My 1.5 Karoq SEL (18ins wheels) is approaching its 4yr service/2nd MoT in 2 months time, by which time it should have covered 24,000 miles. It is still shod with its original Touranzas - the fronts having some 4mm of tread, and rears 5.5mm. 

I can't get too excited about tyres - as long as they're round and black, they'll generally do for me - I am most definitely not a boy-racer. It would appear that Touranzas have an 'anti-kerbing' ridge which sounds good to me, and is something that I would like to retain on replacement tyres. The only real gripe that I have with the Touranzas is the amount of cracking/perishing - at just 3 years old, this was noted as an advisory on last year's MoT.

With the MoT looming, I think it might be wise to replace the fronts (and transfer the new rubber to the rears?). So, a question for anyone who has changed from Touranzas - what did you move to, and are you pleased with the replacements?

 

I am very happy with the new set of GoodYear Efficient Grip after factory fitted Hankook Ventus Prime3

The non-standard 225/45R18 tyre size will fit the 7J rims and give better rim protection than the standard 215/50R18 tyre size, due to the tyre sidewalls bulging out slightly. So when you gently nudge the kerb in slow parking procedures, the tyre's sidewall will touch the kerb before the alloy rim.

 

225/45R18 have a similar outside diameter to the standard 225/40R19 tyre size.

 

Bridgestone Weather Control tyres are all-season tyres with the 3PMSF symbol. All-season tyres with the 3PMSF symbol will work much better in the snow and in cold rain below about 9 degrees Centigrade than summer tyres.

 

Bridgestone Weather Control A005 Evo 225/45R18 95V XL

https://www.mytyres.co.uk/rshop/tyre/Bridgestone/Weather-Control-A005-Evo/225-45-R18-95V-XL/D-124008

 

wheel-size.com

https://www.wheel-size.com/size/skoda/karoq/2018/

 

At least you haven't got 19" rims, as the 225/40R19 tyre size fitted to 8Jx19 rims provides little protection from kerbing damage.

 

As you can see in the chart below, 225/45 is a legal fitment to a 7J rim.

 

ETRTO approved rim widths

225/45 7.0-7.5-8.5

 

OEM Skoda Karoq alloy rims

https://eshop.skoda-auto.cz/cs_CZ/hlinikove-disky/c/alloyWheels?q=%3ApriceAsc%3AcarType%3AKaroq%2B%282017%2B%29&page=1

 

Edited 14 July, 20223 yr by Carlston

I have always preferred Michelin tyres, quality and performance of these tyres I have always found to be excellent. I was told many years ago by an independent tyre supplier that Michelin quality control is second to none and this guy supplied tyres to a number of motorcycle racing teams at the time. Michelin was also the first tyre manufacturer to supply radial tyres for motorcycles.

 

My son had Bridgestone tyres on his VW Polo GTI, changed them to Michelin Pilot Sport 4  and they are a vast improvement, both in terms of grip, road noise and feel on the road.

 

I am looking to change mine to Michelin Cross Climate 2, again excellent reviews,

 

I think it always better to pay a little more for quality.

Before winter comes I will need to change at least front tyres as they are worn on outside and I was thinking either get new set of All Season Tyres (Cross Climates, GoodYear Vector 4 seasons or Bridgestone Weather control) and keep the same 18inch wheels or go another route and buy 16" wheels with the tyres, it is more expensive but theoretically comfort will be better with more supple ride, fuel consumption better too, less tyre noise too. It's just I have no much space where to keep summer 18" tyres as I already have in my garage my wife's car winter tyres.

Decisions decisions

Michelin quality control much as anyone else's and I had mates and their family and friends working in Michelin in Dundee for decades and we got tyres free fitted and handed back ' for testing'.  So now there is crap Michelin Primacy 4.  They last because they are ECO ditch finders.    Saying that I have on CrossClimate SUV,s.  Crap,. Alpin 6,s which ars great and CrossClimate 2,s (fine, so so in proper snow) on my cars.  But I get them cheap and know all the stuff Tyre Sales staff tell people.    PS. Remember Michelin own Blackcircles and ATS Euromaster but they might not be the cheapest to get Michelin's from but they can be.     Michelin own  BF Goodrich and other brands and some are very good. Especially their All Weather / All Season and winter or All Terrains.  I have had TIGAR tyres and others and they have matched tyres costing double or more. Michin owned. Kleber, Rikeb, Uniroyal and others. 

Edited 15 July, 20223 yr by roottoot

I changed over for Michelin Crossclimate 2 SUV's on my 18" 2019 1.5tsi DSG.  An excellent (truly excellent) tyre. Best deal was (at the time) ASDA with a £50 rebate card

See my posts on the subject.  I posted some pictures of the "sticky out" nature too even though they don't have an official rim protection bead. I tend to scrape the kerb a bit during parking and so far - no scratched alloys.

IMHO - you won't regret getting them.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Paul

 

On 15/07/2022 at 11:42, roottoot said:

Michelin quality control much as anyone else's and I had mates and their family and friends working in Michelin in Dundee for decades and we got tyres free fitted and handed back ' for testing'.  So now there is crap Michelin Primacy 4.  They last because they are ECO ditch finders.    Saying that I have on CrossClimate SUV,s.  Crap,. Alpin 6,s which ars great and CrossClimate 2,s (fine, so so in proper snow) on my cars.  But I get them cheap and know all the stuff Tyre Sales staff tell people.    PS. Remember Michelin own Blackcircles and ATS Euromaster but they might not be the cheapest to get Michelin's from but they can be.     Michelin own  BF Goodrich and other brands and some are very good. Especially their All Weather / All Season and winter or All Terrains.  I have had TIGAR tyres and others and they have matched tyres costing double or more. Michin owned. Kleber, Rikeb, Uniroyal and others. 

 

On our other car we have Primacy 4s on the front, replacing Primacy 3 which lasted over 29000 miles. I certainly wouldn't class the Primacy 4s as ditchfinders. No sliding under any circumstances, braking, steering, accelerating, dry or wet. When our Turanzas wear out, currently ay ~9000 miles and about half worn, I would not hesitate to fit Primacy 4s.

@Routemaster1461No idea what your other car is and if an auto and if you have much of the same weather down south as further north or if you drive much where weather might be wetter, colder or snowier. 

When my winter tyres came off I put two new tyres on the front, I chose Toyo Proxes as they had good reviews and I had previous experience of them on a Mazda CX3. 

I initially wanted Vredesteins as I've had a lot of good experience with them, but the tyre outlet didn't stock them.

I'm happy with the Toyos as they give good grip and aren't noisy. 

The original fit Brdigestones were OK, but I thought they were pretty poor in Winter, hence why I bought a set of winter tyres

My front wheels are in need of a new tires (not covered even 10k miles), 2.5 weeks ago I ordered 2 new Pirelli (all season), still waiting for them to arrive, the car struggles with the grip when its wet on current Bridgestones. Yesterday I had done front wheel alignment which needed a slight adjustment. Plus rear tire caught a nail (managed to repair it using a glued wire) so will need to be replaced at some point, at the end of this month I will order another 2 Pirelli for the rear.

27 minutes ago, Vlady said:

My front wheels are in need of a new tires (not covered even 10k miles), 2.5 weeks ago

 

Something is amiss somewhere - either the tracking is out (and you say that's now been cured) or you are a hard driver. My front Touranzas have done 24,000 miles at 4 years - I should get another year out of the rears.

2 minutes ago, StEdmund said:

 

Something is amiss somewhere - either the tracking is out (and you say that's now been cured) or you are a hard driver. My front Touranzas have done 24,000 miles at 4 years - I should get another year out of the rears.

I guess previous owner who covered only 5600 miles was an enthusiastic driver, this is the only explanation I have. On my Lexus (rear wheel drive) my tires were totally fine after 20k miles and could probably cover as much. I guess it is a front wheel drive and DSG that eats tires quicker. Tracking was slightly out but not sure if it was enough to use that much thread in less than 10k miles.

5 minutes ago, Vlady said:

I guess previous owner who covered only 5600 miles was an enthusiastic driver, this is the only explanation I have. On my Lexus (rear wheel drive) my tires were totally fine after 20k miles and could probably cover as much. I guess it is a front wheel drive and DSG that eats tires quicker. Tracking was slightly out but not sure if it was enough to use that much thread in less than 10k miles.

My Turanza's on the front were down to 3mm after 13,000 miles. I don't drive especially hard. It's down to the lack of grip and the wheelspin imho.

6 minutes ago, smipx said:

My Turanza's on the front were down to 3mm after 13,000 miles. I don't drive especially hard. It's down to the lack of grip and the wheelspin imho.

I agree with that. A few years ago we had a Passat diesel DSG and that car was going through front tyres much quicker than any of the rear wheel drive cars I had before and after. I was going to put on new tires closer to colder period but it seems I need to do it pretty soon as I do not enjoy what the front end does, just doesn't give me confidence. Who knew a car with 1.5 engine will be using front tires that much!

I also notice that the car is not happy to go slow, like over speed bumps, it doesn't want to change to 2nd gear and needs to be revved higher for the gear to be engaged, very annoying!

18 minutes ago, Vlady said:

it doesn't want to change to 2nd gear

Do you want it to go from 3rd to 2nd?  Mine seems to behave okay in that regard with speed humps. You could pop it into S mode as you approach the speed hump area and see if that makes it behave more in the way you desire - however - on my DSG it is pretty happy to go fairly slowly over the humps with little jerkiness.  You might need to "feather" the throttle in a slightly different way (at slightly different points) to anticipate the hump and get the car to the speed required to make the change (in order to force it to behave just how you want).  I often find myself overriding the gear selection (especially when going downhill).  I don't personally like the fact that if you are going down a hill and touch the brake it immediately changes down from D7 to D6 or even D5 and will not change back up unless you actually press teh accelerator.  In these situations, e.g. in D7, I do the brake (for maybe 1 second - just to anticipate something), the car drops to D6 or D5 and I then immediately use the paddles to go back to M7, leave it for a few seconds and then use the same paddle (2 second press) to go back to D7.  I feel this is saving me fuel and not revving the engine (and wearing out parts) unnecessarily.   If it were in the winter however I would not generally do this so as to give the battery a chance to regenerate a bit more quickly (I always disable Auto Stop/Start too for that reason amongst others). 

22 minutes ago, smipx said:

Do you want it to go from 3rd to 2nd?  Mine seems to behave okay in that regard with speed humps. You could pop it into S mode as you approach the speed hump area and see if that makes it behave more in the way you desire - however - on my DSG it is pretty happy to go fairly slowly over the humps with little jerkiness.  You might need to "feather" the throttle in a slightly different way (at slightly different points) to anticipate the hump and get the car to the speed required to make the change (in order to force it to behave just how you want).  I often find myself overriding the gear selection (especially when going downhill).  I don't personally like the fact that if you are going down a hill and touch the brake it immediately changes down from D7 to D6 or even D5 and will not change back up unless you actually press teh accelerator.  In these situations, e.g. in D7, I do the brake (for maybe 1 second - just to anticipate something), the car drops to D6 or D5 and I then immediately use the paddles to go back to M7, leave it for a few seconds and then use the same paddle (2 second press) to go back to D7.  I feel this is saving me fuel and not revving the engine (and wearing out parts) unnecessarily.   If it were in the winter however I would not generally do this so as to give the battery a chance to regenerate a bit more quickly (I always disable Auto Stop/Start too for that reason amongst others). 

Thanks for your reply, I mean going up from 1st to 2nd, seems like the car is stacked longer in 1st gear than required, well, yes, you can use paddles to go to 2nd but you would hope that DSG can do it by itself quick enough. I noticed that while dropping kids at school last couple of morning, the roads there have massive speed bumps and the car does need to go to 1st gear to ride over them but after speed bump it takes a while to go to 2nd, basically you need to accelerate hard enough (about 3000rpm) for car to realise it needs a 2nd gear and therefore the whole progress is not smooth. I think when it will get colder it will be even more noticeable. 

That's very odd then.  1st gear is terrible and jerky.  My car has only ever gone into 1st gear on a couple of occasions when actually moving.  When I move off it goes to D2 almost instantly and in some situations it even starts off in D2 as far as I'm aware. D1 only if crawling (1-2mph).  Sounds like something might not be right there???

Thinking about it more - I only ever remember it using D1 if I was in S mode (i.e. S1) - even when crawling (with the foot off the gas) in traffic (unless I'm going up a hill and crawling).  Have you talked to the stealership about it?  Perhaps there is a software update that is missing.  I did have all my updates done back in 2020 (do do with Kangaroo-ing and such).

Edited 18 August, 20223 yr by smipx

1 hour ago, StEdmund said:

 

Something is amiss somewhere - either the tracking is out (and you say that's now been cured) or you are a hard driver. My front Touranzas have done 24,000 miles at 4 years - I should get another year out of the rears.

If you live in Suffolk, you won’t get as much cold rain.

 

It is very easy to spin the front wheels if you leave these summer tyres on in the winter, they are very poor in the rain below about +7c and grip is very poor the colder it gets as tyres go very hard.

 

 

1 minute ago, SurreyJohn said:

If you live in Suffolk, you won’t get as much cold rain.

 

It is very easy to spin the front wheels if you leave these summer tyres on in the winter, they are very poor in the rain below about +7c and grip is very poor the colder it gets as tyres go very hard.

 

 

That is the reason I am buying All Season tires, they are very good for wet and when temperature is lower than 7C plus in Scotland you might get snow, in the morning. It doesn't help much as traffic usually not moving anywhere with all other drivers using summer tires that are almost worn to a limit! I just don't get it why they leave the house at all if they know they have summer tires that are worn! Irresponsible, I think!

13 minutes ago, smipx said:

Thinking about it more - I only ever remember it using D1 if I was in S mode (i.e. S1) - even when crawling (with the foot off the gas) in traffic (unless I'm going up a hill and crawling).  Have you talked to the stealership about it?  Perhaps there is a software update that is missing.  I did have all my updates done back in 2020 (do do with Kangaroo-ing and such).

I know about kangaroo effect but I was hoping a software remap was done before I bought the car, feels like it wasn't. Do you think dealer will know if it was done or not? I will get in touch with them to find out. Thanks for your input.

Hi,  They should know.  Worth asking the question.  They are also meant to check for any Firmware / Software updates during a service so if it hasn't been done then make sure they don't try to charge you (even if it is over 3 years old).

2 minutes ago, smipx said:

Hi,  They should know.  Worth asking the question.  They are also meant to check for any Firmware / Software updates during a service so if it hasn't been done then make sure they don't try to charge you (even if it is over 3 years old).

Just emailed the seller, to the Sales guy I bought the car from. I have only one worry that he will tell me that it was done!

I asked him if he has any suggestions why the car can behave like that and explained to him what and when it happens, lets see what he comes back with.

As far as I know the TPI firmware and software updates for the DSG can only be done by VAS and the VAG garage. They will have a record of it if you pop in to your local VAG garage and ask for a copy of the complete service history I suspect it will be recorded in there. I might be wrong though.  Others will have a definitive answer on that one.