New Tyres needed

[marriedblonde]

I've ordered from Camskill a few times brilliant prices and excellent service.

I will be changing the factory fit Dunlop's ASAP, they are crap.

[mordred1973]

sort of thinking the same about the Pirelli P-Zero's on my Roc too.....traction is the damp is definitely poor....

[VW TT]

My two front tyres need replacing soon too, my local tyre place recommended Toyo proxes T1R tyres. £120 per tyre. Anyone got any other good recommendations? Has anyone tried the toyo tyres?

[Deacon]

My two front tyres need replacing soon too, my local tyre place recommended Toyo proxes T1R tyres. £120 per tyre. Anyone got any other good recommendations? Has anyone tried the toyo tyres?

I've had T1-R's on a number of cars in the past and found them to be really good although they do have a slightly soft side wall which I found could take some of the 'feel' away. Also worth having a look at Goddyear Eagles and Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta's have also got some good write ups. The new Michellin PS3's are also supposed to be good.

On Camskill's site in the 18 fitment:-

PS3 - £162.66
Eagles - £129.61
Vred's - £92.44
Toyo's - £126.19

HTH

Deacon

[VW TT]

thanks for that Deacon.

[marriedblonde]

I've been running the Vred's on my BM's for the last 3 years or so and really rate them. Good wear rate, excellent grip, gradually break away, completely usless when new though so be advised if you fit some they need some hear cycles before they will even offer the slightest hint of grip.

J.

[maisbitt]

This is nonsense. This is the first thing an investigator will look at. Sure the car won't do 186mph but the point remains you are fitting a lesser spec tyre than the car was supplied with. An insurance company will not give a 'get out of jail card' for anything, in fact exactly the opposite will apply. They will use ANY excuse NOT to pay out. So the question is, do you wish to lose £20+K of car after a total loss but remain happy in the knowledge that you saved £80 on four tyres?

Stevieboy - by "get out of jail free" card, I meant it as the insurance company's card, as an excuse for not paying out. Everyone knows that if there's a way they can avoid paying out then they will, and if there's a way of shafting a rival in the case of a non-fault claim then they will too (speaking from experience of an insurance company arranging me a Golf SE courtesy car for the "reasonable" rate of £470 a week, because they knew the other insurance company was paying for it!).

I do think you're wrong about the speed rating though - an insurance company cannot demand you put 186mph rated tyres on a 134mph car. The load rating of the tyres is far more important than the speed rating, if the speed rating of the tyres is in excess of the top speed of the car. The tyre needs to be fit for purpose, and if it is of the correct load rating and speed rating is in excess of the top speed of the car then they can't legally refuse to pay out if you push the issue (they might try it on, but it wouldn't hold up in a court of law), as all safety requirements have been met. If VW decide to overspec on the tyres due to what they can easily get hold of for the right price then you are not obligated to overspec when you replace.

I would never use cheap tyres, and I bought a "Y" rated replacement Michelin Sport SP01 purely because I couldn't find a top make "V" rated tyre in a minimum of 93 load rating for significantly less than the SP01, and as I was replacing 1 rear tyre and not a pair, I thought it was wise to do a like for like replacement anyway.

VW have a specification they require for load rating, but in that spec they don't mention the speed rating, it just has to be in excess of the car's top speed. VW most likely put "Y" rated tyres on Sciroccos because thats all they can get in bulk for the size of wheel they put on the Scirocco for an established high quality make like Michelin or Pirelli. Lets face it, there can't be many cars less powerful than a 2.0TSI (excluding "R")/TDI Scirocco that come with 235/18/35 tyres as standard. You expect to find tyres like that on much more powerful cars, such as a 3.0 BMW Z4. My MK5 Golf GT Sport 170TDI came with "V" rated Bridgestone Potenza tyres, as there was plenty of choice for "V" rated tyres in the 205/17, with 91 load rating, and it's no slower than a Scirocco TDI170.

I heard mention of Costco in this thread too - don't bother, they're really not that cheap. I'm a Costco member, and the cheapest they could do me a Michelin Sport SP01 235/18/35 was £179 when I had an unrepairable puncture a month ago. I got it on the net for £137 a tyre, fully fitted at a local nominated tyre garage (they posted the tyre to the garage).

Rehmondo: Glad you've got the community spirit, mutual back-scratching etc, your original thread just read as a chancer walking into a garage and asking them to fit something for nothing that they hadn't supplied. In your case, you should be able to get SP01s supplied as unfitted for about £120 each on the net.

[rehmondo]

Rehmondo: Glad you've got the community spirit, mutual back-scratching etc, your original thread just read as a chancer walking into a garage and asking them to fit something for nothing that they hadn't supplied. In your case, you should be able to get SP01s supplied as unfitted for about £120 each on the net.

Yeah apologies the original post wasn't exactly clear that I knew the guys at the local garage.

I took a trip to Costco at the weekend, they can do the Michelin PS02 or PS03's for £179 fully fitted and guy would also remove the air from the rears and put in nitorgen etc - however I simply can't afford £360 on a set of tyres right now, as a service is also due on the car, I might wait till next month for the PS03's, I still have 2-3mm of tread but I do over 1000 miles a month - but we'll see how that pans out - I'll probably end up with the Dunlop SP01's again they've been good and I'll probably get 20k out the first set, but even back when I first got the car around corners they weren't so grippy.

I was so sure I had won the Euromillions at the weekend

[pat15312]

Best I can do:
Michelin PS3 235/40/18 95Y XL: £180inc VAT delivered. In stock now.

Please be aware that camskills have been known to sometimes not e-mark a their tyres, meaning they aren't certified for use inside the European Union. What that means to you is that the tyre compund is not developed for a more european (vairable) climate. If ordering off them, make sure that an "E" is present on the sidewall code.

[maisbitt]

I haven't had a problem with the Michelin SP01s, they're infinitely better than the Bridgestone potenzas that were standard fit on my old Golf GT Sport TDI170.

The potenzas had such poor grip in all weather that you couldn't confidently pull away in anything more than 1/3 throttle for risk of the car just getting it's nose onto the roundabout and then spinning on the spot with massive axle thump.

If you do go with the SP01s then you can get them for £120 each at TyreXpress online (unfitted) or £137(fitted).

Not really a believer in the Nitrogen filled tyres - seems a massive gimmick. Oxygen and nitrogen don't behave that differently at tyre operating temperatures (temperature expansion coefficients, permeability through the tyre wall etc are similar). If you have to top your tyres up between replacements, will you be able to ask Costco to do it with Nitrogen? If there was that big a benefit then all the tyre places would do it.

Costco insist on putting new rubber on the back also, and they will not deviate. They'll put your old rears on the front and put the new ones on the back. They say it's for safety, but when they replaced my dad's 2 fronts, safety must have been at the back of their minds as when they put the old rears on the front, they didn't balance them and he was bouncing all over the place. The new tyres on the back policy applies to both FWD and RWD cars, and kind of implies that when you get a new car, it is a death trap because it has new tyres on the front (I know it's not optimum grip for the first couple of hundred miles, but it's not that bad)

[Nobby]

I tried Nitrogen once but it made no difference whatsoever

If you think about it,

They deflate your tyres to re-inflate them with nitrogen, but obviously they can't remove the ambient air which is left in there, that would be a vacuum

So your deflated tyres still contain their normal volume of air. At sea level atmospheric pressure is about 1 bar (14.7psi)

They inflate your tyres to about 2.2 bar, so nearly half of what's in there is just normal air

Having said that, normal air is composed of over 78% nitrogen ! So what's the point

Whatever

[Deacon]

...Please be aware that camskills have been known to sometimes not e-mark a their tyres, meaning they aren't certified for use inside the European Union. What that means to you is that the tyre compund is not developed for a more european (vairable) climate. If ordering off them, make sure that an "E" is present on the sidewall code.

Interesting about Camskill - I've dealt with them many times myself and they are very popular on many of the car forums I frequent and I have never heard of anyone having any problems with them supplying non E marked tyres. I presume you have seen this on forums, do you have any links to these threads I would be quite interested to have a read.

Deacon

[pat15312]

it was something that i have heard from the tyre wholesalers. at first i assumed it was just the wholesalers slagging off internet tyre companies (as they have really cut into their profits though undercutting and price wars). however a few different people have said the same thing now so i thought i'd just pass on a message.
just been googling it. some people on a passat forum have been concerned about this, however nobody has out-and-out said that camskills have supplied them with non e-marked tyres.
its just worth checking the side marking if you buy tyres from camskills/black circles/e-tyres. no e-mark, send them back IMMEDIATLEY! its illegal to sell non e-marked tyres in the UK, as of 1997.

[rehmondo]

its just worth checking the side marking if you buy tyres from camskills/black circles/e-tyres. no e-mark, send them back IMMEDIATLEY! its illegal to sell non e-marked tyres in the UK, as of 1997.

Thanks that's good information to know

[yellowplum]

You might save money going for a lesser speed rated tyre though - the Dunlop SP01's are "Y" rated, making them tested to use at 186mph - way more than any Scirocco is capable of. "V" speed rating (~156mph) is more than adequate for all except maybe the "R". As a minimum then, you need 18" 235/40, 93 V spec for the tyres to not give your insurance a "get out of jail free" card when it comes to settling a claim.

On soap box.

This is nonsense. This is the first thing an investigator will look at. Sure the car won't do 186mph but the point remains you are fitting a lesser spec tyre than the car was supplied with. An insurance company will not give a 'get out of jail card' for anything, in fact exactly the opposite will apply. They will use ANY excuse NOT to pay out. So the question is, do you wish to lose £20+K of car after a total loss but remain happy in the knowledge that you saved £80 on four tyres?

The monetary issue is, of course, the lesser one. If you left the road and killed a couple of kiddies on the footpath (or indeed your own in the car) following a blowout to a 'cheap' tyre, could you live with the consequences? the criminal charges? the civil actions? ...........?

Yes I know we all put ourselves at risk as soon as we sit behind the wheel and most of us increase that risk by driving over the legal speed limit. Surely any sensible owner would wish to reduce the risk as much as possible?

By the way, I work for one of the worlds largest insurance companies and, no I don't sit behind a desk and answer a phone........

Off soap box.

I have to agree, what a crock of S**T, it doesn't matter what tyre you put on because the law is simple and clear. So basically you are saying that if a garage also services your car and places non geniune VW brake pads your insurance company could argue and not pay out in the event of an accident.

The only rule that applies in this instance is Unsuitability

All tyres must have a service description (i.e. load and speed index)

If the vehicle was to operate outside the service description indicated on the sidewall e.g. at a higher speed or overloaded then the tyres would be deemed to be unsuitable for the use, and a prosecution would follow.

Just get whatever tyres you want within your price limit - and yes it is correct that it would be a false economy to go for very cheap tyres.

Oh and the other things you must remember is that you must NOT have radial tyres on the front wheels and cross ply tyres on the rear wheels, it is also illegal to have a cross ply tyre on one side with a radial on the other.

If you want to read more it's quite easy to find the legilation references; The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and Motor Vehicle Tyres (Safety) Regulations 1994

However new legislation will arrive later this year from the EU covering tyre saftly, rolling resistance and efficency.

[Ruddington]

I tried Nitrogen once but it made no difference whatsoever

If you think about it,

They deflate your tyres to re-inflate them with nitrogen, but obviously they can't remove the ambient air which is left in there, that would be a vacuum

So your deflated tyres still contain their normal volume of air. At sea level atmospheric pressure is about 1 bar (14.7psi)

They inflate your tyres to about 2.2 bar, so nearly half of what's in there is just normal air

Having said that, normal air is composed of over 78% nitrogen ! So what's the point

Whatever

I cannot see the mix of oxygen / nitrogen altering performance, at that pressure they will act as ideal gases, so no difference (sorry Chemical Engineering Lecturer....). The only factor I can think of is moisture. If you inflate the tyres with damp air, this could condense out / or solidify below freezing and drop the pressure. I might set some students this as a problem, see what they come up with.

I would imagine most garage compressors will have a drier to reduce the water content?

[jonallen628]

you can get cheap michelins from costco if you are a member, the dunlops and pirellis wouldnt be my tyre of choice

Agree with the Pirellis comment, great in the dry but poor in the wet in my experience and pretty noisy as they have a hard compound. Have them on my current roc and have had them onf two or three other cars. Swopped my front and rears over after 10k so hopefully around 20k i can change all four at the same time.

I was really impressed by the Conti sport contact 3's on my last car. Personally i would suggest looking at the autoexpress tyre test or which online, then check which brands do the correct size & spec for the Roc on one of the following:

http://www.event-tyres.co.uk
http://www.mytyres.co.uk
http://www.blackcirlces.co.uk

You can they weigh up cost vs performance and make the right choice.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/products/t ... _test.html

Test Results

1. Goodyear Hydragrip
2. Vredestein Sportrac3
3. Continental Contipremium-Contact2
4. Michelin Primacy HP
5. Bridgestone Turanza ER300
6. Uniroyal Rainsport 1
7. Toyo Proxes T1R
8. Dunlop Fastresponse
9. BFGoodrich G-Force Profiler
10. Maxxis Victra MA-Z1
11. Kumho Ecsta Sport KU31
12. Fulda Carat Progresso
13. Matador Aquila Evo
14. Hankook Ventus Prime K105
15. Yokohama C.Drive
16. Pirelli P7

[rehmondo]

Finally got the front two replaced today, went for Continental Sport Contact 3's fully fitted for £330.

[wigit]

Finally got the front two replaced today, went for Continental Sport Contact 3's fully fitted for £330.

had a set on the front of mine this week, the contis on the rear look brand new after 10k, interesting to see how car will perform with em on

[Anakin]

Finally got the front two replaced today, went for Continental Sport Contact 3's fully fitted for £330.

The CS3's are my tyre of choise atm, had them on my R32 much better than the Dunlop spots maxx