Greetings,

I'm currently looking at getting a full set of new tyres for my Octavia VRS. My question is do they the tyres need to be XL (Extra load) or not? At the moment there is a mixture on there!

Cheers.

My car runs Goodyear Eagle NCT5's in 205/50/17 93W and are apparently XL. Details on this link:

Eagle NCT 5 & Eagle NCT 3 Goodyear Tyres Technical Specifications

For the weight of the car standard tyres (91) are fine. That said an extra load tyre will have stiffer side walls which will improve handling.

When I had my Mk 1 I had the VW maintenance and tyres package. This meant I had 'free' tyres when they needed replacing. They always fitted the XL tyres so as these cost a little more I would have thought that maybe they are needed. I am sure VW finance would not pay any more than they had too so would have not over specified the replacement tyres.

Greetings,

I'm currently looking at getting a full set of new tyres for my Octavia VRS. My question is do they the tyres need to be XL (Extra load) or not? At the moment there is a mixture on there!

Cheers.

No, they will make the already poor ride over pot-holes worse.

You dont have to get XL tyres, but i do for the siffer side walls to improve handling, choice is yours.

You dont have to get XL tyres, but i do for the siffer side walls to improve handling, choice is yours.

Qualify improved, stiffer sidewalls reduce deflection on bump and cause loss of grip over objects such as pot holes, gratings etc. While cornering, this is felt as a sharp bump followed by a loss of traction and a slide before the tyre regains grip, most noticable in wet conditions.

Technically, stiffer sidewalls do not improve cornering either. They improve turn in response. Let me clarify. When you turn the wheel, the tyre now points in a different direction and starts to go that way. The body of the car is still going straight. So the tyre bends on the rim till it produces sufficient 'pull' to drag the wheel and car across. It's hard to feel, but essentially it's relating to the speed the car starts to turn. Once the car IS turning, as in going round a roundabout, there is no difference. The stiffer sidewalls may be bent a touch less but it's not really an issue due to the fact that whatever position the tyres reached, they are now pulling on the wheel and pulling you round. So feel 'in' a corner and actual grip/g forces are not heavily influenced by sidewall stiffness.

The most noticable difference is in the robustness of the tyre for going over things like kerbs with a heavy vehicle, it's possible to 'bottom out' onto the rim and burst soft tyres. Commercial and XL are much stiffer. The downside is that the ride is far less supple and they are more likely to 'bounce' as mentioned above over things like gratings, just like low profile tyres. An A3 1.8T with 18's on had me sliding a metre to the left as I accelerated in town round a junction over a wet grating that was sat well down in the road, it's sidewalls were very small and stiff. My 1.8T with 16's doesn't slide over the same grating. I was not impressed, I was hardly racing! However the A3 with the 18's went well round a smooth dry roundabout.

So, 'better' is a relative word. Sometimes people look at racing cars and think hey that must be best, but they forget they drive on perfectly smooth tarmac and come in for a totally different set of wheels and tyres if it starts to rain! They they also forget that the fastest cornering cars on the planet have ultra HIGH profile tyres with tiny wheels in the middle, F1! And the fastest accelerating, top fuel drag, have the narrowest tyres on the front and ultra ultra HIGH profile, SOFT wall tyres on the back and they run them half flat of air as this combo gives maximum straight line grip. Totally the opposite to 22'' rims with a 30 profile tyre, which at a glance in car mags one would think gave the most grip.

Greg.