Question about the law re tyre speed ratings

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:03

Just a simple question - is it legal to put tyres on your car which are a lower speed rating than the car manufacturer's standard fit?

eg. if your car normally has 195/60 VR15s, is it legal to fit 195/60 HR15s? And if so, would it still be legal to have H rated tyres on one axle and V rated on the other?

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:05

I'm pretty sure there are insurance implications if your car is fitted with tyres for a lower speed rating than the car is technically capable of - but why would you risk it? There is no real saving to be had in poor-rated tyres, infact often the difference between the H and V rated version of the same tyre is less than a pound.

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:07

I have an old car and want to put the bare minimum on it to comply with the law, nothing more. The prices I'm looking at are £14 a pair cheaper for H vs V.

Dangerous Dave · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:17

The tyres are the only link between the car and road. I would never skimp on tyres as one day the better tyre could save your life. They had a test on a car program same car with budget tyres stopped 3 car lengths later from 70mph than the brand tyres. Those 3 cars lengths could be the difference between having a crash and not. Is it really worth getting the cheaper tyre when generally the branded Goodyear/Dunlop etc are only £10-15 more each ?

I have just had a look on mytyres.co.uk and the Goodyear V tyres are 20p more than the H tyres for the size you require.

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:17

Tyres are the only thing keeping your 'old car' on the road - if you won't spend money for your own safety, do it for the safety of the other road users you might go careering into the back of when your cheap tyres don't afford you the braking performance you might need.

Picking a popular tyre size, for example 195/65/15, we can see the following differences between low speed rating and higher speed rating on reasonable tyres:

Goodyear Eagle NCT5 H rated: £42.90
Goodyear Eagle NCT5 V rated: £41.80
Goodyear Hydragrip H rated: £40.20
Goodyear Hydragrip V rated: £41.30

Avon ZV3 H rated: £43.70
Avon ZV3 V rated: £35.80

Dunlop SP Sport 01 H rated: £40.50
Dunlop SP Sport 01 V rated: £43.70

As we can see, the difference is at most a few pounds. In some cases, due to higher levels of supply, V rated tyres are cheaper than the H rated equivilent.

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:22

I only do a few thousand miles a year, most of which is low speed town driving. All I need are tyres which are adequate. Some cheap budget crap will suffice.

eg. on etyres...

195/60/15 H, budget crap... £37.90 x 2 = £75.80
195/60/15 V, budget crap... £44.90 x 2 = £89.80 = £14 more.

Oh I assume those prices you quoted above are not including fitting etc.

Dangerous Dave · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:24

dirtydog said:
I only do a few thousand miles a year, most of which is low speed town driving. All I need are tyres which are adequate. Some cheap budget crap will suffice.

eg. on etyres...

195/60/15 H, budget crap... £37.90 x 2 = £75.80
195/60/15 V, budget crap... £44.90 x 2 = £89.80 = £14 more.

Go to mytyres.co.uk, Goodyear EAGLE NCT 5 195/60 R15 88V are £46.20 each. My local tyre place will fit them for £5 each cash in hand as does most places.

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:25

A whole £14. That'll be good when some drunk fool steps out in front of you on a wet night in your 'low speed town driving' and your crappy tyres give you little chance of stopping.

If you do low mileage, you probably won't need new tyres for another 3 perhaps 4 years.

We know from your posts in SC and GD that you are quite skint but surely 29p a month isn't too much for safety?

Besides, that seems very expensive for budget crap anyway, if you shop around you could get decent tyres for that £45.

lordrobs · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:27

dirtydog said:
I only do a few thousand miles a year, most of which is low speed town driving.

In which case you might as well buy decent tyres

My last 2 sets have been V rated, the only reason I bought them was that they were the best priced of the decent tyres available

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:28

If I did buy branded tyres I would either get the Avon ZV3s that it has on there currently or Falken ZE-512s. I have had bad experience of Goodyears in the past, they had poor grip in the wet I believe due to a hard compound.

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:30

dirtydog said:
If I did buy branded tyres I would either get the Avon ZV3s that it has on there currently or Falken ZE-512s. I have had bad experience of Goodyears in the past, they had poor grip in the wet I believe due to a hard compound.

There is no need to super amazing high end ultra high performance tyres, so the stuff you've mentioned will be more than acceptable - just stay away from Linglongs and Nankangs etc.

Goodyears, however, offer perhaps the best wet performance in the industry at the moment - the Goodyear Hydragrip is one of the best, if not the best, performing wet regular car tyre on the market right now. It's also not particularly expensive, either.

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:30

[TW]Fox said:
A whole £14. That'll be good when some drunk fool steps out in front of you on a wet night in your 'low speed town driving' and your crappy tyres give you little chance of stopping.

If you do low mileage, you probably won't need new tyres for another 3 perhaps 4 years.

We know from your posts in SC and GD that you are quite skint but surely 29p a month isn't too much for safety?

Besides, that seems very expensive for budget crap anyway, if you shop around you could get decent tyres for that £45.

I'm not skint at all mate

And because I am very stingy with my money it will stay that way. I agree that £90 for two budget tyres is not very tempting and if it comes to that I may just spend the £110-120 to get one of the brands I mention above.

lordrobs · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:30

dirtydog said:
Falken ZE-512s

I had these, very pleased with them overall.

Currently got Dunlop Sport something or other which I really should have looked into more as they only have a treadwear of 200... oops

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:33

[TW]Fox said:
There is no need to super amazing high end ultra high performance tyres, so the stuff you've mentioned will be more than acceptable - just stay away from Linglongs and Nankangs etc.

Goodyears, however, offer perhaps the best wet performance in the industry at the moment - the Goodyear Hydragrip is one of the best, if not the best, performing wet regular car tyre on the market right now. It's also not particularly expensive, either.

I used to have a Sierra 2.0i GLS and I got two Goodyear Eagles for the rear. They had appalling grip in wet and dry, which did not noticeably improve once they had been run in. The tyre pressures were correct and the garage found no problem with them or the car. Suffice to say I won't be getting that brand again.

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:36

Let me guess.... this was many years ago and they were NCT3's? Hardly suprising - tyre technology has moved on a lot since then, and brands can and do change performance characertistics.

It's a bit like not buying a new Focus becuase you once had a Mk2 Fiesta which sucked. You can tell exactly how hard or soft the compound is by checking the treadwear index..

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:42

[TW]Fox said:
Let me guess.... this was many years ago and they were NCT3's? Hardly suprising - tyre technology has moved on a lot since then, and brands can and do change performance characertistics.

It's a bit like not buying a new Focus becuase you once had a Mk2 Fiesta which sucked. You can tell exactly how hard or soft the compound is by checking the treadwear index..

I can't remember but it would have been 1998 that I bought them.

[TW]Fox · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:46

Yea, NCT3's. My Mondeo had one as the spare and it was manufactured in 1999.

Third Opinion · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:29

Bung a set of Hankook's on it they are generally cheap. Paid £28 a corner for the Mazda and they are quite good.

ajgoodfellow · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:54

What size are you looking at? That initially seems expensive

My Astra was something like 165/60 R14 or something and they were only about £25 a tyre for no name plastic tyres

dirtydog · 25 Jun 2007 at 13:13

195/60 VR15. They seem to cost more than then 195/65 15s which are common on Vectras, despite being smaller. Bear in mind the prices I quoted were fully inclusive of VAT, fitting, valves & balancing. Any other price is moot because those things have to be included.

Does anyone know the answer to the thread question?

It seems silly to buy 150 mph rated tyres when 130mph ones would just about suffice... considering I don't even do half that speed 99% of the time. I think my car's official top speed is 135 so it just scrapes into the V category.