Tyres on your V50

[kerrgreg]

Had P6000s on mine and Conti Sport 3's Both Good, I prefered the Contis but they didnt last so long.

Just put Avon ZV3s on which seem to be good so far, went for 215.45.17 got them for just over £60 per Tyre from CamSkill which seemed pretty good.

[scooby]

i used to run the kumho kh31 on my d5 but just changed to the Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance very good grip and my mpg has gone up a bit

[Spot23]

Have goodyear assymetric 2 currently. They perform well especially in the wet. Where I am, when it pours, it pours buckets and you can still drive confidently at high speeds
Rides a bit harsher than previous mich ps3 though. And a little noisier too

[RPB]

I've got Bridgestone REO50As all round on mine.

I know the original factor figment was P Zero Rosso's but when I bought the car, the Selekt program changed all tyres with less than 3mm tread and they were changed to The Bridgestones when I picked it up. I've stuck with the Bridgesrone since as I know they are hard-wearing (had them on my EP3 civic), but the wet grip isn't the best. The Pirellis I once had wore out much more quickly.

[Falmouthboy]

Originally Posted by theRsole

reading up on it, it seems like the advice mainly concerns aquaplaning/wet conditions
My rational is that all the power, most of the braking and steering all happens on the front two tyres, so surely that's where you want the best tyres?
bad tyres of course will always be bad tyres…
anyway, haven't offed it yet! (touch wood) have slid a couple of times in the v50, but that was nothing to do with tyres!!

However you try to spin it, the professional advice is best rubber on the rear. I can understand why people swap rubber around to keep wear even though. This then enables you to take advantage of 4 for 3 tyre deals etc.

The best advice is to run the same tyres on each corner, saving that, at least on each axel. That said our car came with Conti 5s on the rear and Nexen on the front. For a mid-range tyre, the Nexen are quite impressive, so if on a budget are certainly worth a look.

If buying a used car, I always look at the type and mix of tyres fitted. A random mix of ditch finders shouts 'car run on a shoe string - walk away'!

[iainmd]

Volvo used to fit Pirelli P7 as standard to the S40 on 17" and then seemed to opt for ContiSport Contact 2 tyres. On 18" they normally supplied Pirelli P-Zero Rosso. I've tried a number of tyres as follows over the years on the S50 and the V50...

On the S40 T5....

Pirelli P7 - truly awful tyres and factory fit on my S40. Dreadful grip in all conditions and far from Pirelli's finest hour. (not to be confused with the P7 Cinturato which is a completely different tyre) The P7 isn't fit for a car with over 200bhp.

Toyo Proxes T1-R - Excellent dry grip and good wet grip but boy did they wear fast. 7,000 miles out of the fronts.

Pirelli P-Zero Rosso - Good dry grip, ok wet grip. Wore averagely with about 12k out of the fronts.

Continental SportContact 3 - Excellent tyre but no longer available in 205/50R17. Great in both wet and dry and I have got about 21k miles out of mine with 8k on the rear axle and 13k on the front.

Continental SportContact 5 - Again, excellent. Not as good as the SportContact 3 in the dry but better in the wet. Still overall excellent.

On the V50 DRIVe...

Nexen N-Blu Eco - Surprisingly good tyre. Very pleased with overall wet and dry performance. Not far away from ContiSport contacts but much cheaper. Fitted by the Volvo dealer when we bought the car under Selekt. Dubious about them at first glance but proved wrong. Fronts have done about 22k and still have 3-4mm left.

Pirelli P7 Cinturato - About as far removed from the original P7 as you could get. The original P7 is worse than most budget tyres and I wouldn't fit them to a pram if they made in the right dimension. The Cinturato is one of the best tyres I've found. Right up there with the SportContacts for me (although they are on a much lower powered car by way of comparison). They grip tremendously in both wet and dry. The only thing I can't comment on is wear rate. We've had them on the rear for about 10k miles and they're still looking like they have about 5-6mm on them. Our V50 doesn't chew rears very fast.

Hope that helps.

Iain (who also always puts the grippiest tyres on the rear ;-)

[Welton]

+1 on the P7 Cinturato's I've been running mine for two Summers now with very little wear up front. They are pretty hard-wearing so ideal for Summer and then stowed during the Winter.

The Cinturato also makes for very stable and quiet cruising.

[nozmeister]

Agree with comments re P7 .... Very poor indeed! Very slippery when wet.

Previously sport contact 3 got 37k miles on back and 28k on front so hoping that current sport contact 5 is similar. Had hoped backs would last longer but alas not...

This is a v50 2.0d on 205/50 r17 93xl

[ChrisV50]

Cheers Folks

I have a set of Goodyear Efficient Grip 93w now on the front

151 a pop from Volvo during the service tyres and fitted

Asdatyres have good brands and mine are 123 a pop i think - you can order them and a registered fitter will fit em and you pay on the day

but 123 a tyre ? so i save 25 a pop - 50 bucks saving? how much fitting charge? i do not know - if fitting is below 50 bucks then i would have saved a wee bit

but generally putting brand or performance tyres on these days 120 to 150 a corner i reckon

but in the past long ago on my old 440 i used cheap chips tyres - and my god - no

driving around with brand new tyres on the front this week -and summer dry roads - oooo yeah feels so grippy good - and even the odd hot day roundabout screech yeah you know you like that noise!

i will probably try out asdatyres for my rears when they are due up fitting

[Ninja59]

Depends some of best deals are finding someone to fit yourself Camskill, tyre leader etc if you need fitted for ease and no damage event tyres plus they have some of the lowest costs. Mainly as they buy direct from manufacturers in bulk.