Thinking about these tyres to replace my 21,000 michelins at the front.

These tyres come with rim peotection and at

According to Auto-Express, there the best all-rounder.

Don't do it...

DON'T DO IT!!!

I had these on my Polo GTi and I took the car in after a month and got some Toyos.

The bloke said "These look brand new!!!", to which I replied, "You can have them".

Worst tyres I've EVER had the misfortune of buying.

Made my car feel very unstable, which must be down to the incredibly flexible sidewalls.

I've heard the Ultracs are a good tyre though... Weird how there's such a huge difference between two models from the same brand.

As BPM said, they did really well in the Auto Express tyre test published in the last week or so. To the extent that they did well in nearly every aspect of the review, whilst Michelin did appallingly.

It is strange that you had such a bad experience with them, Josh.

I've got a couple of Ultracs on the front of my Octy and I think they are an excellent tyre. Good grip in the wet and quiet.

Update...

I'm not sure whether mine were Sporttrac or Sporttrac 2's to be fair.

If you go to buy them, just have a feel of the sidewall before committing to buy... They should be stiff (if you want decent handling).

I have been running Sportac 2's on my Fabia VRS for the last year.

My opinion of them are.

Dry Performance - As Good as the michelins I had on before.

Wet performance - Very Good - nearly as good as the dry performance. With the car wearing these it turns corners where the michelins would have had you going straight on.

Noise - To be honest not particlarly quiet. The tyre has a supposidly highly reinforced sidewall which helps the traction but does make the quite noisy.

Hard to say whether they were noisier than the michelins - probably about par.

Wear rate:

Done 11,000 miles on them, not that gently either. Down to 4.5mm on front and back. Wearing better than the Michelins.

Would consider buying them again for wet performance, however wondering whats out there that has better dry performance.

I hope this helps.

Andy

I have Sportrac 2 on the front of my Fabia Vrs, they were