Why Mixing Expensive Tyres With Cheap Tyres Will Ruin Your Car!
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Lots of car / tyre related content on my insta here - / jonathan__benson
We all know you should never mix tyres on the same axle, but people often wonder whether it's a good idea to mix different brands of tyres between the front and rear of the car. To find out, I started with all four tires the same, then switched to another premium brand (Michelin) rear tyre, then a midrange kumho rear tyre, then a budget rear tyre and found out what changed in both handling and wet grip lap times when you mixed the different classes of tyres.
If you have any questions about this tyre test, please ask below!
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If anyone cares, the M3 build series is still going ahead, we've just had issues with both the car and the weather delaying testing. The first three episodes were meant to be filmed this week, but again it's WET all week in the UK, which ruins dry testing :(
I'm keeping my personal and work instas updated.
instagram.com/jonathan__Benson/
instagram.com/Tyre_reviews/
I hope you enjoy this video :)
Take your time mate, will be worth the wait.
Chicken legs are illegal too, even more when you're tall. :)
Hi what make of tyres were the budget tyres
You have to change country mate,come to greece :)
When you say traction control off in a M2 (at least a non comp model like that one) you mean mean traction and stability control off right? (like you press the traction control button for 5 seconds).
This video shows how actually tyres can make a huge difference in terms of safety on wet roads. Great job Jonathan!
Just drive safe on wet road, if you driving fast enough to skid on wet road that be prepared for skidding 😀
Had a car with gt rubbish hit standing water at 60 and the car was lethal, set of premium tyres and the car was so much better to drive like a diff car.
There is literally no 'can' about it. THEY ABSOLUTELY DO make a difference every single time.
I never understand why people go budget on tyres. It's the only contact you have with the road surface. Get the absolute best that you can.
The thing with traction control, is that it can't override bad tyres. All it can do is try and keep the driver in control with however much grip it has available to it.
Exactely, stability control and traction control can't change the laws of physics. Physics always win.
of course, also the TC control traction when power is applied and not in deceleration (liftof or brake)
@@PeterMedvesek That is true. However, I was referring to traction control a bit more colloquially, as a catch all term for all forms electronic aids including TCS, ESC, ABS, as well as the other proprietary acronyms that some brands use.
Sorry to break it to you dawg, the TCS and other driver aids in this BMW are utter shit, im running this set up on my modded Genesis Coupe 3.8 and traction control wont even let me slip a tiny bit on the road at all and thats with me flooring it.
Got 2 Ling Long tires at the rear.
@@nirfz it actualyl says that in the BMW M2 manual "Information:
The laws of physics cannot be repealed, not even with DSC."
New tyre day is one of the best days of the year!
Yes it is!
So is last tyre day 😉
@@tyrereviews you said accelera in the video as well as kumho please definitely confirm which budget tyres were on the m2 in this video
@@vp5 The Kumho was the midrange tyre in this video
@@JayGee6996 haha yes it is! Burnouts before arriving at the garage 😂
insurance: you changed dampers to improve ride? +£500. You fitted budget ditchfinder 3000 tyres? Kool.
Ditchfinder is exactly right. They should add that to tire ratings. Ditchfinder A+!
Maybe insurance could give a premium tyre discount? In a similar way to them now giving dash cam discounts..
@@DanBanning only problem is that those who buy premium tyres are more likely to be pushing their cars.
@@christopherjohnston6343 The M2 with full continental proved to be safer despite a faster lap than the budget ones at low speed.
My comment was in regards to insurance premiums not the extremely weird decision of mixing premium and budget tyres. Most normal people buy budget and drove slow. Many fast drivers buy premium and drive near the limit of adhesion on the road.
Must agree 100% with your comments regarding the legality of the cheap products.
Ling Longs should be illegal.....
MOT isn't stringent enough in my opinion, testers are more worried about dash lights and emissions than how well brakes and suspension work.
I've got plenty of cars that are on the edge of being safe through the test when I was poorer.
The trouble is being able to clearly define safe & unsafe. Until this can be done, how can you decide what is too dangerous? Even if this could be done, we would then be left with the worst of the best. Would these then be considered unsafe too?
@@marcustaylor670 I completely agree. Tyre age is not even considered but the performance does drop off with age. I bought a 10 year old car recently which appeared to have 1 original tyre on the rear. I soon replaced all 4.
@@TheRip72 Easy test..Is it made in China? Yes..then fail...No..then pass :D
Back in my younger, less wise, and poorer days, I brought a used Suzuki Ignis Sport, with Yokohama's, front and Sumo Firenza, budgets fitted on the rear by the seller. How bad could they be. The first time I leaned on the car a little bit, it spun on me and put me into a wall. The car was repaired, tyres changed to quality ones and I never lost control again. It wasn't my driving skills, or the car, but those awful tyres. Back then, videos like this were not around to educate the younger me and this will save lives and mean others do not have to learn the hard way about budget rubber.
Glad no one was hurt and you worked out how to solve your issue
@@tyrereviews hahaha lol Sumo Firenza are that hard they last forever, ive fitted loads back in the day.
Funny how we all remember the make of tyre that nearly kill us, for me it was wanli yuckkkkkkk.
I learned about the difference the tires make after I started mountain biking. I had some cheap tires, then I changed to Schwalbe top spec tires, the difference was eye opening. Extrapolate that to a car, and it's even more evident and important.
Had the exact same thing! Bought a civic type r with Bridgestone’s on the front and Sumo Firenza’s on the rear. Wasn’t keen on the idea but having just bought the car and money being a tad tight, figured they’d be fine for a few thousand miles. Anyway, second week of owning the car, I casually went round a wet roundabout off throttle and found myself snap counter steering the back end which had come fully out with my girlfriend in the car. Safe to say these were immediately swapped for four Goodyear’s and never had the same issue again. Don’t buy cheap tyres people! They literally endanger yours and your loved ones life’s!!
i love your "experiencing understeer" expression at 7:23 when you put the garbage rubber on the fronts.
Completely agree. I bought a car with this exact mix, well, Pirelli fronts and Accellera backs. Fine in the hot sticky summer. First proper wet day... Huge overcorrection required still leading to oversteer, then even worse understeer, completely upsetting the chassis, then finally settling down. This was on a Roundabout. Absolutely dangerous. I don't know how they are legal. Honestly the worst rubber I've ever driven on. Do. Not. Buy.
I know what you're thinking, maybe I wasn't driving to the conditions. All I'll say is go out and put this combo on your car and drive normally in the wet. And take spare undies. The falloff on predictable to manslaughter-inducing is nuts.
I've got a 1.6 2004 Civic Sport which recently had Toyo Proxes Sport put on the front and had Churchill RCB009 on the back after being told they were a "British Brand" (with a big Made in China on the sidewall). Was pretty fine during the sunny days, but the first day it's rained since I've had them and I've lost the back end on the way into a roundabout. Was coming in at about 40 and under pretty gentle steering I just lost full control over the back. I counter steered to try straighten out but with no traction in the back I was sliding towards the lamppost so tried steering into the roundabout to follow it round and avoid going off. The Toyos still had full traction and steering back right caused the back end to flick out leading to a full spin.
Watching this video I thought it wouldn't really matter on my lower power FWD but clearly I was wrong. I think it's better to have cheaps all round than it is to have a mix, the issue with my situation was that on slowing down, the fronts gripped up and the backs didn't leading to the back end essentially trying to push through the front of the car. On all cheaps I'd have slowed significantly slower but it would've been gradual rather than the front getting immediate traction and the back struggling. If you're forced into a position where you're having to run a mix, I'd say put your better tyres on the back, even if it means having to deal with the understeer of less grip on the front.
I've always known that cheap tyres aren't great but the moment you really find out is when you really don't want to. If you have to be on cheap tyres for the sake of budget, don't mix. Being on a full set of 4 means your braking will be long and your general traction will be worse but you can accommodate for that. Having a mix gives you false confidence and can lead you into some real trouble no matter what you're driving.
I LOVE buying new tires!!! I hate paying for them, but it’s so nice getting a fresh set of rubber!
Why isn't there a aftershave that smells of rubber ?
Ive got a c63 and thought it would be interesting to see what happens to mine regarding this test. I had a set of Hancook Ventus on all 4 and it handled as you would expect, fairly good tyre. The rears needed changing so I threw some budgets on and the balance and feel of the car was just undriveable. Anything above 70 on a private road of course, the rear would become floaty, literally felt like the rear was on ice.
It all comes down to having a different level of grip from front to rear and the car just doesn’t know what’s going on. I didn’t really read into it before about having different brand tyres on front to rear axle but I definitely do now. Cheers for the video 👍🏻
I'm reseller of Pirelli tires in Turkey. Cheap tires always give you a headache. Tires are the first substance that comes in contact with the ground,
money is no more valuable than our lives.
Spot on.You pay one way or another.Cheap tyres could cost you your life or you end up in a crash..which is never cost free.
Who knew tyres made such a huge difference to handling? Certainly not me when I was younger. I used to spin out all the time in the wet in my first car, always thought it was because the car was crap. But it turns out it was probably mostly the tyres it came with. My next car handled way better but it probably had better tyres.
Jonathan, mate, these videos are incredible. As a motovlogger I can see the amount of work you put into these - and thank god you do. As a bit of a geek I love this scientific approach to tires. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the kind words. Keep vlogging!
Your channel is amazing, man! Video quality is insane, what gear do you use?
@@ricardolourizela5961 Thanks, Ricardo! I use a GoPro Hero 7 Black, always in Protune, always with -1 EV when shooting outside, and I do quite a bit of post processing. I'm currently working on a video where I go into all the specs - stay tunned.
@@motozest7856 We also use a mix of gopros, Sony a7sII, A6500 and DJI Inspire 2 :)
@@tyrereviews Bigger budget😎 I also have an a6500, amazing camera! What do you think if that DJI?
I've taken his advice and put budget tyres on my m3, now I am the Drift King of my city.
Really interesting, I was thinking of going for mid range tyres to replace 2 worn tyres - but opted for all conti's after watching - spent a bit more - but the car handles so much better - almost like having a new car
Have Continental tires as well. They sure feel great!
👍🏾
Continental are the gods of tyres imo insane how good they are.
How about a video on premium tyres for budget cars? I’ve just bought a Panda a second car for use out in the narrow lanes where I live and it seems hard to find a good all round tyre.
There's still premium tyres in the smaller tyre sizes?
@@Gandalf721 I have Michelin CrossClimate 165/70R14 on my Punto and I think that it is most premium tire that I can find in that size. I can not praise it enough, both in term of long term value and in term of driving performance.
darko99x The Cross Climate is a 4-season tire. There surely are better tires for your size if you concider switching summer- & winter tires twice a year.
darko99x I’ve got cross climates on my other car, and they are excellent and would have been my first choice. But the Pandas are 165/65 R 14 and they don’t do that size. Any recommendations welcome!
Tyre Reviews I got the Cross Climates on my other car after your review and love them, but the options seem very limited on a 165/65 R14 rim
Hi Jonathan
Just watched this old video. Fantastic test. Totally agree, the budgets should be banned! Tyre fitters should also have certain safety checks criteria to avoid such a dangerous set up!
A neighbour years ago had 4 worn tyres on his classic 205 gti 1.9. Don't recall the tyre make but were likely hovering around 1.6 to 1.8mm.
I recommended what I was running at the time all round, Goodyear eagle f1 GSD3, but he was mean and only replaced the 2 most worn. I advised him to put the new on the rear. He ignored my advice and wrote it off within days in the rain☹
What a shame, lovely car!
@@tyrereviews I know! He's a pretty good driver too. Also has an early elise, so should be au fait with oversteer and cars without modern safety aids😉
One of the BEST videos showcasing the NEED for tyres that work. The thing that makes it for me is the section where you showcase how an average driver would handle the situation (no countersteer) on a soaking road with the traction control on. If this is not a wake up call for the cheap tyre enthusiasts then nothing is.
Great video as always. I've bought a car with ridiculous budget tyres and wet roads may as well have been ice! Great to see you turning the traction control on and helping people realise that traction control only cuts power and can do nothing about weight transfer when you lift off (or worse, brake) in a corner.
If anything the car felt worse with TC on, the system would just have a fit and bounce you across the track.
@@tyrereviews and to think older systems are even worse. I once had a moment after taking a wet bend too fast, corrected it myself but then got sent off course again because the ESC reacted later than I did.
Crap tyres also don't do a goood job of kicking out the water to give you traction.
I use Falken Azenis FK510s...They’re a very solid all round tyre. They suit my V6 Saab perfectly to be fair.
Another great video. I'm totally with you on banning those cheap tyres for safety reasons. It's something transport authorities & governments overlook time & time again.
This vid is like a concusion of few previous tests. Well done.
Thank you!
What a terrible day just have had driving the M2 on that wet circuit with different tires, drifting and so on.
Tx!
Every Lerner driver should be shown this. I am shocked when I see budget tyres on expensive motors!!!
Eye opening but would like to see the same test applied to a FWD hatch if possible. Something like a Golf GTi or similar.
A very good advocate for decent quality tyres. I would also go further by saying people should regularly rotating their tyres, to avoid large differences between front and rear grip (especially for RWD cars) and for 4x4 cars that could knacker their control systems because of tyres with mismatched tyre tread wear.
I’m not a pro, for me the tyres & the breaks are the most important part of any car!?
On this video, that much difference very interesting indeed. keep up with your great videos. 👍🏻🏎
I have an m140i, and have the same quandary. At the moment the rear tyres are nearly ready for changing, but still 4mm on the front. They are michelin super sports. Ideally, I'd like to switch brands to Goodyear asymmetric 5's, but I'm loathed to throw away two perfectly good mpss front tyres, so I'll change just the rears to the goodyears first and see how I get on. I was worried about mismatching tyres, even though still premium, but this has helped me make my desicion.
Very useful and informative video. Cheers mate, you've actually really helped me out! 👍
A great complimentary video to a previous video where you mixed winter tires and all season tires. I won't ever be mixing tires. Thanks!
Thank you :)
When I was younger I had a Citroen C2 Loeb. I put 2 new Pirelli’s on the front, the rears were budget tyres with 6mm of tread still on them which the previous owner put on.
I nearly lost it on a wet roundabout when I was leaning on them, they didn’t stay on much longer after that.
I completely agree with you comment that certain tyres should be illegal. I have bought a few cars in my time that have had cheap tyres on and (in one case) thought that I was going to have an accident every time I went out in it in the rain (I ended up buying a set of Goodyear GSD3s). In every case, when I changed the tyres, it was like I had just bought a new (and amazing handling) car. I NEVER buy cheap tyres - it is just an accident waiting to happen! I prefer the best wet weather grip at the expense of a little dry weather grip as I believe that one is more likely to have a scary moment when it is raining, than when the sun has been beating down for days. Love the vids - keep up the great work Jonathan! :-)
Nice work as usual 👍🏻
That did look like a lot of ‘Fun’ 🙊
I know people who have fitted regular budgets to the rear of RFT equipped BMW models.
They were happy to save money, for about 5 mins that is!
Then took to the internet to ask why there car was now dangerous, even in a straight line 🙈
I think that can be an even worse combination!
With a dull commute each day sat at 50 mph, I replaced the Michelin Pilot Sport 3's on my Volvo S60 with Evergreen EU72's. They cost half the price, but lasted roughly the same miles. 28-30k. So long as you did not drive the car like you had stolen it, they were fine. Having said that, the wife's car always gets premium tyres to give her that little extra margin of safety.
-Traction Control definitely improved "safety" at the expense of precision control.
-Premium rear tires on a RWD car was perfectly viable.
All said and done: get a complete set and pay a bit more for at least decent tires.
9:50 My take away: 'my talkie lady loves talking'. Mine too mate. Mine too.
I like the way you use a beautiful blue M2 for your tests, just like mine 😁
325i. Your videos are addictive as I love tyres
07:25 haha the disappointment at that moment when you turn the steering wheel and nothing happens :D
5:58 that face summed up everything I guess
Great showing. This is why almost all manufacturers do not recommend mixing tires. Especially true when the difference in grip is so huge. Now tyres have branding labels on wet grip and dry grip, so I presume that it could be made illegal if you drive with a big difference in either wet or dry grip, based on those branding labels. Lets say one tyres has an A, the other has a C. But then spares must be excluded, also spares must be branded as spares /with a sticker/ and must be no more then one spare on a moving vehicle. That is how it should be done. You can lobby that. The difference could be greater , like from A to D , but you get the point. No one should be illegal for getting all cheap tires, but rather for having differently rated tires. This will prevent the mixing of winters with summer tires as well.
All great points, sadly I'm not sure anyone in power will be listening :(
While i would support the issue, i think there is a little bit of a problem that could occur: with different tire sizes front and rear (even my old E63 has 255 in the front and 285 in the back) the wet grip rating on the label can be different between front and rear tires. Or did i misunderstand your comment and you meant that the difference in grip level between the original tire and a replacement per axle?
@@tyrereviews It is a EU label that you will be using, alongside some independent tests. Although sponsored by Continental you are using different tire manufacturers with different ratings that for sure were rated be that EU tire label and you can provide the wet brake score. There are a lot of EU countries that have winter tire regulations for using in winter months, so a tire differential regulation is not such a big deal. It's a safety concern. With enough pressure and test results it will be put to consideration. The main thing is to prove /as manufacturers recomend/ that having all F or E tires is safer than having 2 A tires and 2 E tires. Finding where is that line of safety will be a good review too. Or may be it is the opposite, worth finding out. If you can find and use the ESP testing equipment to test this it will be just wow. You can try contacting EuroNCap as they were performing those test before they became mandatory. It will be a good collaboration.
It took a silly accident at less than 20mph and me being naive about tyres for me to never buy budgets again. From now on premium all the way I happily pay for the science and development which most of us have no clue about.
I completely agree with you about mixing tyres are bad. Weirdly your test shows a completely legal setup all around the world. But in the UK you could have a different brand of tyres in every corner. It would be interesting to test what happens if you let's say hit a pothole that takes out both tyres on one side (that actually happened to me once on the way to the Ferry) and you fit different tyres to one side.
I don't like to think about that! If I get the chance I'll be sure to test it though
Mixing tyres isn't bad. Bad tyres are bad. As you can see, having different premium tyres on had negligible effect on performance and safety. Having different tyres on front vs rear axle is even explicitly allowed by most manufacturers in the car manual itself, because it has no negative impact, as long as you don't mix different tyres on the same axle.
I wish I’d seen this 5 years ago before I became a “car guy” as this could literally save someone’s life or at least save their car becoming written off. Tyres are number 1 priority before anything else but other people would rather discuss suspension or fuel quality 🙄
Completely agree Ray. The “contact patches” with the ground really ARE the number one priority. Everyone should know this.
Don't forget BRAKES!
"I now identify as a car guy" lol.
I'm just a regular guy, but I was born with a tire fettish.
Tire change time is always my favourite time. Just love seeing new rubber being put on.
Granted, I don't have anything else to spend money on apart from food & life stuff; zero other hobbies LOL
Tires are a hobby!
I have been working as a minicab driver for 4 years. I tried to save money and I used falken, debica, roadstone, hankook ventus3 evo3 and v12 ....... I had many unpleasant experiences and I decided to use michelin primacy 4 to see the difference. I did 28000 miles with michelin and I had 4 mm on the edges and 2 mm in the middle. My car has rear-wheel drive. I certainly save more if I refer to the number of miles and the performance of the premium tyres.
That's insane. Great video as always JB
Cheers bro :)
Excellent test. You should do the same but fit conti in the back and different brands in the front
In a past life, I've owned a lot of fairly quick cars. I'm now a pensioner who still enjoys progressive driving, but I drive a smart car. It costs sod all to run and is modified to 130bhp. As it only weighs eight hundred and something kilos, it is huge fun. Trouble is, toytown tyres with 4.5J front and 5J rear. Finding QUALITY tyres in 15" is next to impossible.
For a while I had the Michelin PS4 on the Front and Continental SC 3 on the Back on my BMW 320d. It was the most nervous car I have driven in my life. Terrible when dry and extremely dangerous when it was raining. So having two premium brands on one car doesnt mean it will work out. Putting four tyres of one brand completely solved my problems.
just asking: where the contis older and with less tread than the Michelin? (I think in the video he had new contis and new Michelins, so the difference might be way smaller here)
@@nirfz Yes the Contis where 3 or 4 years old it had an impact for sure. My father has two different brands on his car and its completely fine. Maybe its becuse I had 225 at the front and 245 at the rear. Stock wheel size
I've just picked up a used i20N which had really cheap budgets on it, on research they are £50 per tyre from Camskill. The car was absolutely frightening, losing traction at incredibly low speeds on roundabouts and gave an overall feeling of being very unsafe. A quick change to Eagle F1's totally transformed the car and gave me the confidence in the cars handling. Budgets should come with a warning when they are that bad.
:D glad you made a good swap, get some reviews on www.tyrereviews.com and warn others!
Triangle tyres are brilliant total understeer city had them on my 1st car it came with them and it had 6 year old uniroyals with under 3mm tread on the back. All I can say is chronic understeer swiftly followed up with snap understeer and full on wheelspin in 1st when dry and chirps into 2nd. The car weighed 1.3 tonnes and had 68hp. My next car came with Bridgestone up front and Contintentals on the back totally different world and made sure I never went back to budgets ever again. The Continentals in particular were insane could not get them to lose grip if I tried.
That face of dissapointmen at 5:57 is priceless. It should be meme
Agreed.
Another great video. Totally agree re cheap budget tyres - but in my experience there is simply no telling people.
would be fun to know how the budget tyres had for time if they where on both front and rear, just in comparison...
Hello I'm from Poland and while I was working at the tyre shop I learnt thing or two. Continental is overpriced and loud, nothing special really. Pirelli is very good but expensive (both summer and winter). Summer Dunlop and Goodyear are great, very sticky even on wet and very quiet. Michelin is great but also very soft (fast wear). Cooper tyres are surprisingly good and cheap. That's all I know lol :P
Thank you very much for this video! I had similar questions about this last month, and had to mix michelin pss in the rear with ps4s in the front due to availability issue. This test cleared out any lingering doubt (you mixed the conti and ps4s and it was fine). Great video as usual! And that M2 is amazing
I'm going to experiment with mixed tyres soon. I've had Cup 2s all round but will be putting Goodyear's new Supersports on the rear as I'm trying to reduce understeer (heavy fwd). The Goodyear's still have exceptional grip so it shouldn't be dangerous in the dry and will keep the car very stable with a controllable understeer balance in the wet. In theory, but we shall see.
In the cold / wet the understeer will be savage, so be careful!
@@tyrereviews I will be. Cup 2s are surprisingly good in the cold and decent in the wet (if there's plenty tread) but terrible if it's both at the same time. I actually found them grip better in cold temps (dry) than PS4's but as soon as it rained it got sketchy rather quickly. As with any situation I just drive appropriately according to the weather and available grip/balance of the car.
I ran S1 EVO2 Hankooks up front Michillen PSS in the rear so far they are perfectly working together fine.
Those hankooks are still good tyres
When i got my E46 330d it had some cheap rotalla f105 tyres on it. It was all over the place in the wet. Changed them for a set of Bridgestone Potenza RE002. And it felt like a new car!
i have seen a range rover sport with landsail on all 4 corners !
I wonder what results would be in a front wheel drive car with UHP front tyres and mid range/budget on rear.
Another great review. Could you maybe show the tread comparisons so that we can see the difference between the premium, mid, and budget ranges. You're right about putting cheap tyres on cars. It shouldn't be legal. It's a great idea to have it mandated to be specific grades, perhaps through your MOT. If the government mandated that MOT centres had to sign off on tyre performance, then this might solve the issue. The other option are the insurance companies who could mandate that the vehicle has to have certain grades of tyres to be insured. In a recent service my mechanic gave some sound advice regarding the Low Oil light; he said: Oil is cheap, engines are not. The same applies here; Tyres are cheap, entire cars (because you've wrapped it around a tree) are not.
Many years ago, I had a motorbike that the previous owner had treated to some truly horrendous cheap rubber on the back wheel... it stayed on just long enough to try to kill me the first time it rained.
Always do your research, go for the best you can afford, and avoid cheap budget tyres like the plague.
Jonathan, how about doing one of those parliament petitions for a start? Link it to this video. Trouble is, the government have other things on their plate right now. If we reach a certain number of signatures, then there should be a debate. This video demonstrates the problem first hand. Think also, every viewer of this video, if they agree, should contact their MP via the parliamentary portal and raise it as a serious road safety issue. We can all link to this video as well. We should also contact the transport minister- whoever it is this week! I think you should also contact ROSPA - if they still exist and other motoring pressure groups such as AA etc. You have performed a real public service here that would undoubtedly save lives.
Thank you, a few people have said that, I will look into it further.
i feel the need to repost this comment here again that i had already commented on one of your other videos. i love your videos they really highlight stuff everyone should know about their cars and tyres .
i bought a Bmw 645Ci years ago and it had those Acellera Phi on them when i got it. i live in Ireland which tends to be quite wet, i lived in a state of fear anytime it rained, they were by far the most dangerous tyres ive ever had. Even when driving the car slowly going around roundabouts it lost grip in the wet. in the dry they were fine but when it rained they were lethal i ended up buying new Goodyears at the time even though the acelleras were nearly new. Instantly the car was transformed. There are some ok budgets out there but Acellera Phi could be used as a test case example of why tyres should have to meet minimum grip levels to be sold in Europe or anywhere else for that matter
Thanks for resharing, and 645ci... very cool :)
I once witnessed a guy doing an involuntary 360° on the motorway in the rain. These things can happen if you have worn-out tyres or crappy Chinese budget tyres.
I just recently purchased some Kumho Ps91’s and I’ve been very impressed so far. After watching all your videos, I’ll probably step up to some continentals or Michelin’s on my next set.
i manage a tyre fitting garage, this video will be replayed many many times. just like your winter tyre video. just last week i fitted 2 budgets to the rear of an R32 . he ordered and paid online. i urged him to reconsider this, as he just may as well have got a golf 1.6 that's how bad for the car it is, i explained. its just the rears he said.
Thank you :)
This year it's my first time with mixed tires (Michelin Pilot Sport 4/ Barum Bravuris 3) in my BMW and I totally agree with this test. In the wet corners, when the Michelin is at the limit, the Barum is giving up and the car is drifting. Budget tires ruins the car.
Glad you know why, Barum actually make some good wet handling tyres too, so imagine how bad it would be with a really bad tyre!
Taking a Locost to an airfield we tried 185s front and 175s rear. All the same make and type admittedly. Drifting was unbelievably easy to the point where it was getting boring.
People always say i drive to fast on the road, because its fun. But i am on Pilot sport 4 and before that super sports. And my car just does not lose grip in the dry or the wet. Meanwile those same people drive (what they think is save) but is almost on the edge of there budget tires and if i brake hard they will be in my rear.. I absolutely agree with you that those tires should be iligal. Slicks arrent legal also but they atliest grip in the dry.
This video potentially explains a lot of vehicles in dashcam clips swapping ends while driving around round roundabouts when it's wet. Now I know what to comment on the next one of those I see.
It never ceases to amaze me that people buy premium/performance cars and then when it comes time to replace tyres put budgets on. A premium car needs high-end tyres, end of. I recently saw an Aston DB9 wearing Acceleras. FFS!! If budget tyres have any place at all, it's on Grandma's little hatchback that only ever goes on a 2 mile round-trip to the supermarket once a week. Other than that, budget tyres should be banned.
I meant to finish ^^^ that with........... If you can't afford the tyres, you can't afford the car.
Totally agreed!
Funnily when I bought my last e46 m3, it had acceleras on the front and a winter tyre and another Chinese summer tyre at the back lol. Happy days ! Funnily that set up was a bit more comfy than the MP4S I very quickly replaced them with
The e63 I just bought has MO at the rear and mps4 at the front. Grip etc is fine except in the cold where the michhies grip much harder than the contis at the rear and you can feel the balance being a bit out. Still, I've done 1.5k miles and will leave the tyres as they are until I cook the contis.
The tiny 64hp Kia Picanto I drive used to have Dunlops and eventually Bridgestones. When I went out to purchase a new set of wheels, I was offered cheap tires to accomodate the new size and was also at a discount. At first I thought it wouldn't be much different because of the very similar tread pattern but it was proven otherwise on the road. The threshold was noticeably weaker and tends to understeer even with the underpowered hatchback. They also tend to chafe very easily too. Road noise was incredibly atrocious too.
Would love to see the difference in grip with different budget tyres fitted on the same axle
Had Kenda in front, barely legal worn out Falken in the back on my Civic Si, on the rain car felt like driving on wet ceramic had almost no grip, switched to a set of Falken FK510's and car feels miles better!
i used to drive my car with michelin in the front and used 10 years old tyres in the rear.
On wet road it was VERY dangerous ! a small input in the wheel i could already feel the rear loosing grip
ps : quality content :)
i bought falken fk 510 a few months back, a man came in said he needed new tyres for his polo its was only a few years old, he said he did not want to spent too much money on new tyres ! he did not know what tyres to get, do some people not do their home work how hard is it not to know about tyres , a man should have a good idea what he wants, the woman ran through about 5/6 tyres brands he still asked about the prices , i said to get falken, so he ordered them, sure it was ziex 914, also a guy lives next to me has a skyline fitted with winrun !
So glad he is testing everything on the M2... because I own that car too
A few years ago, I bought an old Focus just for shopping and commuting to car parks, but didn't check the tyres. Dealer had put the cheapest, nastiest tyres he could find on the rear. Imagine my surprise on the first wet roundabout I entered. Wheeeee!! Changed the tyres the next day. If I hadn't known how to catch the slide, I'd definitely have crashed into someone. Agree totally that it shouldn't be legal
Did you not take if for a test drive?
Thanks for the lives saved by good tyre advice. Tyres are all there is between us and eternity.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you are running terrible tyres the electronics won't work properly, they are setup to work with something that performs somewhere near the original equipment.
Ideally I like a front tyre that grips like mad and will not aquaplane with a decent but harder wearing tyre with not quite as much grip and loads of feel on the rear that is hopefully a bit cheaper. Seems more important on a RWD diesel as it's the torque that breaks grip and it can catch you out with very low revs and little throttle if the turbo spins up. For my E46 330CD the Avon ZV7 fits the bill for the rear, I d aren't fit anything else as the Firestone's it came with were dangerous in the wet even though they got better reviews and are more expensive. I just tried the Avons that were on the front when I got the car on the off chance they night work well and they do. A couple of my mates swear by them even though they burn through a pair every 7000 miles. Mine are gripping well still even close to the legal limit, you still have to be careful it's just the chances of going into a ditch or oncoming traffic have halved but I still have moments.
Would be interesting to see a test on how much widening the track with wheel spacers helps, I've done 15mm a side which has helped up the safety and still looks standard. I know going too far will cause understeer and I generally like the way the E46 handles so don't want to alter it much.
I have testing spacers on my list :)
Interesting for comparison would have been to have the budget front budget rear to compare times. Otherwise, people may suspect it's just the combination which is bad and not the budget tyres themselves, or at least to be able to see the difference against the premium.
Had a Fiesta mk4 for a few years, nice when I had it but towards the end of its life it was showing its age and milage.
Set of bugets on the front please (being a student), oh lord how to make a bad car worse. Going forward I didnt repeat that..
Have eagle F1's XL's on my Octavia and they are great in all weather - however if they so much as sense a snowflake then you are going all directions.
Got some Conti winter tyres on 16" steel wheels as the F1's in the snow were the worst I have ever used but otherwise fantastic; just switch them over for the season.
Great channel, always happy to see a new video.
Even bad cars need good tyres. This needs to be a video in itself.
as the germans say, buy cheap = pay twice. 2 budgets will get you 1 premium.
Great, thank you!
Tyres got so cheap versus 15-20 years ago when I first began driving, that nowadays Goodyear Eagle F1 and Dunlop Sport xxx are within reach with pretty decent money from that point of view. 16-19 even 20 in tyres are not impossible in price in their premium touring and even sporty models. Early 2000's Conti Premium Contact 205/65/15's were more expensive in absolute price than today's 235/55/17 Goodyear Eagle F1... Say 150 Euro Vs 125 Euro today.
In 2006 285/60/18 Michelin's or Dunlop's were upwards of 250, even 300 Euro, today it's half or up to 200 Euro. Today 200 Euro is say, 150 in 2006. Then 20's were firm near 500 Euro, today 255/45/19 or 245/40/20 are up to 200 Euro...
I have absolutely no doubts for buying premium tyres up to the level of top of the line normal tyres Sport Contact, Eagle F1, Sport Maxx etc. For smaller sizes Dunlop Sport Blue Response is a gem that is around 50-60 Euro. Again premium.
One should be mentally ill to buy cheaper than already cheap.
This was fun to see. I bought my LBB M2 LCI with Michelin PSS on the front and Vredestein ultrac vorti's on the rear :) Will swap over to Michelin PS4S allround I think. It's not that bad at the moment actually.
Same goes with aged tyres. I learnt how to drive when I owned my first Pug 205 gti back in 2005: Michelin Pilot Exalto 2 on the front, Michelin MXV from 1987 on the rear. On the wet even full throttle the back was never coming back 😂
When you see standing water on the road surface thats when you need to slow down. Even good rain tyres can send you flying when pushed too far. Espesially if you have a very light car or have gutted your car for better performance. You can see in the testing how much water there is. If the track was just wet or damp it would be bettter. It comes down to three factors for driving in the rain and being safe. The tyre selection, how wide the tires are and the weight of your car. Once you understand how these things affect your car then you can know what you need and the limits of your car.
Brilliant demonstration of rubbish tyres. I find rubbish tyres are also a good indication of general car care when buying a 2nd hand car. If a car has rubbish and general missmatched tyres, walk away or when you buy it go straight to a tyre fitters and put decent tyres on. Can you also do a test to show that ABS will not save you if you drive 2ft off the car in front in the wet on the motorway?
Excellent video there mate. I have seen people that had spent some money to lower their cars, bought some new flashy wheels but put them on budget tyres. Looking good while losing control of the car?
Thank you so much for all your kind answers.
I'd love to know what percentage of accidents involved budget tyres and if premium would have made the difference. but like you say budgets should be banned!
Well I happened to drive by 3 accidents in the fall of '19. 2 of them were rollovers and one of them hit the ditch without rolling over. First of all, none of the drivers were hurt in the accidents.
The circumstances of the accidents were similar, rainy roads and low temperatures, but above freezing (about 5 degrees Celsius). Another similarity was the tires on those cars. They were all budgets and in one case the thread depth was critical. They simply spun out in the corner because of those budget tires.
It would also be very interesting to see how one same tire performs on three different rim widths
That's on the list :)
You know what's even worse than this? People mixing tyres across an axle. I'm in two minds about making budget tyres on high performance cars illegal, but mixing tyres across an axle should definitely be an MOT failure, in my opinion. I once bought a car with four different tread patterns on it and it was fucking atrocious.
Damn, as far as I know that's even illegal in some places.
It would be interesting to see mixed winter tyres on the test.
I drive a Daihatsu Copen and the previous owner has kept the premium tyre on the rear but put budget on the front.
In the dry it's fine, but if I drive in a sporty way I can feel the understeer appearing, but at least it's somewhat progressive.
However as soon as there is the slightest bit of rain, I can barely go round any corner without some serious understeer.
I think mixing good and bad tyres should be illegal, even with a 67hp car.
I don't like my Runflats but I'm going to stick with my Potenzas until the day I die because I would be dead without them ten times over, and Kumho is considered a mid range tyre nowadays, Jesus I've seen it all there muck.
The remark about softer sidewalls for Michelin Pilot Sport 4S was interesting.. I found these tyres unusable due to it (when combined with stiffer front tyres). The car is unstable and unpredictable in high speeds. And I am not alone. Few weeks ago, a client of my indy complained about their wobbly behaviour on a Civic TypeR and had them changed.
Did you try a bit of extra pressure? It can help a lot
I know not really what you were trying to show but I would have liked to see Pzeros and Michelins mixed. Always feels to me like there is a gulf between them in the wet.
I made that mistake when I bought second hand wheels with tyres for my 3 series. Left the budget rears on them as they were fairly new and replaced the fronts with Asymmetric F3s. I thought staggered setup should have more grip in the rear due to bigger width so I should be fine. Boy was I wrong. Cutting across a very big roundabout in the wet (no traffic) it went sideways four times before I straightened out.
Glad it didn't end up in a crash!