**Unofficial Tyre Thread**

Conanius said:
Of the garages I've asked, the cheapest wanted £20 per wheel for fitting, balancing and valves. That seemed expensive for - £80 - For 20 minutes work. Many don't want to do it full stop.

Appreciate its because their profit was in the tyres, but happy to be told different.
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It has always been the same when I've shopped around.
The money you save buy buying "just the tyres" is easily eaten up by the fitting charges afterwards.
Etyres will come to you and fit your own tyres - but they want rim size + VAT.
Most garages seem to want about £20 per corner at least.
I'm about to get myself a couple of Conti SC5's and it looks like Black Circles will offer me the best "no hassle" price - so I just drive to their local "premium fitter" about 4 miles down the road and they will fit them for me, all included in the online price.
 
I dont really understand it? The profit on fitting tyres must be pretty huge - the guys are only standing around doing nothing if they dont fit your tyres - takes what, 10 minutes?

£40 for 10 minutes work is a useful contribution to the costs of keeping the place open..

When a company tells me 'no, we wont fit your tyres' or '£25 a tyre please' I say 'thanks, bye' and dont buy from them, so thats £40 they could have earnt..
 
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I generally use a 'pick and choose' online service where you pick a tyre and a local garage on the list, last time i had 2 tyres fitted i overheard one of the guy's speaking to his colleague something along the lines of 'how can they charge thst, they can't be making any money?'

The garage will obviously get a cut for the labour, but the tyres are couriered to them so it only costs them 30 mins labour in real terms.

I wonder if some of these online services are loss leaders to gain market share. Its a strategy that seems plausible as i and i suspect others, dont want to spend hours finding the best tyre for the best price, and then spend more hours finding a ace that wil fit them cheap when you've not bought the tyres through thier business.
 
[TW]Fox;25161805 said:
I dont really understand it? The profit on fitting tyres must be pretty huge - the guys are only standing around doing nothing if they dont fit your tyres - takes what, 10 minutes?

£40 for 10 minutes work is a useful contribution to the costs of keeping the place open..

When a company tells me 'no, we wont fit your tyres' or '£25 a tyre please' I say 'thanks, bye' and dont buy from them, so thats £40 they could have earnt..
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Totally on the same page. The difficulty I'm finding is my tyre size isn't stocked in many places ?
 
Accidentally wheel spin in first and then second gear in slightly wet conditions last week, not illegal tread levels but well on their way!

Bought a couple of continental sport contact 5 tyres for the front of my 1.9CDTi Astra SRI, will hopefully provide a bit of extra grip over the current unheard of tyres through the winter. Getting fitted tomorrow.
 
215/45 r17 for a mk3 mx5....what should I be buying? Road use only, no track day stuff.

Dont want Bridgestone RE050A which is what it has at the moment. Considering Bridgestone RE002 Adrenaline (few reviews but only recently for sale in the UK?), Goodyear F1AS2, continetal CSC5....?

Stock size is 205/45 but most people go to 215s with no ill effects it seems.
 
stoofa said:
Cannot disagree more about your rating of the SC2's.
I had these factory fitted on my Octy vRS.
I replaced the first two at 31k miles (so had SC5's put on the rear and the existing rear SC2's moved to the front).
The remaining two SC2's have now reach 43k miles (31k on the back, 12k on the front) and are now ready for replacement.
In those 43k miles the SC2's have never let me down nor felt like they were going to. I've thrown the car through corners in all weather conditions and I do that because I know that the SC2's will grip and not let go.

The SC5's are so far proving to be excellent too - hence why I'll replace the remaining SC2's with them.
But the SC2's have just been amazing. Quiet, lasting forever and never once attempted to let go when they shouldn't have.
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I'm struggling to comprehend how anyone can get that kind of mileage out of those tyres, what was the tread depth when you changed them? are you pretty much motorway cruising?
 
[TW]Fox;25162305 said:
So what? I can't remember ever buying a tyre from stock, they usually always have to order in?
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As in, the major players online who do 'to order' tyres or whatever don't have them listed, so I have to make phone calls to sort prices. It also seems whenever I do this, their systems don't have the prices, so they have to call me back, some companies obviously don't, some of those, hypothetically, are the big players that everyone always says to use or have the best prices on the same tyre in other sizes.
 
Had a couple of Michelin Supersports on front today 255/35/20 £513 for pair and a £60 fuel card to come, not too bad I think

Odd thing was bloke remembered my car and that he fitted rears earlier in year, he checked them and said they have 5-6mm on them, found the receipt out and they have done 11k miles :eek:
 
mattyfez said:
I'm struggling to comprehend how anyone can get that kind of mileage out of those tyres, what was the tread depth when you changed them? are you pretty much motorway cruising?
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Nope - my run into work consists of numerous 30-60 zones over smooth and less so roads.
I don't "drive like a priest" yet the tyres just last. As you can see in my post above I'm still actually yet to replace the original 2 SC2's (currently on the front) so you can actually add another 1k to their mileage.
I'm not saying I'd particularly want to keep on running them as they currently stand through continuous wet/winter weather. They are now almost down to the wear marks.
But they are definitely still legal with now 44k miles on them (albeit 31k of those on the rear).
 
[TW]Fox;25161805 said:
I dont really understand it? The profit on fitting tyres must be pretty huge - the guys are only standing around doing nothing if they dont fit your tyres - takes what, 10 minutes?

£40 for 10 minutes work is a useful contribution to the costs of keeping the place open..

When a company tells me 'no, we wont fit your tyres' or '£25 a tyre please' I say 'thanks, bye' and dont buy from them, so thats £40 they could have earnt..
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I just call my local garage and ask them when they want me to bring them in. Typically £0-20 for all 4 tyres (I take in wheels & tyres off the car), cash.
 
I know why it's suggested, but in real terms understeer is far more likely in normal driving circumstances unless you're powering away from a bend in an RWD car, and if you've got crap tyres at the front and brand new ones at the rear, your braking ability is somewhat lacking, as well. IMHO.
 
Rule of thumb for a FWD car is..

Move old rear tyres to the front, put new tyres on the rear. Otherwise you end up with 25,000 mile tyres on the rear with fresh rubber up the front.
 
Howard said:
I know why it's suggested, but in real terms understeer is far more likely in normal driving circumstances unless you're powering away from a bend in an RWD car, and if you've got crap tyres at the front and brand new ones at the rear, your braking ability is somewhat lacking, as well. IMHO.
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I think a little more research on this subject would be prudent. The risk is that in the wet, oversteer is far more likely than it otherwise would be, hence the recommendation to put them on the rear to counter this.
 
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