Tigar tyres - any good or complete crap?

[bar72]

i was going to start another thread on tyres as i've just put budgets on but read this, be as well to keep it all in one thread.

phoned the local tyre place and the guy said budgets, asked what they were and he couldn't tell me, just said they were budgets, anyways, said go ahead at £65 each fitted and got Autogrip F107's on the front. first few miles, a lot of understeer on the T4 but i thought it must be the finishing glaze needing to wear off so roll with it. fitted new brakes all round and put them onto the back and swapped my pirelli p6000's onto the front last week.

last night, was running late up the dundee road in the wet, coming down to kilmany, hit the left hand bend with the dip in it [fife / tayside members will know the bit] at around 90, boom! soon as the car hit the dip, the rear end drifted out on me, only for the grace of god, i hit the throttle again and pulled out of it but got the fright of my life. never had a twitch like that before but never ran budgets either on a half decent quick car..!

even tonight running back from work in the dry, it feels like the rear arb's are away with the slap i'm getting on the back end, the tyre walls are wobbling around. just to double check, i had the car parked with the handbrake off and pushed the rear quarter panel to and fro, wanna see the play in the sidewalls! they look the **** with the rim protectors and all but never again will i be putting budgets on (
last time ever i'll run budgets, hope someone else reads this before fitting them.

[Dandle]

Blimey they must be bad if they are making p6000s look good. I tried p6000s on my T4 and took them off at 2000 miles they were that dire.

[Spike1918]

With tyres you get what you pay for, cheap tyres are comprised both on the structure of the tyre, and the compounds used.
Personally I don`t drive round many bends at 90 mph in my Volvo, I keep my bikes for such antics and run (generally) pretty sticky rubber to allow me to do it.
I saw a car the other day, an Austin 1300, 1975, immaculate but with Michelin XZX`s on it!!!!
Feck they were awful when new, you struggled to wear the feckin things out! I`ve no idea how long ago Michelin took them out of production (anyone know?)
I asked this old fella who was just getting out of it at the garage forecourt.

"How do you find those old Michelin XZX`s your running on"?

He replied, "fine son, great tryes they`ve lasted me years and are still going strong".

Horses for courses with tyres.

[GP1]

Originally Posted by Spike1918

With tyres you get what you pay for, cheap tyres are comprised both on the structure of the tyre, and the compounds used.

I agree you get what you pay for, Michelin been the exception, but I do have to say some mid range budget's have advanced quickly and in some instances may prove better than your expensive tyre. .

[skyship007]

Originally Posted by GP1

I agree you get what you pay for, Michelin been the exception, but I do have to say some mid range budget's have advanced quickly and in some instances may prove better than your expensive tyre. .

Michellin tyres are OK, but some types were designed for long life and fuel economy, not high speed cornering. The only mid range company that has moved up to compete with the braking distance performance leaders (Continental, Goodyear, Dunlop, some Pirrellis and some Michellins), is Nokian and they now cost just as much as the others.

If you want to help the UK accident statistics after fitting budget tyres, try not to tail gate in the wet or take corners at high speed unless you are on the outside of the turn and there are no trees or buildings to hit if you drift off the road. I did drift off a fast bend a few months ago with no consequences apart from another crack in the plastic engine bottom cover.

It was wet and I was driving fairly fast at night, but I knew the road and was well within the cars cornering performance limits, or at least I thought I was, but alas some muppet in a farm tractor or truck had shed soil on the bend and the rain had turned the road into a perfect mud patch. It was just like hitting a patch of black ice in winter and I did see it in time to slow down slightly, but even a good braking system and tyres are hopless on mud. No real damage done, but it has slowed me down if I can't see the full surface of a bend before I take it.

The following morning two cars collided on the same bend even after the local Police had put warning signs out, but luckily no one was hurt. I could not understand why the locals were laughing about that crash until I read that although the car on the inside of the bend was liable in insurance terms, the Police had given them both tickets for driving without due care and attention, because the marks on the muddy road and position of the impact clearly showed that the car on the outside of the bend had already slipped off the road, before the other sign ignorant boy racer did a full spin and wrote them both off. The first car was not damaged slipping off, but the driver stopped to check underneath the car and was lucky he saw the other car coming as it was a big impact, the BMW boy racer was unhurt because he was going backwards at impact!

[GP1]

Originally Posted by skyship007

Michellin tyres are OK, but some types were designed for long life and fuel economy, not high speed cornering.
The only mid range company that has moved up to compete with the braking distance performance leaders (Continental, Goodyear, Dunlop, some Pirrellis and some Michellins), is Nokian and they now cost just as much as the others.

Michelin tyre's are designed for comfort & to cover the most mile's, and that's what they do, but they suffer in other aspect's because of this, in the USA they have recalled 843,000. Conti are also at present having some issue's.

When I say mid range budget have improved, I'm going back to the 1990's, and they are far closer to the bigger company's now, some performing better in certain aspects than the bigger company's, that said, most the budget's are owned by the bigger comapny's anyway and share R & D. .

[skyship007]

I just looked up those two makes for recall notices and Continental have a voluntary recall for CONTITRACK small truck tires (LT 275/70/18) and it is only because they failed a quality inspection for tires made and sold in the USA.

The Michelin one is not for their own label tires, but for Goodrich and Uniroyal. It is a more serious compulsory recall due to belt separation of truck tires sold in the USA (235 and 245's).
I only buy good used tires that were made in Germany, like my Dunlop Winter SP's. The Michelins were on the car when I bought it, but I will probably buy good used Conti's when they wear out, which could be a few years, as they are tough tires.

The mid range budget tires from companies based overseas are still not good in wet braking distance terms and they are a classic case of you get what you pay for. I've not see any of the second level companies owned by the big boys produce any real rubbish in the bottom third of the performance tables, but the quality control checks might not be so good and obviously they use cheaper materials and manufacturing processes.

It's odd that there seem to be more problems with manufacturing SUV and truck tires than normal car tires, as previous recall notices were mostly for non car tires. It will be interesting to see if Nokian, who stunned the German auto press by winning in every summer car and SUV tire range in terms of combined wet & dry braking distance results this year can knock Continental off top spot for winter tires, although I only look at the ice and wet braking distances for winter tires, not snow because accidents in snow tend to be fender benders and the Dunlops are good for cold dry road surfaces, but top pick for ice or wet braking distances, even if they wear out quickly and make some noise.



[QUOTE=GP1;1220114]Michelin tyre's are designed for comfort & to cover the most mile's, and that's what they do, but they suffer in other aspect's because of this, in the USA they have recalled 843,000. Conti are also at present having some issue's.

[GP1]

Originally Posted by skyship007

The Michelin one is not for their own label tires,

The mid range budget tires from companies based overseas are still not good in wet braking distance terms and they are a classic case of you get what you pay for..

I'll have to dig the memo out but Mich have recalled 84,000 tyre,s, and from memory that was also in the US of A.

In an overall braking test Nokia, Uniroyal, both stopped shorter than Bridge & Mich, BF Good, Fulda, Nexen, Barum also stopping before the Mich. so all depends what you require, but not always is the most expencive the best. .

[skyship007]

Nokian seem to be an old Finnish company that manufacture most of their tires in Russia:
http://www.nokiantyres.com/history-in-brief

Once my Michelins wear out I might well consider a pair of this years Nokian summer tires, but they might not be easy to find, in which case I will buy some good used Conti's.
Not all the tire makes match up between Germany and the UK, as the folks in the UK don't seem to use winter tires so much, or pick all weather ones up North.
The bad thing is that the EU fails to stop some real rubbish tires from China being sold in either country, when tests showed that the difference between the wet braking distance of the top of the table and the bottom was about 30%, which is a serious difference and as only a very few types and makes were involved in such terrible results, I can't understand why they fail to act.

The green party did a great job on the garages in oil change terms, because they are not allowed to recommend an oil change procedure that is different from one approved by the oil company, which is normally based on the engine manufacturers recommendations. That saves wasting a lot of oil and filters but does kill off some of the older engines, but the greens don't seem to care less about car crash statistics or wasting fuel blasting down the autobahn at very high speeds, probably because they get given free top of the range BMW or Mercs each year.

Most tire recalls are factory specific problems, so anything in the US is not really as interesting as an EU recall notice.

[GP1]

Originally Posted by skyship007

The bad thing is that the EU fails to stop some real rubbish tires from China being sold in either country, when tests showed that the difference between the wet braking distance of the top of the table and the bottom was about 30%, which is a serious difference and as only a very few types and makes were involved in such terrible results, I can't understand why they fail to act.

So ture, and it's concerning that folk still buy them. .