-On a car, I mean… Obviously it’s a good thing to have them, but I’ve just had my car MOT’ed, which it passed, but I was recommended to change the tyres sometime in the next couple of months.

This is the first time ever, I reckon I’ve been in the position to not just go for the cheapest ones possible. So the thing is, what’s the difference between a £75 car tyre and a £150 one? And are they worth the difference?

I’ll nip in before you get a knowledgeable answer

Some one told me its mileage related. If you are a high miler pricey tyres might last longer, saving hassle and not cost anymore in th elong run

But if you are low mileage you risk them sitting around and being retired due to degradation, with usable tread. Then you’ve wasted money

Tyres should last 5-7 years on a vehicle sat outside. You’d have to be doing super low miles for them to degrade instead of wear out.

To the OP – buying tyres on price is hard because whatever someone has stock of will be cheap. Tyre prices vary wildly and price is not really an indication of quality. Slightly different sizes of the same tyre will be hugely different in price.

My advice would be to buy Nokian tyres. They’re ace. Remarkably quiet, great grip, and all their models are energy savers. This means several more mpg but more usefully that also means they last 50k miles.

if you go for the £150 ones you’ll be able to casually drop the line “I’ve just dropped £600 on a set of xxx for my xxx” in a future ‘what tyres’ thread, for extra stw points.

Tyres do all of your cornering and braking = cheap is not always a good idea.

There is no need, a la STW, to only buy tyres from an artisan tyre manfacturer, but you need to make sure that you’re not going to be skidding off the road or not pulling up in time because you bought the cheapest tyres you could find.

Or you could buy a set of summer ones at £75 a corner, plus a set of winter ones for £75 a corner, and then argue on every tyre thread we have here?

That last point is genius. Unfortunately I have no desire for big hitter status at the moment… I don’t do many miles, as I bike to work, but I do then use if for long trips with family or for big riding weekends. It’s a grufty diesel Passat so nothing glam, and nothing that I’ll be ripping sick lines in anyway… Any other suggestions of good MPG brands?

There are good tyres and bad tyres. It’s hard to really say which are which, though, reviews vary and won’t necessarily be the exact ones you buy, size makes a big difference. So like mountain bike tyres, it’s best to decide in advance which ones will be good based on a little hearsay, then simply believe that as hard as you can.

Both my cars came with terrible tyres fitted. They weren’t dangerous, exactly- you could just opt to drive very slowly, and I’m sure that’s what the previous owners did. But maybe some day, even though you drive more cautiously on the crap tyres, something happens and you need to stop or change direction in a hurry, and you can’t.

But it doesn’t have to be a fortune, the kumhos on my focus were about £65 and did a decent job.

Same as everything else imo, worth spending more than the cheapest, going above midrange is diminishing returns. Cheapest decent tyres for me, no Chinese tat, but Barum, Kumho, Semperit etc all good.

I’ve only tried Nokian and Michelin Energy Saver. The latter grip well enough but are harsh and rough. No clear MPG advantage over the Michelin Pilot Primacy that went before or over the OEM Bridgestone Turanza.

The Passat came with Dunlop Sport on, then it had Nokian WR G2 winters fitted and gained roughly 10% mpg – 50 ish to 55 ish. So when the winters came off I put on Nokian H. £90/corner IIRC. Very quiet indeed but the ride is firmer than the Dunlops, and cornering correspondingly better.

Ill bang out my transit van story one more time. I had some cheap event tyres fitted to the front. They were frankly dangerous! I went back to the garage and complained, basically told them I thought they were dangerous, how they span up in first second and even third gear if it was slightly wet. They would let go at any random moment again in the wet when cornering.
They swapped them without question foc, i got the feeling I wasn’t the first to complain…

Incidentally, OEM tyres are crappier versions of the retail ones with the same name, for some reason. Which is daft. A lot of cars come with OEM energy savers, which are poor, and then people think all energy savers are poor. This isn’t true.

Bikes do that too- the number of people that are sworn off Kenda and Schwable for life after using their terrible OEM spec (but almost identical) kit…

My V6 Golf came with cheap tyres. Replacing them with top of the range Pilot Sports made a huge difference in grip, but you’d only notice it ‘making progress’, or possibly an emergency stop in the wet.

Car tyres – the second most important rubber in a man’s life.

(There’s two things I won’t skimp on with the car – tyres and brake pads)

When it gets wet, that’s when the real cheap tyres earn their name of “ditch finders”, they are noisier, and more prone to carcass distortion. The other big issue with tyres is age, you want to be buying tyres from tyre suppliers that have a good turnover so you get a relatively fresh item.

yes. I had an old (93) Passat and fitted Prestivo tyres (cheapo sub-brand of a bigger manufacturer).

They were pants. My barge like Passat handled like a barge on roller skates. I thought it would be better to get 4 decent (or at least new) tyres, rather than keep on with tyres that were 1mm above their limit, but actually I think in hindsight it would have been better to keep the old ones and waited until I could get 4 matching good quality tyres.

I think of all the cash I have spent on bike tyres and think there is no excuse to skimp on car tyres.

I have lease cars and do a lot of miles, so I have to fit whatever the lease company will authorise at the time, hence i’ve tried quite a few recently, back to back. There is a vast difference in performance and mostly in the wet. Some inspire confidence and some don’t.

I would suggest that you pick a major manufacturer, and go for a tyre that matches your cars intended purpose, no point having a fuel saver on a performance car and a performance tyre on your family diesel. Speed ratings won’t match anyway.

avoid the cheapest, mid range on everything and never had any issues that would not be put down to operator error.

In the dry there is probably not too much in it unless you need them to grip at silly or illegal speeds. In the wet I’d say it does make sense to buy decent tyres however price is no indicator of quality in many cases. I had a set of Bridgestones on one car that were scary in the wet. I changed them out for Yokohamas whilst they were still virtually new and although the Yoki’s were about 2/3rds the cost they were miles better.

Always go for a well-known brand when it come to tyres. Once had to fit some Road Champs to an old Clio I had to get it through the MOT and crashed the next week when I couldn’t get it to turn round a roundabout at 20mph. The insurer refused to pay out as the tyres were of that poor quality, eventually got ATS to pay out as they had supplied sub-standard tyres.

Shop around and you can pick up the new Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance tyres for not too much in most sizes. Very impressed with mine so far and get loads of good reviews.

Incidentally, OEM tyres are crappier versions of the retail ones with the same name, for some reason. Which is daft. A lot of cars come with OEM energy savers, which are poor, and then people think all energy savers are poor. This isn’t true.

Now that’s interesting, I had a set of oem Michelin energy savers on a 62 plate golf and they were appalling. No grip in the wet at all. The difference going to a set of winters, and then continentals something’s in the spring was huge. I know this is quite different to how you found the michelins, so could explain something.
How are they different? Compound or tread pattern?

i have used the cheapest tyres available on my mondeo, which resulted in a noisy, rough ride, with an amazing lack of grip, honestly so bad that my wife thought it was my driving that made the car wheelspin at every junction.
but thankfully they didnt last long, and the half decent ones i replaced them with worked out cheaper in the long run because they lasted about 4 times longer.
this is of little help to you, however, as i have no idea which brands they were.
dont buy cheapest seems to work ok.

this is my subjective experience/imagination and is in no way scientific but expensive tyres are quiet, grippy, predictable and return better mpg.

**** paying £75 a corner though, get down to a breakers yard and get some decent part worns (you have to hang around and chat to the guy picking and fitting them to get good ones) last time i got 4 pirelli Pzero for £60. lasted me 2+ years at which point i sold the car

It seems, inadvertently I have spawned a thread… Loads of gear points here, thanks to all. Some of the comments on cheap tyres are an eye opener; either I’ve been blessed with the ‘cheap’ tyres I was sold in the past, or my car handling skills match my two wheeled radness…. er…

have a look at Toyo’s.

Had Nokiens fitted to my previous car by a main dealer. Not great in the dry and terrible in the wet and the Continental Sports Contacts I fitted afterwards made a huge improvement and lasted just as long. Toyo’s as previously mentioned are just as good as the more expensive brands but around 2/3 the price. I’d go the Toyo route if you want a good tyre for less money. Toyo T1R’s particularly impressive.

I skimp on my car tyre just recently.. Westlake cheap.. Noisiest tyre by far even with radio on..hums like an elixirs..it is so bad i wish some yobs would stab my tyre wherever i park in city centre so to give me reason to change it. 😡

How are they different? Compound or tread pattern?

Dunno, but it’s well documented online. Probably compound, as tread pattern makes little difference. The tread is only there to shift standing water anyway.

OEM tyres on the Prius would wheelspin (or rather, cause traction control to cut the throttle) quite easily. On all subsequent tyres I can just floor it and be away.

Nokians on the Passat have no detectable issues. I regularly brake-test in both dry and wet, I hardly ever get the ABS to kick in. ADAC also seem to like them.

Shop around for prices from local car tyre specialists. Sometimes the quality brands need not be much more than budget.