Safe Speed Forums

Today I have been looking into replacing two tyres on my car.

I was shopping about to get the best value for money and quickly came across various symbols that I had seen about a little but meant nothing to me. So I looked into it. It seems that the EU has decided to grade tyres!
It arrived 1.11.12

BBC News : New European tyre labelling could save money and lives
Jorn Madslien By Jorn Madslien Business reporter, BBC News, Millbrook Proving Ground
Car Tyre links to EU Labelling :
Continental
DfT - http://www.helpingarticles.com/autos/de ... QFLQmfiFNU
Tyre Industry Federation - http://www.ntda.co.uk/images/TyreLabelling.pdf

AutomotiveManagement AM (TTC - one of the main providers of Speed Awareness Courses) !) - http://www.am-online.com/news/2012/11/1 ... ace/31895/

Continental - http://www.conti-online.com/generator/w ... label.html
http://www.conti-online.com/generator/w ... round.html

Bridgestone - http://tyrelabel.bridgestone.eu/tbr/en/home
http://tyrelabel.bridgestone.eu/psr/ena

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

As an aside ,Claire , when they refit wheels, check the torque settings in the manual . I went to one place where the fitter told me that torque was 120lbf-ft ( from chart on wall),where handboOk stated 120 N-M .( APPROX 88 lbf-ft) .
Fortunately gone are the edays when they just shoved the nuts /bolst back on with an air gun .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes, I think it' a good thing. For years, tyres have needed tests to verify load carrying capacity and speed rating, but nothing relating to grip - particularly wet grip. This has lead to some real sh1te coming on to the market and I've certainly given myself a bit of a fright in the past!

Now you at least get to make a more informed choice when it comes to wet grip, noise and fuel consumption.

That BBC article contains a bit of a disingenuous quote though:

""Some 20-30% of the fuel consumption of a car can be attributed to the tyres that make up the interface between the car and the road," Mr Kalla says. Hence, reducing a tyre's rolling resistance is a relatively simple way of reducing fuel consumption."

Yes, but it seems to imply you can save 20-30% on fuel consumption by swapping tyres, whereas its a MUCH smaller difference (given that ALL tyres will have a fair bit of rolling resistance)! Seems more like 1-2%.

BTW Claire, did you get your diff / gearbox noises sorted?

Didn't see the wet thing .Now that's good. Present set are cheapos . I don't do many miles and I'd sooner a set wear out early ( as in low miles) , than last for a few years and crack. Last car I changed the fronts for wear ,and we noticed that the rears and the spare had cracks in between the tread. Not surprisinly there'e not to hot in the wet. But in the snow - I'm moving off where I see 4x4 /Corsa/Astra /Pug have problems.I watched today as a frontera nearly lost traction. I let him park and did a three pointer . Same with stoping - no sign of ABS .
I park on the front as road is narrow. No problem . next door tried with his Rover 75. Lots of wheel spin- no movement. He decided to move off -same problem .i'd suggest speed was saying 40, he was doing at a guess 20 .
So perhaps we also need a winter rating for tyres ( not those designed for cold weather). So folks can decide if a tyre over another is more to their needs.I know some folks fit winter tyres .i've never felt the need ,or had to . I did fit neo town & country to an A40 years ago ,as at times I had to almost go off road to pass oncomin vehicles in sommer , and had to cope with deep snow in winter .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Has anyone noticed the push to get people to use winter tyres?

If the government were serious, they could always take the VAT off winter tyres - after all, it does mean a double sale for each wheel!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Like Botach, I've never used them on my own car, but everyone I've spoken to says they're a revelation. Indeed, when I've driven other cars thus-equipped, I've felt them to be (subjectively) a great deal better. My "own" car doesn't really go out in winter (it's very old and being Italian, likely to dissolve!). My company car is owned by a company far too stingy to fork out for another set of wheels and tyres and is liable to be changed long before I wear either set out anyway and not replaced with one of the same type that could use the winter tyres. My wife's 4x4 is actually pretty darned amazing in the snow and ice even on "all season" tyres anyway.

Incidentally, I wasn't aware of this until comparatively recently, but "winter" tyres and "Mud & Snow" tyres are not necessarily the same thing. The former are increasingly being made with the EU-recognised symbol of a three-peaked mountain and a snowflake moulded into the sidewall. Without this, they are unlikely to be "winter" tyres (which is really to do with the compound from which they are made). The "Mud & Snow" or "M&S" writing on the sidewall refers really to the tread pattern rather than the compound so they might still be "all season" tyres.

Possibly Mud & Snow ( as opposed to Markus & Sparkus) are the modern day equivalent of my Town & Country . ( normally ridged, but with chunky sidewalls . I had to fight to get GPO to fit them to one Commer van as even with all my ironwork over the rear wheels ,if I moved onto the verge I could get stuck . ( The Commer was the one with the handbrake acting onthe front wheels ,as the rear end empty was that light that some slid down steel hills before the HB ws moved forward) .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes I remember Town and Country tyres back in the early seventies. M & S were the rally/sport version of the same tread pattern tyres. Similar to four by four off road tyres.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That was in the days when most tyres were cross ply. I had radial T & C on the rear of my old A40 -made a difference in mud & snow .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Having these new markings is a reasonable idea, though I am still more likely to look for a comparative test like this one.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Sadly I am not convinced by the levels and the whole purpose.
there is nothing to tell me about the quality of any of the tyres and so won't it be that people will start to choose the cheapest options that appear to show a good 'rating'. Does this mean smaller tyre manufacturers start to get a look in on selling more tyres ?
The tyres I chose have the lowest grade on fuel consumption, nearly at the bottom for wet grip and nearly the quietest !
Yet the tyres were nearly twice the price of the cheapest and I know they will go about 20K but I have zero belief the cheaper options would last nor are of anything like the quality of the one's I chose!
What does that make of their 'scale' totally pointless IMHO !!
Just another whole 'system' that will end up making tyres more expensive and no one will really be any the wiser !
When you look at the 'rates' of change they alter per vehicle tyre type ... and there is very little in it - almost not worth worrying about !
What is really going on with this?

If it also had distance expected under certain driver / rider types of style and tyre depth at new then we might be getting somewhere.

I don't dislike the idea of having a reference chart between tyres, it's just so much real value for money is missing, and the scale is small it feels like too little to be of much use. Especially considering my chosen purchase !

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

All tyres sold in the EU already have to meet certain requirements that are (arguably) about quality (or at least safety). They need to be able to carry the maximum weight specified and they need to be able to operate at the maximum speed specified. Given that tyre failures for either of those causes (assuming properly maintained) are rare, I think the regulations probably do a reasonable job in that respect.

As for dry grip, well, there are requirements imposed on the car manufacturer for maximum stopping distances, so he'll always fit tyres that can manage that. In effect, that puts another requirement on the tyre manufacturers. To be honest, I've never come across a tyre with seriously bad dry grip, though clearly, some are better than others. It's a difficult one to specify because the amount of grip has a lot to do with the car as well as the tyre.

I'm actually very glad that for noise, fuel consumption and wet grip they've NOT gone down the regulatory route (which WOULD, IMO, drive up the cost of tyres), but have instead opted to let people have an element of informed choice. That allows me to sacrifice fuel efficiency for extra grip (if that's what I want) or vice-versa.

Mileage, is, of course, an extremely difficult one to predict because it is affected by so many factors outside the tyre manufacturer's control. Let's face it, we all moan like stink about the standardised EU fuel consumption figures, and they're a walk in the park compared to trying to provide an estimate of tyre life! Besides, I might want to fit tyres with a lousy life expectancy on my "classic" knowing that it does so few miles that the tyres are likely to perish before they wear out, so I may as well have the extra grip instead. For other people, I'm sure that long life will be more important that ultimate grip and "hoonability" and that's fine, they can make their choice.

I never thought it was right to have tyres with vastly differing levels of wet grip on the market, but rather than imposing a minimum level by regulation (driving up the costs of cheaper tyres and maybe reducing wear resistance too), I think it is MUCH better to let people carry on making them and instead, just impose a regulation that forces them to give good, standardised customer information to allow an informed choice to be made. In fact, I'd rather that approach was rolled-out to quite a few other aspects of car regulation!

My only fear is that this will be a precursor to a second set of regulations that will forbid tyre fitters to fit a tyre to a vehicle that has a worse fuel efficiency than the OE tyres the car was type-approved with. I think there's a very real danger of that happening. The argument will be that the car manufacturer has achieved CO2 emissions of "x" by fitting low rolling resistance tyres, but then the user can fit anything he likes afterwards (of the correct size, load and speed rating, obviously!) and therefore, the car is doing more environmental damage with the new tyres on. I've just got a sneaking feeling that's where this will end up...

Some good points, Mole and I have to agree with you, I would prefer better wet grip in comparison to less life of the tyre or less road noise but obviously evryone has different driving styles so these factors are probably more important to people who never go above 40MPH and want a quiet ride.

As for Claire's concern about cheap tyres, I've found that some "cheaper" tyres can perform better in the wet than some more expensive tyres. The tyres I have on an MR2 now are Uniroyal rainsports and are middle range as far as price goes but are by far the best tyres I've ever driven on in rain or snow. (I found them through the site that Toltec recommended above, too).

When i had a Toyota Supra it came with pirelli (P7s I think) and when these wore down I replaced them with much cheaper Nankangs, which I found to have as good if not better performance in the wet, than the pirrelis so subsequently used to always fit them on that car.The first time I fitted Bridgstones was back in the seventies when our local tyre place had them on special offer as cheap tyres as no -one had heard of them back then...lok at the price of Bridgestones now...the same was to be said about Toyo tyres a few decades ago.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

My dad used to hate Yokohamas. Back in the late '50s or '60s (or whenever they appeared) he had some on his bike and found that they were mainly carbon! Now they're very well respected. I had some Goodyear NCTs on my old Scimitar and they were AWFUL - hard as Bakelite but no grip (lasted as long as I had the car though)! I was really surprised when met a bloke from South Africa who absolutely raved about them, so I can only assume that they worked better in higher temperatures!

The other thing with tyres that I've found is that some seem to suit some cars better than others. I know the Citroen DS was designed pretty much in conjunction with the Michelin radial and the two worked very well together. My old Alfa tramlines and torque-steers like a complete pig on Pirellis and Continentals but seems much better on Bridgestones and Kumhos. I agree that not all "no-name" tyres are bad. There's a lot of snobbery about when it comes to tyres! Worst I ever had were a set of Polish tyres - can't remember the name - Maxxis?

I am a firm advocate of winter tyres.

A few years ago I invested in a set of Weissenfels Snowsocks for the car, due to travelling regularly up to Cumbria in the winter. They made such a huge difference in the snow and ice, I then researched winter tyres and ended up getting a set of Nokian WR G2s. Initially I swapped the tyres over on my existing rims but eventually got a set of 'winter' alloys to save the hassle.
While rated as 'budget' tyres the Nokians (made in Finland) make a real difference in coping in snow and ice and of course temperatures below 7?C. As they are only used for about 5 months of the year it also has the added advantage of making my spring-autumn set last longer.

I know we've coped for the last x number of years on bog standard 'all season' tyres (unless you had the old T&C stuff) but winter tyres are a legal requirement in many parts of Europe (as is carrying snowchains) but maybe we wouldn't grind (or slide) to a halt quite as easily if we invested in the right rubber!!!

My brother lives on a hill in Scotland accessed by a fairly steep road. He asked his neighbour a coupe of years back how come he always managed to get up in the snow and ice - "Winter tyres" was his reply. My brother went out and got the last set in his local tyre fitter and now has a smug look on his face as he passes all the abandoned cars down the brae on his way home!

The penny is dropping as supplies of winter tyres last year dried up!....

Like Graball, I find that cheapos grip better in bad conditions . Especially in snow . I park my car off road at night and in snow ,as rthe road is narrow and blonde across road likes a lot of road . In the snow ,I watched next door on expensive tyres tried to park off road ,gave up and set off down the road -wheels doing about 40 ,car doing 20 . Similarly in a supermarket car park I saw a 4x4 standing still with wheel spin, whilst I drove out .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I agree with Whisky Bob. The only thing is that I have a company car and can't persuade my company to fork out for a set (and, in fairness to them, I never know how long I'm going to have each one - and rarely get the same sort twice) so it would represent a pretty significant waste of money.

Ahh, yes - the 4x4 drivers who think that their all season road tyres will get them out of that muddy field or along that icy lane!


I was 'daft' enough to take the car with Nokians fitted down some roads a couple of years ago, that had 6-8 inches of snow to get the feel for how they handled - the increase in grip was almost like driving a 4x4 and the reduction in braking distance was quite impressive. A steepish hill, that had been polished smooth by cars trying to get up it, was dealt with easily.
Sure, winter rubber alone will never be as good as AWD, but when people ask me about the tyres or even the snowsocks (as a get-you-unstuck option) I recommend them wholeheartedly.

More often the lot who choose a totally innapropriate gear /ratio and excess throttle. Strangely enough this year I've not seen many out polishing the roads this year and the road conditions have been a lot better for it .
( Possibly mentioned this before)
I once said to a wise old man in Africa that with a Land Rover you could go anywhere. His reply still rings true - "It's not where you think you can go that counts, but knowing where you CAN'T ,that's important . I've not had many problems this year on my cheapos ,that my old car mats didn't get me out of .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I must admit that in the few days of deepish snow we had over our way, the standard of driving has been much better than previous years...maybe some people are actually learning how to drive on the white stuff again...either that or the real idiots are staying off the roads after bad experiences in recent years.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.