Bridgestone v's Dunlop v's Goodyear v's Continental

DriveSkill

Hi,

Seems to be a few threads on tyres at the moment so let me throw mine into the mix. I need to get 4 new tyres for a VW Passat (1.9 Diesel). Prices being quoted range from €165 (reduced from €175 if I buy 4) to €185.

The Bridgestones are the cheapest and the Continental are the dearest - obviously not all from the same place.

Dunlops also available (and lots of others) on Camskill for about €120.

Question is : is there much of a difference really between the 'premium' brands ?

I'm tending to the Bridgestones as that is whats on the car now (from new) have have done 43K which I think is pretty good going. Still close to 2mm left but at 43K mark I think I should change as have a couple of long spins coming in the next few weeks - no point in pushing it too much!

Any opinions on the differences between the brands - there are so many variations even within the brands its sort of hard to figure out the advantages of each!

Thanks

su_dios

Ring and ask for Keith at Discount Tyres/Alloy-wheels.ie

They do great deals on tyre packages cheaper than what you're quoting( a little bit up on camskills but includes fitting etc). Great service too. Good few people on here would recommend them. Anyways Keith should give you a good run down on which tyre to go for. Are they Bridgestone Potenza's you have? I had them and found them pretty good but expensive. Falken 452's are cheaper and get very good reviews, however the tyre of choice seems to be Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3's. Have a look at them.

DriveSkill

su_dios wrote: »

Ring and ask for Keith at Discount Tyres/Alloy-wheels.ie

I assume they are in Dublin (at least Alloy-wheels.ie are) so not much good to me in Cork but thanks.

su_dios wrote: »

They do great deals on tyre packages cheaper than what you're quoting( a little bit up on camskills but includes fitting etc). Great service too. Good few people on here would recommend them. Anyways Keith should give you a good run down on which tyre to go for. Are they Bridgestone Potenza's you have? I had them and found them pretty good but expensive. Falken 452's are cheaper and get very good reviews, however the tyre of choice seems to be Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3's. Have a look at them.

I think I have the Bridgestone Tuaranza at the moment....

voxpop

I have Bridgestone Turanza ER300 and find them a good all-rounder. Goodyear F1s are performance tires. They will give you great grip but at a cost to longevity. If you like to belt around back roads- they are a good choice otherwise stick with more of a "touring" tyre that mix longevity with decent grip and lowish road noise - which your Bridgestones probably are.

Also you can check out http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/

Nforce

I found that the Goodyear F1's had a very weak sidewall and were suseptible to buldging.

Berty

I had Bridgestone Potenza on my car. 2 full sets over the tow years but 2 weeks ago I put Dunlop on the beast.

They were €110 each and the Bridgestone were €175 from the same guy.

On Site Tyre Services off the Coes Road.

Very happy with tyres and water displacement.

I happen to have a picture of my Potenza's before they went on about a year ago. Nice thread but too expensive.

bazz26

It totally depends on the car, one brand of tyre could be great on a particular type of car but the same tyre might be crap on a different type of car.

DriveSkill

bazz26 wrote: »

It totally depends on the car, one brand of tyre could be great on a particular type of car but the same tyre might be crap on a different type of car.

Yep, thats sort of the logic with sticking with the Bridgestones...getting 43K (over 2 years) out of a set of tyres is pretty good I think.

Beta Ray Bill

Berty wrote: »

I had Bridgestone Potenza on my car. 2 full sets over the tow years but 2 weeks ago I put Dunlop on the beast.

They were €110 each and the Bridgestone were €175 from the same guy.

On Site Tyre Services off the Coes Road.

Very happy with tyres and water displacement.

I happen to have a picture of my Potenza's before they went on about a year ago. Nice thread but too expensive.

I have a Set of Dunlop Sport SP2000E on my car.
I was gonna go with the Eagle F1 (they are the best for handling hands down, in my opinion)
However I've read they don't last kissing time.

I feel the SP2000's would be next in line, They are a very good tyre that doesn't cost a fortune but again with the longevity... they are made of a softer compound and hence I need 2 new front ones!.... DOH!

su_dios

The new Goodyears are supposed to have fixed the weak sidewall problem but no longer have that really distinct tyre pattern(the one you find on those puma shoes).

Try eiretyres or camskills.co.uk for great deals. Apparently camskills will deliver within 24hours in a lot of occasions and for very little too. Cheapest place to get tyres.

I have Pirelli PZero's and I don't like them. A lot of people rate them highly but I think they're quite poor. Setup is 225/40/18 so maybe they're not so great in that profile.

techie

As you're in Cork, head down to Southern Tyres on Mill Road, off Monaghan Road.

I got 4 tyres there today, Vredestein Hi Trac's, €20 more expensive than Camskill but worth it to keep it local. (205/55 16's)

They are open late Thursday and Friday evenings too til 8.

DriveSkill

techie wrote: »

As you're in Cork, head down to Southern Tyres on Mill Road, off Monaghan Road.

I got 4 tyres there today, Vredestein Hi Trac's, €20 more expensive than Camskill but worth it to keep it local. (205/55 16's)

They are open late Thursday and Friday evenings too til 8.

Thanks, will have a look there and see what they have.

bennyx_o

Nforce wrote: »

I found that the Goodyear F1's had a very weak sidewall and were suseptible to buldging.

I had Goodyear Eagle F1's on a Suzuki Swift Sport and I had to replace three tyres due to a weak sidewall. Having said that, they were probably the best tyre I've had so far..

The Suzuki Swift had a manufacture specific tyre size which made them slightly harder to acquire, but 90 odd Euro from eiretyres got them easy enough.

I've also used the Continental tyres on a Corsa OPC and, good tyres that they are, they seemed to wear too fast, but that could've been down to the heavy right foot I have and the softness of the tyres.

What size tyres are you looking for?

Check the regular tyre sites for the tyre you're looking for (eiretyres.ie/camskill.co.uk are the main ones I know of) and see which ones cheaper! Camskill are the best I've used, delivered within 2 working days and cheaper than eiretyres who took 7 days to deliver.

DriveSkill

Looking for 215/55 R16 - nothing to0 soft as the Passat is not exactly a 'sporty' car looking for something with decent grip and long life.

ianobrien

DriveSkill wrote: »

looking for something with decent grip and long life.

Now that's the problem. Good grip means soft rubber means high wear & short life. Hard rubber means poor grip but long life.

I've had Dunlop Sport SP3000, Pirelli P7's Bridgestone EP300 and Continental Premiumsportcontact 2's under a Nissan Almera, that is driven rather rapidly. Basically, I don't slow down for corners, and really test the tyres

I've found that the Continental were the softest and had great grip in the wet, but in the dry, heated up and felt like the thread was moving. There was grip there, but no feeling at the limit. Wear is unknown as they are on the car at the moment only a month. The Pirelli P7's acceptable wet & dry, and had good feedback but offered less overall grip. The Dunlops were worn out after 15000 km but offered great dry grip (probably the best) & feedback, but were not great in the wet. The Bridgesones gave a harsher ride and were a harder compound than the Continental's, but still gave excellent wet grip. Dry grip was good, but gave excellent feedback and feeling.

I once got cheap tyres designed for long life, but I took them off after a month as they had bugger all wet grip and have horrid feedback in the dry. I also had terrible understeer with them, and loads of lift off oversteer in the wet. I learnt my lesson.....

Tyres generally last me about 15,000 to 20,000 km on the front and about 30,000km at the rear.

mcwhirter

I have vredesteins sporttrac on the front, same size as the passats, great in wet.

Cyrus

ive had michi ps2s, eagle f1s and others but i liked the vredestein ultrac sessantas best,

as an aside they have a cool tread pattern and great rim protectors