The Dogfather
30th November 2007, 03:22 PM
Not another tyre thread I hear you scream, hopefully this isn’t like all the others though. As my MX5 is particularly sensitive to tyre choice I started doing some research about tyres as I was considering buying some winter tyres. I thought some of this information would be of interest to others especially as my car shares it’s tyre size with the MINI.
I’ve read over 20 tyre reviews and looked at countless forum board threads where tyres were being discussed so a fair bit of work has gone into this post. I could have gone into far more detail but I decided to keep it short. If you have any questions please ask. I would appreciate if this thread isn’t trashed by people posting single line opinions about one particular brand of tyre, I will ask mods to remove posts which fall into this catagory that I don't think add anything to the thread.
Five Things I’ve learnt about about tyres.
Compromise
Everything to do with tyres is about compromise. If you want great dry grip then slicks is the way to go, just don’t go out in the rain. Great wet performance means a loss in feel and dry grip. Usually summer tyres loose grip below 7C and winter tyres overheat and wear out quickly above this temperature. Picking the right tyre for you is all about finding the compromise that suits you. Now every tyre manufacturer will tell you their tyre is the best in all conditions but that’s just the marketing department talking.
Brands
First and foremost if you want a good tyre you can’t really go wrong if you stick to the higher price tyres in the major brands ranges; Michelin, Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone and Continental. These brands of tyres always seem to fill the majority of the top places in any test. Beyond this is really down to personal preference. I’ve heard quite a few people say the Toyo T-1Rs are great tyres, in fact I’ve said as much myself, however in most reviews these tyres have performed badly.
Loosing your grip?
Well, everyone knows that tyres grip less in the wet, but one thing I didn’t realise is that road temperature has a big effect as well, well at least below 7C. Summer tyres, and by that I mean most of the tyres on sale in the UK, loose grip below this temperature. Below 7C most winter tyres will start to comfortably outperform any summer tyre. The reason for this is caused by a number of facts but primarily the summer compounds loose their flexibility at these low temps. This loss of performance is similar, if not greater, to the loss of performance on wet roads in my opinion.
I’ve been looking at the way my car handles on the way to work since I got it and I’ve noticed that on days when the roads are cold the car is a real handful especially in the wet. I was blaming it on the roads being greasy with not having any rain days but having researched it turns out my tyres don’t work on cold days.
Tread patterns
The latest thing in tyre technology seams to be asymmetric tyres, these tyres have differing patterns across the tyre. They have an inside and outside edge, on normal driving the car travels on the inside edge and this is designed prevent aquaplaning. On cornering though the car leans onto the outside edge which is designed to provide more lateral grip (cornering ability). This is probably a simplification but basically the tyre has more rubber in contact with the road when you’re cornering.
Switching to smaller narrower tyres in winter
A lot of people seem to swear by this method of surviving any snow fall in winter, and to some extent this works the narrower tyres cuts through the slush to reach the road below but they are still prone to loosing grip in deep snow. However, to keep going no matter what, you need full winter friction tyres. The problem is we don’t have that many snow days in the UK to justify keeping proper snow tyres on all winter, as they wear out very quickly in warm temps. So what’s the next best option to a set of full winters? All season tyres are designed to work all year round and they’ll work better in the snow than a summer tyre.
My Decision
I narrowed my choices down to the Vredstein Wintrac Extremes and Nokian WR G2s. (You need to go to 215/45R17 for the Nokians on the MINI). The Wintracs are marketed as a full winter tyre whilst Nokian call the WRG2s an all season tyre; however both carry the severe service emblem. Both are available as runflats.
http://www.nokiantires.com/en/tire_wrg2.aspx?season=summer (http://www.nokiantires.com/en/tire_wrg2.aspx?season=summer)
http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/details.pl?ID=froogle&typ=R-123090&Country=UK (http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/details.pl?ID=froogle&typ=R-123090&Country=UK)
I’ve decided to buy the Nokian WRG2s from MyTyres.co.uk as they are £20 cheaper than the Wintracs and I only need to cope with occasional snow days.
Eventually, I’ll be replacing my Precedas with the Nokian NRYs. Whilst these tyres can’t cope with snow, they can handle the cold and wet and as a result can stay on the car for most of the year. They are what you could call an ‘all temperature’ tyre. MyTyres have them in stock at £85 and they are Y rated (up to 186mph) so they are pretty high performance. They aren’t that far behind the top brand summer tyres for performance in summer, but in winter they’ll perform far far better.
BTW, one tyre that came out really well in dry tests was the incredibly cheap Federals (a summer only tyre, maybe?).
I hope that this is of some use. :D
I’ve read over 20 tyre reviews and looked at countless forum board threads where tyres were being discussed so a fair bit of work has gone into this post. I could have gone into far more detail but I decided to keep it short. If you have any questions please ask. I would appreciate if this thread isn’t trashed by people posting single line opinions about one particular brand of tyre, I will ask mods to remove posts which fall into this catagory that I don't think add anything to the thread.
Five Things I’ve learnt about about tyres.
Compromise
Everything to do with tyres is about compromise. If you want great dry grip then slicks is the way to go, just don’t go out in the rain. Great wet performance means a loss in feel and dry grip. Usually summer tyres loose grip below 7C and winter tyres overheat and wear out quickly above this temperature. Picking the right tyre for you is all about finding the compromise that suits you. Now every tyre manufacturer will tell you their tyre is the best in all conditions but that’s just the marketing department talking.
Brands
First and foremost if you want a good tyre you can’t really go wrong if you stick to the higher price tyres in the major brands ranges; Michelin, Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone and Continental. These brands of tyres always seem to fill the majority of the top places in any test. Beyond this is really down to personal preference. I’ve heard quite a few people say the Toyo T-1Rs are great tyres, in fact I’ve said as much myself, however in most reviews these tyres have performed badly.
Loosing your grip?
Well, everyone knows that tyres grip less in the wet, but one thing I didn’t realise is that road temperature has a big effect as well, well at least below 7C. Summer tyres, and by that I mean most of the tyres on sale in the UK, loose grip below this temperature. Below 7C most winter tyres will start to comfortably outperform any summer tyre. The reason for this is caused by a number of facts but primarily the summer compounds loose their flexibility at these low temps. This loss of performance is similar, if not greater, to the loss of performance on wet roads in my opinion.
I’ve been looking at the way my car handles on the way to work since I got it and I’ve noticed that on days when the roads are cold the car is a real handful especially in the wet. I was blaming it on the roads being greasy with not having any rain days but having researched it turns out my tyres don’t work on cold days.
Tread patterns
The latest thing in tyre technology seams to be asymmetric tyres, these tyres have differing patterns across the tyre. They have an inside and outside edge, on normal driving the car travels on the inside edge and this is designed prevent aquaplaning. On cornering though the car leans onto the outside edge which is designed to provide more lateral grip (cornering ability). This is probably a simplification but basically the tyre has more rubber in contact with the road when you’re cornering.
Switching to smaller narrower tyres in winter
A lot of people seem to swear by this method of surviving any snow fall in winter, and to some extent this works the narrower tyres cuts through the slush to reach the road below but they are still prone to loosing grip in deep snow. However, to keep going no matter what, you need full winter friction tyres. The problem is we don’t have that many snow days in the UK to justify keeping proper snow tyres on all winter, as they wear out very quickly in warm temps. So what’s the next best option to a set of full winters? All season tyres are designed to work all year round and they’ll work better in the snow than a summer tyre.
My Decision
I narrowed my choices down to the Vredstein Wintrac Extremes and Nokian WR G2s. (You need to go to 215/45R17 for the Nokians on the MINI). The Wintracs are marketed as a full winter tyre whilst Nokian call the WRG2s an all season tyre; however both carry the severe service emblem. Both are available as runflats.
http://www.nokiantires.com/en/tire_wrg2.aspx?season=summer (http://www.nokiantires.com/en/tire_wrg2.aspx?season=summer)
http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/details.pl?ID=froogle&typ=R-123090&Country=UK (http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/details.pl?ID=froogle&typ=R-123090&Country=UK)
I’ve decided to buy the Nokian WRG2s from MyTyres.co.uk as they are £20 cheaper than the Wintracs and I only need to cope with occasional snow days.
Eventually, I’ll be replacing my Precedas with the Nokian NRYs. Whilst these tyres can’t cope with snow, they can handle the cold and wet and as a result can stay on the car for most of the year. They are what you could call an ‘all temperature’ tyre. MyTyres have them in stock at £85 and they are Y rated (up to 186mph) so they are pretty high performance. They aren’t that far behind the top brand summer tyres for performance in summer, but in winter they’ll perform far far better.
BTW, one tyre that came out really well in dry tests was the incredibly cheap Federals (a summer only tyre, maybe?).
I hope that this is of some use. :D