Well, as some may know, I have had my horrible front Bridgestone tyres replaced with some lovely Pirelli P Zero Neros.

The grip they give, especially when they have a little heat in them , is trully awesome, but my economy seems to have dropped by between 5 and 10mpg. However, this thread isn't a review.

Is this purely down to the tyres? Because as great as the grip is, a 10mpg drop in economy is :eek: . Don't get me wrong, when "making progress", they tyres are awesome, and mpg is bottom of the priority, but when doing a long run, steady 70mph on the motorway, economy is an important factor.

I used to get a good 54 - 56mpg on a 100 mile motorway trip, and since the new tyres 2000 miles ago, I am yet to achieve over 50mpg on such a journey. :(

So, firstly, is this just down to the tyres - or is there something more sinister wrong with my car?

But also, how important are grip and economy to you :confused:. All the tyre reviews I have read seem to be grip based, but rarely is economy mentioned. I used to love to see 500+ miles on a full (but NOT brimmed) tank, and now 430 is more the norm :thumbdwn:

So, can anyone recommend a tyre that isn't going to kill my economy, but offers rim protection, and more than the cack grip of the Bridgestones?

Cheers!

tyres are no excuse for driving through fields

back to the topic at hand, rim protection you say? :rubchin:

tyres are no excuse for driving through fields

Straight to the .

And the wee excursion was indeed the main reason I opted for the Neros!

well that was mean, i hope you dont use the finger so quickly/easily in the future

Grip is always my priority - economy is nice and that's why I bought a diesel I'm quite impressed with the Michelin Pilot Sports on the Mondeo which have great grip in the wet and dry and are also quiet on the motorways Also have rim protection if you're as good at parking as I am Unfortunately nothing to compare it with to know the effect on mpg........

Chris

Grip is always my priority - economy is nice and that's why I bought a diesel I'm quite impressed with the Michelin Pilot Sports on the Mondeo which have great grip in the wet and dry and are also quiet on the motorways Also have rim protection if you're as good at parking as I am Unfortunately nothing to compare it with to know the effect on mpg........

Chris

I had to be really persuasive to get the lease company to fit the Pirellis, they wanted to put on Continentals or Michellins (any that I wanted), so think I'll go with either a high-end Michellin next time.

Personally I think you'll struggle to see a difference of MPG betweent he various leading brand tyres.

Personally I think you'll struggle to see a difference of MPG betweent he various leading brand tyres.

:confused:

The difference between the Bridgestones and Pirellis is VERY noticeable.

Are the Pirellis really that special?

Got any figure to back that up?

Got any figure to back that up?

See post 1

But over 5mpg worse on the Pirellis.

The best benchmark I have is the 108 mile run I do from home to Surrey. Normally get 54 to 56mpg, and the 3 times I have done the same journey on the Pirellis I have only achieved 48, and 49 twice. :thumbdwn:

Of course greater grip equals less mpg...more grip is more resistance.

I have just moved the barge from Bridgestones to Conti Sportcontact 2's on the front and Sportcontact's on the rear. Road holding is improved as is noise level's, but mpg has'nt seemed to suffer much as yet.

I've just had two goodyear F1's on the front, yet to bed them in, but will post a review (against the conti sportcontact 2's that were on before) when I've done some miles......

Do you think your driving style may have changed

since you changed to better tyres ....hence the lower mpg

Tyre pressures?

Chris

Also you may have the wrong air pressure in the new tires, which can affect fuel consumption. Plus as mentioned before because you feel the car has more grip, you might be pushing it a bit more.

I've been really conscious of tyre pressures, so not that.

And my driving style, if anything has become more conservative because of the mpg decrease... :(

My car has bridgestones and they are noisy as get out

I noticed massive differences running conti eco contacts and toyo proxes. Felt safer on the Toyos generally though, so even though I probably average around 45mpg or less, I'm sticking with them.

I noticed massive differences running conti eco contacts and toyo proxes. Felt safer on the Toyos generally though, so even though I probably average around 45mpg or less, I'm sticking with them.

I just had a double take there. i thought you said you averaged 45mpg less:rofl:

Well, news just in!

I am now the proud owner of a Golf GTI (mainly to lure me away from spending on the vRS), and the vRS is now back to "company car"... so next time round, the vRS can have "Eco Contacts" or "Energys"...

Yet again, just done a 60 mile round trip to Cambridge, theres quite a few villages (30's and 40's mph), and normally get between 56 - 61mpg driving pretty normally. Drove like a SAINT tonight, and only 51mpg.

So in all, it looks like a 5mpg drop in tyres. Now thats only 10% - Michellin Energys claim a rediculous % reduction IIRC, so maybe its not that unreasonable.

I'll stop whinging now. :P

I just had a double take there. i thought you said you averaged 45mpg less:rofl:

Should have gone to Specsavers! :P

But I used to get well over 60 on eco contacts - not a truly valid comparison as we're talking about 185/60 R14 Vs 205/40 R17, so cannot be grip/tread pattern alone - just a smaller contact with tarmac would help.

Hi Tom

Tyre rolling resistance is mostly related to the amount of energy required to form the contact patch. This is different between tyres of differing construction and it is not unusual to find a tyre that will use a lot of fuel and one that uses much less. The tyre manufacturer has to engineer the tyre to get the steering feel and handling objectives they want from the tyre, so some have much more rigid construction (for better economy) and some much less (for a longer contact patch). The addition of modifiers to the rubber also allows some tyres to have a soft compound that will conform to the surface well over the small irregularities for good grip, but will resist larger deformation from the rolling motion of the tyre. I think this is the secret of tyres containing fumed silica.

Chris

It's why I got the Conti Sport Contact 2s again - they are not exactly noiseless by any means, but the grip in dry & wet seems good.

Went to Manchester-area on Saturday, and we followed inlaws back from there down to Swindon at a leasurely pace (read: he's got 9 points so we stayed at the safe end of 75 mph pretty much the whole way).

With the two original SC2s on the back, and the new SC2s (about 500 miles on them) on the front I got 53.4 mpg - normally I hit mid 40s or thereabouts.

Quite happy with it.

Thing to remember is that these wide tyres are really not great for fuel economy anyway - eco tyres have been around for ages, and they do use significantly less fuel, generally at a trade-off with grip or endurance. That's why there are still loads of different compounds etc around, if everyone wanted the same from the tyres there would be fewer manufacturers out there by now

When AutoExpress did their annual tyre test, they stated that "As a rough guide, a six percent increase in rolling resistance will result in a one percent change in fuel comsumption."

The difference between the lowest & highest rolling resistance tyres in the test, was 37% or about a 7% difference in fuel ecomony.

And these were 'ordinary' tyres - not ultimate performace tyres like the P-Zero Nero, which, as has alredy been mentioned, will be constructed with grip as a priority not rolling resistance/ecomony.

My fuel economy dropped from and average 33 to 30 mpg when I switched from 205 to 225 wide tyres, so I suppose changing brands could have a similar impact.