Hi folks.

 

Following a scary moment in the city centre the other day (back end stepping out at low speed) with the cheap tyres fitted to the 19" wheels on my Saab I have ordered a new set of 17" wheels and looking at which tyres to get.

 

The tyres are to be 235/45/17 (min W rating) and preferably XL as they were rated at that from the factory I believe due to the convertible's rather hefty 1,700+ kg weight!

 

I'm looking at perhaps the P7 Cinturato Blue tyres as they are (in XL form) double A rated. £97 a corner fitted but they're not rim protection.

 

Other contenders are Goodyear F1 Asymmetric 3 or Uniroyal Rainsport 3. Both of which are C and A rated, XL and rim protect. £89 and £82 a corner respectively.

 

Any comments?

 

My main wishes are long lasting and good wet grip.

 

Phil

You can get Avon ZV7 fitted in that size for £70/corner at cartyres.com.

 

A wet grip, C fuel efficiency rating too.

Ah cool. Not one I'd thought of actually.

 

They seem to get decent reviews. Can't quite find out for certain if they have rim protection or not. Some sites say yes and some no.

 

I think for this reason I've ruled out the Pirellis as I do want rim protection after doing some googling. Seems they are a bit more resilient to knicks and cuts in the side wall that would usually write-off a normal tyre and need replacing.

 

Plus I'm buying a brand new (old stock) set of alloys so want to protect them!

See today's comments in the "Briskie Drive Recorder." thread for my thoughts on tyre rating data!

 

From my experience, of those listed/suggested so far, I'd have the Goodyears (Pirelli have spent the last several years propping up tyre test tables, Uniroyal I've never found good in the wet and I've never trusted Avon since a mate came within an ace of throwing 2 treads on tyres that had done about 2_000 miles).

Edited 18 October, 20169 yr by KenONeill

I must admit that the last set of tyres to go on the Octavia were Goodyear Efficient Grip Performance and they were very good.

 

They're only £7 more than the Pirellis and tick all the boxes with XL, rim protect and still decent ratings.

Easy. F1A3 all day long.

I'm now torn between the Goodyear F1 or Avon ZV7.

 

It seems the Avon does have rim protect and they're £14 cheaper per corner with good reviews and feedback.

I've got the P7 Cinturato Blues on my Superb. They replaced Michelin PS3's which are also a great tyre. 

 

The P7's are noticeably more comfortable and grip  in all conditions are on a par with the PS3's. They have a slightly softer sidewall though, so steering is a little more vague, but the comfortable steady ride more than makes up for it!

 

Had Goodyears and they are excellent, with outstanding grip, but they won't last that long! 

After much deliberating I have made my decision.

 

I've gone for the Pirellis. Found a few tyre reviews testing different tyres and they were scoring fairly highly. Most of the tests against goodyears were the efficient grip performance which is not available in my size I don't think. They're also more of an all-rounder than the F1s.

 

They performed well in wet grip testing and although the goodyears have a lower DB rating they performed better in noise tests.

 

A lot of comments around that the F1s don't last all that well but many getting up to 30k miles from a set of the P7s.

 

I've gone for the XL which should stiffen up the sidewalls a bit to cope with any spirited driving.

 

Will let you know how they perform after Sunday.

My dad had P7s on his Jetta in 205/55/16 and they badly saw toothed. The noise was unbearable. They had to be replaced with 4mm of tread still available.

Unless something has changed between the P7 and P7 blue then be prepared for it. They have history of of sawtoothing with lots of evidence online.

Have you checked out the Dunlop Blue SportResponse?

I had F1A2 do 15.5k miles on the front of my Superb twindoor. Around 4k better than any other tyre I've used in the past. Was lucky to get 10k out of a set of Hankooks

Ah well fingers crossed that's not an issue with the Blue version. Haven't seen any mention of this on any of the reviews.

 

They're now fitted.

 

Have completely transformed the car.

 

They are nice and quiet (I thought a wheel bearing was going with the old tyres they were that noisy and droning!).

 

The distance to empty has also shot up. It never reads over 500 miles and is now showing 540 with 50 miles driven after a short drive with the new tyres.

200+ miles in and now the new-ness has scrubbed off I had some spirited driving down some country lanes yesterday.

 

They're not quite as sharp as before and can see where the comments of the side walls feeling a bit squishy come from. But I actually quite like that. Give more confidence over bumps and smoothes everything out.

 

Grip was still impressive. Not once has the tractions control warning flashed up when accelerating and corning feels very confident.

 

With a mix of town, country road blasts and a bit of A road and dual carriageway I'm on target to actually get over 500 miles from a tank for the first time!

 

While just driving sensibly on the motorway or major A road the cars is estimating over 600 miles range which it never did previously so they've made a massive difference there (I should think so from E/F rated to A).

 

Braking performance is excellent too... I found that out first hand when Mr. 1.2 Corsa decided to fly up out of nowhere and cut in front on a 2 to 1 lane merge and I had to slam the anchors on.

Edited 28 October, 20169 yr by Phil-E