cheap tyres

How big are the wheels? Unless they are 17s or something I would expect soemthing half way decent for €100.

I needed a few tyres 30 mins before my NCT last June, the local place had these Rapid P609s and nothing else.

I put two of them on the back. So far no evidence of any braking issues or evidence of the rear of the car going head first into a ditch. They are not particularly noisey, and if they were an establshed brand I would say they are fine! I tend to drive on a bit and have been known to oversteer into barriers on the (very) odd occasion.

I gave €50 a corner for 16s. Truth be told I would prefer something "better", but as I said, they have behaved fine so far.

ljpg wrote: »

,you'll get nangkangs for 70 which in my opinion fall into the same catagory as "rapids".

Well then you would be completely wrong. Googling the Rapid P609 I find warning after warning and appearances on the bottom on the every review roundup possible:

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/2012-Autobild-50-Tyre-Braking-Test.htm

As a result, only the 15 best-placed products in the test field will make it through to the second round. The experts describe the wet-weather braking distances of every third tire – including many cheap import models from China – as “alarming”. “The Chinese-made Rapid P609 and Rockstone radial F105 slide across the wet asphalt offering no grip whatsoever”, they write.

Nankang's on the otherhand are solid budget tyres, delivering average performance and the type of "budget tyre" response accepted as budget 5years ago, until the Chinese decided they wanted to slowly kill us via stealth with their woeful tyre and car designs.

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Nankang/NS20.htm

Dry Grip
85%

Wet Grip
75%

Road Feedback
65%

Progressiveness
90%

Wear
75%

Comfort
65%

Buy again
70%

bazz26 wrote: »

Big mistake going into your average tyre centre and asking for "good" tyres. Most of them interpret that as "good selling" tyres which to the majority of Joe Public means the cheapest ones in that size. Of course most folk have no idea about different brand tyres and are quite happy with what a tyre centre recommends or have in stock.

My local tire place was really pushing me to buy Nankangs (despite me insisting that I didnt want them and was willing to spend more money on something better) because they last a long time and taxi drivers love them. I informed him several times that I drive a performance car and that grip was far more important to me than a hard tire that lasts a long time, but it didnt seem to register with him.

Needless to say I went somewhere else...

ljpg wrote: »

take note of the part where i stated "in my opinion"you can google it all ya want,i have previous experience of nangkangs on two high preformance cars,a 2 litre celica and a evo, they were fitted on both cars when i bought them,i thought they were awful,especially in the wet,in both cases they wore out pretty quick too,so "in my opinion" they fall into the same catagory.have you anything to back up your claims or are you basing "your opinion" on some rubbish you found on the net?

Have you owned and tested the Rapid's in question? Otherwise, your semi-literate opinion is wrong and irrelevant to this thread.

GE90 wrote: »

I love how you say that like its insignificant. Ya I crash into barriers now and again, its no biggie. :pac:

I have never had a cheap set of tyres on car except for these "Rapids". And yes I have had a few tips, once on ice and once on a wet road with a set of Firestones with 1/3 thread left.

The best tyre I have ever had were Eagle F1s, and worst BF Goodrich. These rapids don't seem as bad as the BFGs for some reason.

The "Rapid" brand is also sold as "Sagitar" from what I can see.