Van drivers, what tyres you using? Transit sport.

So the transit I had new a year ago seemingly was fitted with Goodyear cheese tyres, 8244 miles as we speak and I’m on the wear gauge on the fronts. Not overly chuffed. Not standard transit van wheels as it’s the sport so 18 inch rims and 235 wide. Any recommendations?

Avon Avanza’s on my old van. Proper van tyres that lasted 45k (mainly motorway) miles. Don’t know if they come in sport sizes though. Probably not a vast choice of low profile/high load combination.

BF Goodrich activan winters.

That’s the problem, not really any specific “van tyres” they are basically high load car tyres.

Well you’ve always got the ditch the Gucci rims and downgrade to 15″ steelies with plastic trims option. 😁

Well you’ve always got the ditch the Gucci rims and downgrade to 15″ steelies with plastic trims option. 😁

They probably wouldn’t fit over the brakes on the sport.
Standard 15” steels aren’t an option on my T4 Multivan as they don’t fit, just the really expensive Euro Spec 17” steels. (More expensive than alloys!)

Probably why the Custom Sport comes with 17″ alloys as standard! Even the 16″ alloys on my Limited look good IMO, and that gives you a great choice of decent (and cheap!) tyres.

Errm this transit custom sport came with 18 ” wheels as standard?

Ours came with 235/55 x 17 Continentals. 7500 miles and look almost new.

If you get proper hard wearing van tyres, expect to slide for miles when you do an emergency stop…

My son had that problem when he borrowed my van. Fortunately there was the rear of a BMW handy to provide retardation.

Michelin Crossclimates on our Trafic, brilliant this past winter in the snow, slush and rain. Not noticed any bad traits so far in the warmer weather. Only fitted in January so will have to see about longevity.

Edit- Not sure if the Crossclimates are available in 18″

I’m basically in car tyre territory it would seem. It’s even badged up on the drivers door post as 18’s. I’ll never fit cheap van tyres ever again, once had some event branded ones, which produced at least one event on every time out, I actually got my money back on those as they were that bad.

I’m basically in car tyre territory it would seem

I’m going to state the obvious, but get some proper advice from a specialist.
For a Transit I’d guess at a tyre weight rating of 100+, and then you need to account for the highest pressure that Ford recommend, which for lighter commercials might mean a ply rating of 6 or 8 (it won’t necessarily have 6 or 8 plies).
I think that the 18″ wheel is only standard on one Transit model, and most vans are 17″ and smaller, so there won’t be a huge choice of tyres out there

When I had 17″ on a VW T5 I once bought proper load-rated SUV tyres (IIRC 103 rating) – more choice of performance-orientated rubber. But as @timba says above, unlikely to have the 6 or 8 plies of normal van tyres but might open up more options for you if you’re happy with that.

Now got proper van tyres Pirelli Carrier all-seasons in 215/65/16 on our Transit Custom (standard Limited 16″ alloys). Was the all-season tyre with best wet grip rating at time we bought them.

To clarify this totally standard custom sport came with 18s fitted, purchased directly from ford. Tyres on delivery were eagle f1s, same as I ran on my scoob. They are as follows 235/50/18 101w.
I appreciate the 101 refers to the load. I’m struggling to find van specific tyres.

When we bought ours the only thing that put us off was the wheels. Not a deal breaker but enough to consider swapping the out straight away. A word of caution from the garage about bigger wheels and tyre economy was enough to put us off going bigger. After six months you don’t seem to notice them.

Continental van contacts here.

I rate them a lot- no squirming and plenty of grip.

That’s on a Vito long wheelbase 163bhp

I’ve got Pirelli Scorpion Zero’s on my Disco Commercial Wrighty – they are 109 Y in the 20″ version, so 186mph and a just over tonne per corner

The 18’s come up as 103V, so 149mph and 875kg per corner (3.5t)

This is the wear after 12k. They come up as SUV tyres, but with the above ratings, I presume they are OK for vans? This is a front – you can see the wear indicator, middle of pic

2019-05-21_10-14-06 by davetheblade[/url], on Flickr

CONTINENTAL Vancontact 200 on my Transit Mk7. Proper rated, quiet, good in the wet and improve fuel economy… drive like a d1ck (AKA van driver) and they don’t last more than 15k 🙂

Maxxis vanpro here. Ive had around 15k out of them so far and they are still legal. Nice aggressive tread to have a good chance of getting off muddy fields as well

Had around 12-13k on Continental and Goodyear on our T5, just on second pair of Uniroyal Rainsport which have been better and I think around 14-15K on them. Our wheels are 255/45/18 103Y, again limited choice.
Might try Maxxis next, my brother in law has those on theirs and likes them.

I’ve a Transit custom limited with standard alloy’s, the fronts are just coming up to looking like needing changing at 38,000 miles.. 🤔

I quite like Bridgestones, they last well and grip well too. I buy them in from Tyreleader.

Another one on Goodrich Activans here, excellent.
Selling a set of four with 4k miles in 15″ with wheels if anyone fancies them, new van takes 16s

Some excellent suggestions for a van with wheels smaller than mine. 🤣🤣🤣

235/55r18 on my T5. Chomped through a front pair of nexen SU1 in around 12k. In their defence, they were very cheap and I never noticed any issues with grip

Nobody makes commercial rated rubber in this size so it’s just a case of getting car/suv tyres with the correct load rating

The Michelin all season commercial tyres I have on the 16” winter wheels are far superior in every way – just a shame the smaller wheels look rubbish

Toyo T1 Sport 101 XLs, about £100ish each fitted in 235/45/18.

Loads quieter than the tyres they replaced and grip/wear as well as can be expected. Replaced all 4 to begin with, when the fronts needed doing (40k miles?) I went for the same again.

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johnnystorm

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Toyo T1 Sport 101 XLs, about £100ish each fitted in 235/45/18.

Loads quieter than the tyres they replaced and grip/wear as well as can be expected. Replaced all 4 to begin with, when the fronts needed doing (40k miles?) I went for the same agai

Is this on a van? Amazing mileage if so!!

Tyre pressures on the Transit Custom 290 Sport on 18″ tyres are lower than I guessed they’d be, 44psi all round (if my googling is accurate) – look inside the driver’s door frame for the actual pressures. The Transit Custom minibus that I use is 59F and 71R by way of comparison.
So commercial van tyres on the Sport are likely to be unnecessary, but they’ll need to be beefy and I’d still get proper advice

Timba as I stated earlier, I’m pretty uo on tyres as I used to be a bit of a saddo when it came to fitting them on my imprezas. The van came with eagle f1s which are a car tyre rates at 101 and also XL. Drivers door post states 44 and that’s what they’re run at. I don’t carry a lot of weight, usually site engineering equipment and hand tools.

Yep, my fault for not checking the tyre pressure first and making a poor guess based on a different 2018 Transit Custom. 44psi is pretty much 3 bar, and as much as slower-rated car tyres will stand, Transits are usually run at higher pressure, which was the reason for my caution. Faster tyre ratings should handle 3.5 bar, and as you say they need to take the weight. As you were, apologies

No need for apologies, all help is good help, especially where something as important as tyres is concerned! 👍