · Post by **TB2** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 5:49 pm

I finished work on my Swift2 rims (pictures in gallery section) and now I'm looking for a new set of tyres to put on. Can anyone recommend a specific make/model? If possible, they should be as quiet as possible. I thought of using Michelin Energy Saver but I've read that, while they are pretty long lasting (and maybe more energy efficient), they are actually quite loud and have very bad behaviour on wet roads. They should withstand driving at 150km/h (~90mph) for several hours (German highways) even in broad sunlight (so they should be quite heat resistant as well.

I know that's a lot to ask from a set of tyres

I also think that quite tyres are probably more soft and less longlasting, especially at higher velocities...

In any case, does anyone have any opinion on this?

Regards,
Carl

retrodriver · Post by **retrodriver** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:08 pm

Not sure what size you are running but the latest Goodyears are excellent, I had Hydragrips on a Sierra and they were amazing in the rain, best ive ever used, and a good performance tyre. Or Duragrips as fitted on my sisters 500, very smooth riding, quiet and again very grippy wet or dry. However duragrips are mostly found in the smaller sizes with lower speed ratings. Also Goodyear Excellence come fitted to some new Mercs and BMWs and are rated much higher for speed, whilst retaining all the other good qualities. I vote goodyear all the way to be honest.

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:35 pm

retrodriver wrote: I vote goodyear all the way to be honest.

Yes and No

Last pair of tyres on the Front were Goodyear Ducaros and lets put it this way 15,000km wear (less than 10k miles) was far from good wear and traction grip when pulling away and overall wet grip was rather lacking.

Although saying this the set of Goodyear on the none BX are OK!

Read the Tyre reviews its your best judge to be honest.

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:52 pm

kiwi wrote:Stuff about tyres without even mentioning nitrogen once...

Seriously, everyone has their own opinions, but Uniroyal have been recommended several times. I'm using Vredestein Hi Tracs, which I am very happy with, especially in the wet. While I don't tend to do prolonged high speeds, I do corner enthusiastically and they do appear to be lasting resonably well so far...

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:21 pm

mat_fenwick wrote:
kiwi wrote:Stuff about tyres without even mentioning nitrogen once...

He asked about Tyre makes NOT how to prolonge the life of them

Anyways I am still Jury out on what differance Nitogen makes in Tyres on a Family car to many conflicting pieces of information, opinions and mis information available to view. That plus have only done 500km on the Tyres that now has it in and in the couple of months of having N in them they have not lost any pressure.

Regarding my experiance with the Goodyear Ducaros one of the factors that contributed to excessive wear was a wheel alignment being out by 3 degrees on the offside. But the alignment guy said that would have had little effect to the lack of grip I was experiancing with that brand of tyre.

He recently had in a guy with a 4wd that had a new set of tyres and driven them 200km on a stretch of road that is pretty twisty in places and the vehicle did not handle as well as it should have so he got the alignment checked. Nothing wrong with the alignment just simply the brand of tyres did not suit his vehicle or his style of driving, correct tyres for road use just the compounds used did not suit the vehicle.

What may work for one person or vehicle may not work for another! Considering you are rellying on 4 palm sized pieces of rubbber to stick you to the ground and possibly a financial constraint that stops you changing them like an F1 driver every time you go to the service station getting it right makes a differance between a few years of compensating for the handling or replacing your vehicle with maybe a pine box thrown in.

Way2go · Post by **Way2go** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:27 am

kiwi wrote:
mat_fenwick wrote:
kiwi wrote:Stuff about tyres without even mentioning nitrogen once...

in the couple of months of having N in them they have not lost any pressure.

How do you know? If you're checking them with a guage you'll be losing some pressure on each check.

I'm running 33psi of Air in my Michelin Energy tyres and they probably only drop 1psi in 6 months, if that.

Having driven various cars on various tyres I have to say that the Mitchies are my personal favourite.

Post by **docchevron** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:13 am

Uniroyal Rallye 550 FTW.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:24 am

I had Michelin exalto's on the valver, excellent tyre, Michelin stopped making them in the right size 3 years ago though

Now got some cheapo Firestones on em.

TB, don't believe everything you've heard about Michelin Energys, the original versions where pretty bad in the wet but the Energy2 versions are much much better, still a little noisy though. Much better than Pirelli P6000's though!

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:08 am

Way2go wrote:
kiwi wrote:
mat_fenwick wrote:

in the couple of months of having N in them they have not lost any pressure.
How do you know? If you're checking them with a guage you'll be losing some pressure on each check.

I'm running 33psi of Air in my Michelin Energy tyres and they probably only drop 1psi in 6 months, if that. Having driven various cars on various tyres I have to say that the Mitchies are my personal favourite.

But how often do you check your tyre pressures if you only probably only lose 1 psi in 6 months?

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:16 am

Anyone now how to find out a compound rating of a Road Tyre? or if such information is available?

It comes down to that getting the right Tyres according to your driving again of which I would love to have a Full Set of Michelins on the Car again, except I was informed that European made Tyres are more prone to the abrasive Volcanic Material they use on the roads in NZ.

Soon as I pointed out that we use a lot of Australian made Tyres suddenly they cant think of an answer. Which probably explains why the Ducaro GAs wear was so quick!

mountainmanUK · Post by **mountainmanUK** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:00 am

Just a thought, but would it be possible to get some information and/or recommendations from the Australian or New Zealand "version" of the AA or RAC? (Automobile Association or Royal Automobile Club)

Surely there is some National body down there, that holds such info?

kiwi · Post by **kiwi** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:56 am

The AA is or was a very vocal voice in motoring down here in NZ! Dont know about Australia its a differant country but most sources of information and commonsense seems to come from across the ditch.
There is some more irony is that a lot of the information actually comes from the UK that is used as well.

Most the Tyre information I have gained is from Google searching and ironically Australian motoring reviews.

The tyre compound information is probably held by the Tyre Companies and jealosly guarded from the competition.

You would think that location of where you live would be irrelevant to compare tyres which are globally supplied.

retrodriver · Post by **retrodriver** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:53 pm

I run Federal SS595s on the front of my Grande Punto, apparently a very good tyre in Australia and certainly I am keen on them, cheap too!

DavidRutherford · Post by **DavidRutherford** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:19 pm

docchevron1472 wrote:Uniroyal Rallye 550 FTW.

^^

This.

Uniroyal tyres are all manner of Win. Whilst they are "pretty good" in the dry, their performance in the wet is pretty much the same, meaning that they are absolutely fantastic in the wet.

Given the UK climate, I think that's a good thing!

TB2 · Post by **TB2** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:04 pm

So I got new tyres today. I was able to keep two of the old Michelin tyres, and they didn't have any others that would fit the Swift2 rims apart from Michelin Energy tyres. So now I got two of those.

But here's a big problem, and I'm really, really anxious about this...

When I drove off from the tyre guy, I heard some grinding sound from the rear left. I stopped, had a look, but it wasn't touching the plastic side trims, so I went back and they had another look at it and took the wheel off, and the problem is that the tyre is apparently touching the inner side, where there's a seam in the body.

They grinded it off a bit (said it wasn't the first time that they've seen this), and now it's not constantly touching the body it's still touching it at one point in the rotation so that it's making a "ss - ss - ss - ss" sound while driving. I drove home 1km very slowly and took the wheel off again, grinded some more, put it back on, but it's still doing that sound. I don't think this is right

...
Now, may I be suffering of this "dog tail syndrome" or whatever it's called? Could it be that the axle is actually crooked and the wheel is on tilted or something like that? Also, this metal shield-thing is very crooked (although I'm sure it doesn't touch the rim) and if I look at the jacked up car from behind, it seems like the wheel is actually tilted a little, but maybe it's just my imagination... I took a couple of (clickable) pictures...

Mostly I only grinded of undercoating. I'll repaint it as soon as the source of the problem is found...

Please don't tell me that the axle is broken

How can I find out if it actually is?

edit: I just did this test I remembered reading somewhere, to check if I have this dog tail problem. My dad drove off in the BX and I tried looking from behind if the wheels seem tilted, but as far as I was able to tell, they look straight to me... Also looked at the distance between tyre and body with a flash light (with the car on mid, as with high, there's no noise), and it seemed like there's enough space, not much, but maybe 5mm. Same on the other side, where there's no noise. No idea what's the problem. It ain't the break pads as the noise is different and it doesn't do this ss-ss sound with the suspension in high.