Some help replacing tyres

Mena

My wife's (BMW) 116i is in need of a new front tyre, with two of the others showing bad wear. I'd like to replace all 4 of them at once but have no clue where to start or what to choose.

The car currently has 205/55/R/16/91/H run flats. The run flats don't bother me that much, the replacement cost however does.

So does anyone have any advice on what tyres to fit, at a reasonable price?

Anan1

Mena wrote: »

My wife's (BMW) 116i is in need of a new front tyre, with two of the others showing bad wear. I'd like to replace all 4 of them at once but have no clue where to start or what to choose.

The car currently has 205/55/R/16/91/H run flats. The run flats don't bother me that much, the replacement cost however does.

So does anyone have any advice on what tyres to fit, at a reasonable price?

I replaced a set of identical (same size but V rated) tyres on a 320d a couple of months ago in Fast Fit Dun Laoghaire, four Continentals and a four wheel alignment cost €650 or so. I priced the tyres in eiretyres first, came to €500 but then there's all the messing around with fitting.

Mr.David

Well, the best thing to do is to replace with the tyres that came with the car originally. Manufacturers spend lots of time tuning every wheel & tyre combination for each car and so it is usually best to replace with the OEM spec tyre.

However, the "reasonable price" bit may be an issue! Have a look at getting tyres online, brands like toyo and avon provide a good compromise between performance and cost.

Mena

Anan1 wrote: »

I replaced a set of identical (same size but V rated) tyres on a 320d a couple of months ago in Fast Fit Dun Laoghaire, four Continentals and a four wheel alignment cost €650 or so. I priced the tyres in eiretyres first, came to €500 but then there's all the messing around with fitting.

Cheers, that sounds "reasonable" for sure, and to be fair, messing around with fitting them is a route I do not want to go down.

Mr.David wrote: »

Well, the best thing to do is to replace with the tyres that came with the car originally. Manufacturers spend lots of time tuning every wheel & tyre combination for each car and so it is usually best to replace with the OEM spec tyre.

However, the "reasonable price" bit may be an issue! Have a look at getting tyres online, brands like toyo and avon provide a good compromise between performance and cost.

Point taken but if at all possible I'd like to stick to the more mainstream brand names (Conti/Goodyear/Michelin etc). That probably flies in the face of my "reasonable price" stipulation

mik_da_man

check out www.camskill.co.uk

Generally much cheaper than any place else I have found.
Just have a look at the list of tyre fitters on eiretyres and give them a bell to be sure they will fit them
It means you can get a decent tyre wothout splashing out too much cash.
I saved about €400 on a set of tyres for my car.
They are a bit bigger than the ones you are looking for though!

Mr.David

Mena wrote: »

Point taken but if at all possible I'd like to stick to the more mainstream brand names (Conti/Goodyear/Michelin etc). That probably flies in the face of my "reasonable price" stipulation

Grand - well if you are going the premium route then I think youre best off fitting the manufacturer spec tyres, they are tuned to provide the best balance between ride & handling.

Anan1

Mena wrote: »

Cheers, that sounds "reasonable" for sure, and to be fair, messing around with fitting them is a route I do not want to go down.



Point taken but if at all possible I'd like to stick to the more mainstream brand names (Conti/Goodyear/Michelin etc). That probably flies in the face of my "reasonable price" stipulation

Just to be clear, that price was to replace the tyres with the exact same ones that came with the car from new. As Mr.David said, I wanted to stick with OEM too.

mik_da_man

Mena wrote: »

Cheers, that sounds "reasonable" for sure, and to be fair, messing around with fitting them is a route I do not want to go down.

Why not if it could save you a good few quid?

Anan1

mik_da_man wrote: »

Why not if it could save you a good few quid?

I did it once, and the only people I could find to fit them was a crowd of butchers near Sandyford. Cost €60 to fit, plus waiting for the delivery, bringing the tyres to Sandyford in the car, etc. Add in another €70 for the 4 wheel alignment and the saving would have been €20 tops. Plus, who do you turn to if something goes wrong? I think the best thing about eiretyres is being able to use their prices to bargain with a real tyre fitter, TBH.

Tipsy Mac

Make sure you replace either the front 2, back 2 or all 4, you should never just replace 1 tyre. Id go with another set of the original tyres on the car, go to a fitter and ask for his best cash price, usually gets 10% off with little effort.

mik_da_man

Anan1 wrote: »

I did it once, and the only people I could find to fit them was a crowd of butchers near Sandyford. Cost €60 to fit, plus waiting for the delivery, bringing the tyres to Sandyford in the car, etc. Add in another €70 for the 4 wheel alignment and the saving would have been €20 tops. Plus, who do you turn to if something goes wrong? I think the best thing about eiretyres is being able to use their prices to bargain with a real tyre fitter, TBH.

Fair enough.
In my case I ordered the tyres on monday @ lunchtime
Got them Wed morning, drove 10 mins from my workplace to get them fitted for €40.
4 wheel alignment next door to work is €40
Very painless process


Sometimes I miss dublin

Johnboy Mac

The best bit of advise I can give you regarding tyres as it can be bit of a subjective topic is to purchase a leading brand, you won't go far wrong. Bar runflats (if you'd wish to keep them), high performance cars, specialist vehicles etc there is no real need to to replace the like for like on the average car. Manufactures tend to by on price first & then specific application.


Edit: Is there a space saver supplied with the car? If not get a can of tyre sealant for emergencies €8.

Mr.David

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

Manufactures tend to by on price first & then specific application.

No they dont.

Approx 40% of vehicle dynamics is determined by tyre choice and tuning. One company who invest a lot of time and effort in tyre tuning? Ford, one of the major reasons they are considered to handle so well.

Anan1

In this particular case I didn't really think €650 for four OEM runflats and a 4 wheel alignment was too bad though.

Johnboy Mac

Mr.David wrote: »

No they dont.

Approx 40% of vehicle dynamics is determined by tyre choice and tuning. One company who invest a lot of time and effort in tyre tuning? Ford, one of the major reasons they are considered to handle so well.

Well Mr.David, don't believe all the PR from car manufactures is my advise.

How come as we talking about average cars here, one can improve handling
traction and ride comfort if one changes from the original make or specification tyre as originally fitted fitted to another type?

Mena

mik_da_man wrote: »

Why not if it could save you a good few quid?

Exactly for the reasons Anan1 quotes below :P

Anan1 wrote: »

I did it once, and the only people I could find to fit them was a crowd of butchers near Sandyford. Cost €60 to fit, plus waiting for the delivery, bringing the tyres to Sandyford in the car, etc. Add in another €70 for the 4 wheel alignment and the saving would have been €20 tops. Plus, who do you turn to if something goes wrong? I think the best thing about eiretyres is being able to use their prices to bargain with a real tyre fitter, TBH.

Tipsy Mac wrote: »

Make sure you replace either the front 2, back 2 or all 4, you should never just replace 1 tyre. Id go with another set of the original tyres on the car, go to a fitter and ask for his best cash price, usually gets 10% off with little effort.

Yeah that I know. I'd prefer to do all 4 though. The current ones are on 50 000km's now so, as far as I am aware, that's not too bad.

mik_da_man wrote: »

Fair enough.
In my case I ordered the tyres on monday @ lunchtime
Got them Wed morning, drove 10 mins from my workplace to get them fitted for €40.
4 wheel alignment next door to work is €40
Very painless process


Sometimes I miss dublin

I know that feeling all to well, but then I look out front and back and see my huge garden and all of those thoughts vanish :P

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

The best bit of advise I can give you regarding tyres as it can be bit of a subjective topic is to purchase a leading brand, you won't go far wrong. Bar runflats (if you'd wish to keep them), high performance cars, specialist vehicles etc there is no real need to to replace the like for like on the average car. Manufactures tend to by on price first & then specific application.


Edit: Is there a spacer saver supplied with the car? If get a can of tyre sealant for emergencies €8.

No space saver at all. Boot is empty. I imagine they feel the run flats are adequate, and to be fair, in over 70 000 Km's (both cars combined and on run flats) I've never had an issue.

Anan1 wrote: »

In this particular case I didn't really think €650 for four OEM runflats and a 4 wheel alignment was too bad though.

I am inclined to agree and think I'll stick with OEM as well.

This is probably a stupid question, to say the least, but am I correct in assuming that asking the main dealer to supply and fit them during my next service would be financial suicide?

Thanks everyone for the advice so far.

Johnboy Mac

Bar the fact you have not got spare or space saver, if you do replace with normal tyres the ride quality/comfort will improve as runflat tyres have a harder side wall.

Mr.David

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

Well Mr.David, don't believe all the PR from car manufactures is my advise.

How come as we talking about average cars here, one can improve handling
traction and ride comfort if one changes from the original make or specification tyre as originally fitted fitted to another type?

I dont believe the PR, I work for one of them as a chassis engineer.

Usually the way it works is a new wheel is developed, the company then selects a few tyres from its core supplier base e.g a pirelli, a michelin and a conti. Then there are about 2 weeks of testing and a tyre manufacturer is sourced for that particular wheel. Often, minor mods are made to that tyre compound/construction to strike the desired balance between all the tunables.

I dont think you have to replace with OEM spec tyres, but I do think that if you are willing to fork out for premium tyres and have no testing done on each option, its best to rely on what the OEM has chosen as they afterall will have testing done.

Anan1

Mena wrote: »

This is probably a stupid question, to say the least, but am I correct in assuming that asking the main dealer to supply and fit them during my next service would be financial suicide?

Thanks everyone for the advice so far.

I would assume so, but you could always ask them for a price! By the way, if it's not too far from you i'd recommend Fast Fit in Dun Laoghaire - the manager is a decent guy and i've always been very happy with his work. He's always been very nice to my mother too, which counts for a lot in my book.

Johnboy Mac

Mr.David wrote: »

I dont believe the PR, I work for one of them as a chassis engineer.

Usually the way it works is a new wheel is developed, the company then selects a few tyres from its core supplier base e.g a pirelli, a michelin and a conti. Then there are about 2 weeks of testing and a tyre manufacturer is sourced for that particular wheel. Often, minor mods are made to that tyre compound/construction to strike the desired balance between all the tunables.

I dont think you have to replace with OEM spec tyres, but I do think that if you are willing to fork out for premium tyres and have no testing done on each option, its best to rely on what the OEM has chosen as they afterall will have testing done.

Ok. But that's a slightly different twist on your original professional comment. I do take your point. But it does not take away from my point that one can improve an average car by fitting a different tyre and this may have something to do with costs?

My I ask you a question? For the average r/w/d, say 1500kg, 2.0- 3.0lt, off the top of your head what type of tyre would you recommend - I know that's a very open question but any comments greatly received.
Thanks in advance.

Would you be kind enough

Mr.David

Yeah, of course you can improve on the standard fit tyre, but it depends on what you want. You may increase grip but also increase rolling resistance or tyre noise etc etc its a balance for what is deemed the "average" customer.

Tyre recommendations: obviously again depends on what you want, but in general terms the Conti sport contact 3s are great and also a fan of vredesteins. For a good sporty tyre, dunlop sport maxx or pirelli p zeros are both good.

Johnboy Mac

Mr.David wrote: »

Yeah, of course you can improve on the standard fit tyre, but it depends on what you want. You may increase grip but also increase rolling resistance or tyre noise etc etc its a balance for what is deemed the "average" customer.

Tyre recommendations: obviously again depends on what you want, but in general terms the Conti sport contact 3s are great and also a fan of vredesteins. For a good sporty tyre, dunlop sport maxx or pirelli p zeros are both good.

Thank for your advise as I had Conti's top of my list then Bridgestones. Presently I' running Fulda Carat Extremo's, no complaints but I like to have the best poss., something to do with driving skills ie lack of.

By the way I must say it's fab profession you have chosen, I wish I could turn the clock back. Thanks, again.

The Real B-man

Go up the North to be honest you will save a hell of a lot more.

Johnboy Mac

The Real B-man wrote: »

Go up the North to be honest you will save a hell of a lot more.

Last set (4) I purcahsed online from Germany. Total saving compaired to here (after shopping around) including fitting & 4x4 wheel alignment charge was €120.

Mena

Just a quick thanks for all the help on this thread.

I took the lazy option and purchased and had them fitted at Fastfit in Tallaght, was driving by that way anyway.

Total cost for 4 was €540.00, which I thought was reasonable.

NiSmO

This post has been deleted.

cnocbui

Mr.David wrote: »

I dont believe the PR, I work for one of them as a chassis engineer.

I dont think you have to replace with OEM spec tyres, but I do think that if you are willing to fork out for premium tyres and have no testing done on each option, its best to rely on what the OEM has chosen as they afterall will have testing done.

I disagree with you completely.

The specified OEM tyres for my particular car are Bridgestones. The overwhelming opinion of the dedicated owners forum for the vehicle is that Michelin Pilots are far better than the OEM tyres in all respects.

On my previous vehicle, I found a particular model of Pirrelli tyre that were superior to the OEM originals. They hugely reduced the in cabin noise levels and had quite outstanding performance in the wet in comparison. The difference between them and the originals truly was chalk and cheese.

In many instances, new tyres are developed and come on to the market subsequent to the manufacture date of the vehicle, that are superior to the original fittment.

I owned a vehicle which, at the time I sold it, was 22 years old. The last two types of tyre I had on it were Yokahama A008s, and subsequently, A509s. Both of these were high performance asymetric tread tyres, the likes of which did not exist on the planet when the car was made in 1975. The performane of those vastly exceeded the original fittment.

Unless you are talking about ultra expensive performance cars, I doubt there is any manufacturer that fits the best possible tyre to their vehicles, because cost is always a consideration.

In this day and age, I would guess many manufacturers are fitting narrower, low rolling resistance tyres to get the best possible official fuel economy figures. Such tyres, in my experience, do not perform particularly well in wet conditions.