Just looking at these as my fronts need replacing anyway.

mytyres.co.uk have lots of rather cheap brands selling winter rated tyres for about £60 per wheel – fitted!

Has anyone tries any of these lesser known brands? Otherwise, their prices look very good with Avons and Nokians at around £100 per wheel.

i was scared off from the complete unknown names – went for avons in the end – ~£400 for a set of 4 delivered.

Dave

No, I was offered kumho winter tyres for a £10 less per tyre than the Dunlop’s I’ve ended up with. Ring round you local (non-mainstream) tyre sellers, I did and they were as cheap as mytyres/black circle (when you included fitting).. They know they’re up against the web so will easily match prices most of the time in my experience. Just ask what winter tyres they offer, rather then asking for a particular brand.
I know kumho aren’t one of thee worst brand available but had a ‘moment’ with a set (admittedly the tyre place fitted a more “bargain” set than I had wanted), and haven’t forgiven them yet

I’ve run Fulda’s for the last year and half .. perfectly happy (got them part worn off eBay like).

Lived up to my winter tyre (snowflake marked) expectations last year, and I do such low mileage I left them on all summer; not too noisy, still managed to achieve best ever fuel consumption on a long trip in August on them.

I have used Nokian tyres which are great all round and I have run some mid range Marshall tyres and they are great in the snow but you notice a real drop in wet weather performance and to be fair that is where you will get most use during the winter months.

As someone said try your local garage. I had some Hankook winter tyres fitted to my wife’s car for £57 (195/65/15) which was about £30-40 less than Mytyres.

On my car I run Hankook four season tyres all year and I am very happy coming in to the second winter season.

What are the lesser known brands?

Kumho, Hankook & Nokian all do decent winter tyres (from the reviews I have read online).

Nearly bought some Kumho’s myself from mytyres. I use Kumho tyres on my car most of the time.

Linglong, Goodride etc. etc.

Watch the prices of tyres as they fluctuate daily on MyTyres and you can grab a bargain but probably a bit late in the season now unless the late turn of weather has kept demand down.

Not tried any cheap brands but I love my Nokians. Actually going round bends 10mph faster in the wet at 1-5degC with them than I was going round the bends on a fry day in the middle of summer with summer tyres. Not the best summer tyres but not terrible ones and I am very sensitive to poor tyres.

Hankook winter I cept here £63 for 195/65/15 very happy with them. Again local garage better priced than anything online

m,

I have a pair of Nankang Snow Viva-1s that have done 2 previous winters and are superb. Wear is less than the Goodyear Eagle F1s that came OEM. Winter traction in wet, dry, snow and ice was just excellent.
6 weeks ago I bought another pair for the rear, SnowViva 2s this time at £62 each plus £10 local fitting including VAT.
Mytyres delivered within 3 days by courier, so service was spot-on.

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?dsco=110&cart_id=2893915.110.28647&s_p=index

PaulD

I think I paid £55 a corner for my Hankooks, there were a couple of no-names available for a little less but couldn’t see much point to that.

But these threads are a wee bit complicated, because I consider Hankook and Kumho and the like to be quality, known brands whereas to other people they’re no-names.

Just fitted some Kleber Quadraxers I picked up very cheap brand new off ebay to the front of my Mondeo, very impressed so far. They are marked up as a 4 season tyre, though 4 seasons if you live in the Arctic circle I suspect as they are quite obviously a winter tyre, rather than just an aggressive all year round tyre.

The also get very good reviews online it seems…

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Kleber/Quadraxer.htm

I put some cheapo winter tyre on last year and they are superb, MasterSteel I think.

Fitted four Kumho winter tyres to the wife’s car in October. More squirrely in the dry than a set of P7s but far more forgiving / progressive in the cold and wet. Only driven them once on compacted snow / ice. Massive difference to summer tyres, almost hoping for snow now.

Just had a set of Toyo Snowprox 953 tyres fitted…. not had Toyo’s before but they seem good. not cheep though.

Got hankooks on the mrs golf – took it to the lecht last sunday and was first one there before carpark was ploughed

Coped no bother getting me to a parking space and back out ….. The civic and bmw i helped push in had normal tires on

My mechanic has stuck ditch finders on my van – my mistake for just saying replace tires…. Used to be great with winter tires – got stuck on a wet field the other week and have to drive on eggshells – soon as my alternator arrives im off to get a new set o winters !

Hankooks on my estate (hopeless in snow). During last weeks snow in West Yorkshire they proved their worth. Slowing to a stop (queue ahead) on snow/ice, I noticed following car was sliding fast towards me. To gain some distance I booted the gas and nipped smartly out of its way without any wheel spin. Even though I’d given the following car extra space to stop the driver had completely lost control and skidded across road hitting another car head-on. Thankfully no-one was injured.