I also had a Micra 1.2 for a spell last year, it came with two mostly knackered front tyres. The handling was quite alarming IMO so one of the first things I did was replace the fronts with a “well reviewed” mid range tyre (quite a lot cheaper than £100, but after checking, they’ve crept up in the last year) expecting the difference was going to be night and day…
…it wasn’t!! I had the alignment checked twice because I thought something was seriously wrong, but the front axle of that car is frightening:0) zero feel, super light, then a really sudden “fold” as the car understeers cheerfully into oblivion! The old tyres were feathered on the outside edges (possibly not helped by an astonishingly tight turning circle) but worn evenly otherwise to near the limit.
Obviously I’m also a driving god, so had to have a go at spirited driving on quiet roads to see how the car reacted, but it was a short experiment that revealed that it’s definitely ideally suited to cat food runs ;0)
Economy is brilliant, space, great for a small car, radio/Bluetooth was quite good and mine made me £500 in 6 months, so a great car!!
But they are cheap, fugly little cars with very limited front grip (just nipping out of a junction could easily spin the wheels if it was slightly damp or the day had a “Y” in it) very difficult to find fault with, but not an easy car to like ;0)
Shocked at how much tyres for my berlingo with 15 inch wheels were. Wanted another set of michelin climate+ tyrs and they were 125 quid each!!! Even really budget/shit options were coming in at 80-90 quid.
Where you looking ? I see continentals / Goodyear's /vredestiens in all season flavours for 75-85 quid.
Cross climate 2 coming in at 100 a corner.
We have Goodyear ultragrip winters on our Berlingo.
New tires on the summer alloys stung a bit. Think we hankook or kumhos on them. Wasn't change from 450 quid - they are 16s anything premium branded was frankly mental money for a tire that's useful 4 months of the year.
Michelin are generally very good tyres
Why not look at “tyrepros” fir what could fit.
Blackcircles too (although they end up sending you to a local dealer where they reluctantly fit.
So, I check blackcircles first look at reviews etc then buy from tyrepros.
Hope it helps.
Your size starts at £60 on tyrepros site fir a budget tyre. Tyres do certainly differ in grip, noise, economy, wear but I’d imagine even budget must be safe?
With 80 horses Id have to be doing something quite stupid to get it to break traction.
Like an emergency stop? That kind of stupid crazy manoeuvre?
Like an emergency stop? That kind of stupid crazy manoeuvre?
Is that something your car struggles with ? Mine stops just fine thanks.....I actually thought the abs was broken when I first got it as I was actively trying to make it function and it was quite hard work getting it to break traction even on wet surfaces.
And that's with drums out back ...somefolk would have you believe I should be dead by now with such inferior technology
Is that something your car struggles with ? Mine stops just fine thanks
One is on decent tyres, so the ABS doesn't come on; the other is on crappy OEM versions of Michelin and it will skid if you brake.
Not sure your point - are you saying that no tyre, no matter how rubbish, will lock up during an emergency stop? Because I don't think that's the case.
No I'm saying I have direct experience of a comparable of vehicle(both weight and power) on quality tires suited to the climate it's in and it handles just fine without fitting bigger wheels or wider tires even when I'm purposefully trying to brake traction underhard breaking
I'm not theorising about some whatiffery.
On the flip side I had conti van contacts on a 3 ton van that sound pretty much like the ops Micra. Couldn't trust it to go round a corner without them forgetting what their job was.
No I’m saying I have direct experience of a comparable of vehicle(both weight and power) on quality tires suited to the climate it’s in and it handles just fine without fitting bigger wheels or wider tires even when I’m purposefully trying to brake traction underhard breaking
Right, and the OP has the same car on poor tyres and it skids. So we can conclude that poor tyres are poor.
My point from my comment was that you don't need to be driving fast in order to need decent tyres.
Not driven this generation of Micra, but that's what I suspected the issue would be... I've driven many cars that no amount of expensive rubber could fix!
are you saying that no tyre, no matter how rubbish, will lock up during an emergency stop?
with ABS it won't lock. It might patter and scub but it won't lock as in wheels stop rotating. Try it on a clear national speed limit road with nothing else on the road in any conditions except snow or ice. On very low grip surfaces the engine stalling can result in locked wheels if you don't dip the clutch.
I tried just about everything possible when ABS first came out on a car it was possible to disable the ABS and had an adjustable limiter for the back brakes. I came to the conclusion the system was more consistent than me except on snow and ice.
What will happen how ever is the stopping distance on shit tire will be increased as the abs detects lock and releases more often.
But I did exactly as edukator did to a. Test my abs and b. Know how my new to me car reacts under hard braking....a habit from driving 1980s cars which had a habit of wanting to locking up and wanting to swing round on you unless you were heavy loaded.
