There appears to be just as much bull and hype surrounding overpriced tyres for cars as mountain bikes and motorbikes. My car required 2 new tyres last week – the OE ones were Goodyears at £140 each. The tyre place suggested Falken ones at £85. Being a bit of an enthusiastic bend-swinger type of driver I was sceptical. The tyre place said that they would be every bit as good and probably quieter. Guess what? Noticeably quieter, no difference in grip or handling, wet or dry – in fact they felt a bit more secure in monsoon conditions on the A65 this morning. I can assure you that I don’t hang about on twisty roads. I now await the deluge of people telling me that their M3 or whatever is useless on anything but Contis at £300 a corner ….

New tyres are always much quieter than the ones you replace, cos they have more thick cushiony rubber on. Plus they usually grip better.

Plus the price of a tyre is heavily influenced by how common that size is – as much as the ‘quality’/branding.

Do they last 40% less miles as well as costing 40% less (I know only time will tell on this one…..)?

Well, again listening to the tyre place (and a quick look at some opinions online)the life is comparable to all but Michelin.

Etyres fitted 2 new rears this morning “General tyres – ultimax HP” seem fine probably better than the goodyears they replaced. the Avons they put on the front six months ago are not doing so well wear wise (like you I like to razz the corners a touch too much). think I might swap fronts and rears this weekend…

I’d never go to a tyre place (kwikfit or similar) out of choice now they’re proper cowboys. much cheaper and more convienient to book/pay online and have someone come to your house/work and fit them…

Actually I think I had some falkens once on an old car fronts were at the legal limit after about 6K miles continentals they replaced did more like 20K!

Take it easy on ’em I reckon especially over winter…

I put Falken FK452’s on the front of my Leon FR, previously they were Goodyear Excellence

After the initial “ooh new tyres” stage I have to say I wasn’t that impressed by them. They are almost as grippy as the Goodyears but they just don’t feel as nice, steering isn’t as positive and you can’t lean on them the same way.

Wear rate is pretty bad as well. If they were as the OP suggested £50 a corner cheaper then I would forgive them but shopping round I could have got the Goodyears for £15 more than I paid for the Falken’s

I’d never go to a tyre place (kwikfit or similar) out of choice now they’re proper cowboys. much cheaper and more convienient to book/pay online and have someone come to your house/work and fit them…

Quite – only use Etyres now.

If you want long life tyres, get energy saving ones, my preference is Nokian. They last easily twice as long as normal tyres.

New tyres are always much quieter than the ones you replace, cos they have more thick cushiony rubber on. Plus they usually grip better.

You can’t really compare a new tyre to an old tyre until you’ve done a few thousand miles to burn off the mould release agent and bed them in, they get way better then!

In the dry, less tread equals more grip due to less deformation of the blocks, ’tis why competition drivers who have to use a road legal tyre shave the treads.

Best wear I’ve ever got out of a tyre was some Toyo Proxes T1R on the back of my old car. I did about 16,000 miles on them before I sold the wheels, and there was still just under 1cm of tread depth left.

That was a hooligan of a RWD car as well, so they took a fair battering.