Tyre confusion

Adam_151

Adam_151

Adam_151

Soldato
Joined
18 May 2004
Posts
2,894
Location
Lincoln, Uk
Got a Mk2 mondeo 2L zetec (found one at sensible price in the end)

Tyre size is 205/50/16 (I assume thats right, thats whats on it)

Anyway, needs [4] new tyres (knew this when I bought it, but they probably need doing even sooner than I thought!)

What tyres do I go for though?

Dexel have Mohawk (which are apparently related to hankook tyres?) tyres at £60.88 in this size

Black circles have Toyo T1-R for £81.36 (minus 10 quid if you buy four)

Select-tyres will match black circles for £78 a tyre

Tanvics have marangoni for £65 (which when I mentioned the name to dexel they didn't seem to think much to them)

Not sure what to do, I don't know enough about tyres really to decide, all I know is that with tyres person A says x is great, and then person B says its crap and can't draw any logical conclusions from anything

I do a max of about 10,000 miles a year, and drive like james may if that makes any difference...
 
First rule of buying tyres. Do NOT take the advice of ANY tyre seller.

'Which is the best tyre for me' = 'Please recommend me the tyre which gives you the biggest profit margin'

I have never heard of Mohawk and cannot imagine them being any good. Maragoni, Hankook, etc etc, all cheapo junk.

Best tyre you've listed is the Toyo T1-R.
 
Not much familiar choice in your sizes. Because you're not looking for performance tyres and something more hard wearing, T1-Rs are not going to last too long however if you drive calm and slow you never know. They are meant to be quite good in the wet by all accounts.

This site may help with user based ratings. Seems those Falked 452s are cropping up again (were mentioned in DannyWs Eagle F1 thread).

you want to be looking at My Tyres, Camskill and Black Circles for price comparisons but I do advise asking locally for a price match and possible free or cheap fitting although its important they're balanced properly.
 
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Cheers fox,

You heard of falken? which catogory does that fit in?

I don't want to spend an extra £60 on tyres for no good reason, but then I don't want to spend £240 on crap tyres, if £300 gets me decent tyres!

Searched the forum this morning and heard people saying toyo is crap, but then others singing their praises.

I'm terrible at choosing most purchases, but tyres are worse, I don't know enough about them :$

Does that size sound right to you btw? The spare is actually a 195/60/15 , but tanvics tell me thats normal, now I am aware that 'space saver' ones are bit different, but different diameter wheel???
 
I got the Eargle F1 GSD3 205/50/16 from Blackcircles for just a little over £80 a few months back. Good choice of tyre that should last you the year, if you want the tyre to last longer find a harder compound. I remember having Michellin Pilot Primacys for around £55-60 a corner from Costco but soon regretted it, but they will last longer than the F1s.
 
VREDESTEIN SPORTRAC 3 - 205/50R16 87V i had these on my mondeo and were brilliant. they are only £70 from camskill. Eagle f1s are only £74 and Toyo Proxes T1R are only £64 each

The correct size for a MKII zetec is 205/50/16 the spare is 195/something/15 so yes. i saw a few MKII zetecs with 205/55/16 on, as the tyre is cheaper this size. i once bought a set of budgets, they stayed on the car for less than 2months. garage thought i was nuts changing brand new tyres, but i like to stop and be able to go around roundabouts with out the car slipping. the set that were on my new mondeo would slip at 20mph on a roundabout, they didnt stay long on the car either.
 
look at camskill, they are usually the cheapest. They will do toyo t1-r's for £64 per tyre delivered.

t1-r's are good in the dry but I found them pretty crappy in the wet. Didn't wear down as quick as I thought they would either
 
The problem with getting them delivered is that I really want to get them sorted this week [I think one may actually be illegal], and also not sure what I'd do about fitting (not sure whether I'd be able to get the tyre fitter who comes into work to do it for a good price or not :p )

But its perhaps what I'd do next time, I'd be able to get them in advance and get the done at lesiure
 
Nothing wrong with Falken FK452's, mine have been utterly superb. However the other Falken tyres such as the ZE512's are terrible.
 
Etyres were doing the GSD3 for around 80 per corner too, and if you look around its possible to get 5-10% discount. You could get their mobile fitting service to come out to you.
 
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places but I tried all the big places like Budget, Kwik Fit, ATS, National and 4-5 local places and ALL of them only managed to offer me Millenium tyres in the same size you asked for - I have the same car also. Came in at £170 for 2 of them fitted.

Maybe I'm crap at looking for tyres lol.
 
[TW]Fox;11867749 said:
I have never heard of Mohawk and cannot imagine them being any good..
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Probably the most common tyre we fit now doing a good hundred or so a year of them, not bad by any means but they are a budget brand, not nasty just a bit cheap.

I wouldn't recommend them to a 'enthusiast' driver but the vast majority of customers we have in just want the cheapest possible and they are as low as we go, there are far worse out there that we simply refuse to fit.
 
I'm going for Falkens next. I've heard many good reviews about the Toyo T1R but in the flesh, they're not that good.

Not only is the grip inferior to other brands, but they are quite dangerous at speed for the first 1000 miles.
 
GlasgowTitan said:
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places but I tried all the big places like Budget, Kwik Fit, ATS, National and 4-5 local places and ALL of them only managed to offer me Millenium tyres in the same size you asked for - I have the same car also. Came in at £170 for 2 of them fitted.

Maybe I'm crap at looking for tyres lol.
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I think you MUST be crap at looking for tyres if you were going to pay 170 quid for 2 budget tyres! You can get Eagle F1's fitted for 82 quid per corner! Do yourself a favour and don't EVER go to a place like Kwik Fit or ATS for tyres. They rarely have offers on tyres that can compete with the likes of Blackcircles.com, camskill.co.uk or mytyres.com.

For the easiest way to have tyres fitted and the lowest cost, i'd recommend blackcircles. Everytime i've used them it has been a seemless transaction. My next tyres in a few days will be Falken FK-452's for 62quid per corner from black circles (paradigm, they better be worth it!! ;))
 
GlasgowTitan said:
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places but I tried all the big places like Budget, Kwik Fit, ATS, National and 4-5 local places and ALL of them only managed to offer me Millenium tyres in the same size you asked for - I have the same car also. Came in at £170 for 2 of them fitted.

Maybe I'm crap at looking for tyres lol.
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They saw you coming tbh, that is a lot of money to pay for budget tyres.
I use a local Toyo dealer, however he can get me what ever tyres i want, and matches internet prices, but his prices include fitting too.
 
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