well swmbo picked me up in my car last night and said a warning light appeared and she thought it was tyre pressure monitoring ?

 

she gets out car and says, hmmm front left looks a bit flat :(

 

nice big self tapping screw in wheel and 10 miles from home, luckily not pancake flat so pumped it up at nearby garage with an extra few psi for good luck and give a bit more air to lose

 

got it home ok so no need to put the gunk in

 

done 28,000 miles and the fronts are only a mm off the treadwear markers so going to replace both fronts, so search for new tyres was on

 

bit of research the current Dunlop sport 01's are not great according to new ratings for fuel economy so going for Dunlop Blu response only B rated for fuel economy tyre for my GLII,

 

so both wheels off the car tonight, and car on axle stands. pleasantly surprised as I have not had the wheels off in the 2 years and they came off realy easy, I was expecting to have to apply a bit of persuasion 

 

so off to get the tyres ordered and leave the wheels with the tyre shop so should get them back Tuesday

 

anyone had the Dunlop BluResponses, on paper they look good what's your thoughts on them?

blue response do well in the tyre tests in mags always 1st  to 6th in the reviews! http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Dunlop/Sport-BluResponse.htm

Performance wise they get good reviews, only negative thing I have seen is some report per life issues (only getting around 10,000 miles in some cases) but will see what they do

 

I currently have Dunlop sport 01's on which came with car and good data for my fuel economy (full data for 28,000 miles since new), they have a "F" for fuel compared to the bluresponses which get a "B" which seems to translate to about 4-5 litre saving per 650 miles according to the rating information

 

so I currently get about 550-600 miles per tank and as only changing fronts I should see a saving of about 2-3 litre or 20-30 miles per tank

 

will be interesting to see if these rating do transfer into real world saving, I will report back in a few months once I have used a few tankfuls of fuel

The problem with fuel saving tyres is that there's no magic here and they trade good fuel economy with grip.

As general note I noticed the biggest effect on mpg is driving style really. Granted, when you drive the same, have correct pressure in your tyres and driving style is consistent then perhaos few more mpgs can be extracted.

Performance wise they get good reviews, only negative thing I have seen is some report per life issues (only getting around 10,000 miles in some cases) but will see what they do

 

I currently have Dunlop sport 01's on which came with car and good data for my fuel economy (full data for 28,000 miles since new), they have a "F" for fuel compared to the bluresponses which get a "B" which seems to translate to about 4-5 litre saving per 650 miles according to the rating information

 

so I currently get about 550-600 miles per tank and as only changing fronts I should see a saving of about 2-3 litre or 20-30 miles per tank

Is it worth sacrificing overall better grip for the sake of an extra 20-30 miles from a tank of fuel, noise, wet weather grip and wear rate would be more important to me than a small gain in fuel economy.

if you read the reviews of this tyre, there is no sacrifice in grip, and it performs better than many tyres in the wet with great wet stopping distance and aquaplaning resistance

 

the only downside is some people have reported lower than expected life

 

I drive a 1.2TDi greenline, performance is not an issue, I am more interested in economy and reducing my footprint in emissions and noise, if you look at the current sport 01's I have on the car these are a better tyre using next generation tyre compounds

 

to be honest i am sceptical of the fuel saving side, similar to manufacturers mpg claims. but I have to say they are achievable have seen over 85mpg on 190mile runs and on 1 of those runs got within 1mpg of the quoted extra urban figure of 93.7mpg

 

so we will see, an over the 28000 miles I have done with the car in 2 years my trip computer is on average 1.2% accurate compared to calculated mpg

Edited 5 July, 201411 yr by bluecar1

Aquaplaigning resistance is often from narrower tyres, just like more economy is. Only the driver really can know their needs and requirements and driving style. For me grip and traction unless loss of traction and drift is wanted. But that is for driving gods not me.

Aquaplaigning resistance is often from narrower tyres, just like more economy is. Only the driver really can know their needs and requirements and driving style. For me grip and traction is what is needed, that's unless loss of traction and drifting is wanted. But that is for driving gods not me.

well, got the tyres Thursday, put the wheels back on car yesterday

 

first impression looking at the tyres the grooves running round the tyre are a lot wider than the sport 01's on the back, this could explain the lower rolling resistance and better aquaplane resistance

 

out on the road in rain yesterday with standing water, certainly better than the sport 01's I assume due to that wider channel between the tread blocks, road holding on wet roundabout was good as well, but did not push to the limit

 

feels solid on the road, so happy with them

 

just got to see what the life is like and if I can notice any change in economy, but those are long term observations