Avis Rental car with Triangle Tyres

whomitconcerns

Lots of things are fully legal but when you end up skidding into a wall will you be thinking "ah well they were legal so it's grand"

9935452

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

I have had both on my car. It had cheap budget tires on it when I got it and they were on it for a good 15k miles. I had zero problems with grip in the wet or dry, including some hard breaking. Where I did have a problem with them though is with road noise and comfort. They were dreadful in this regard. The michelins I fitted afterwards transformed the car. It was far, far quieter and comfort was much improved.

Now I'm not saying budget tires are a safe as mid range or premium tires and maybe on a higher powered car or a rwd car the difference in grip might be more noticeable but for your average fwd I defiantly don't think they are half as dangerous as some make out here.

Well there can be different compound tyres by all companys which make tyres, soft /hard compound. Maybe you had one which handled wet conditions well, maybe you dont drive the car hard enough for it to make a difference, .
You have to wonder too, if cheap tyres have no issue with grip in the wet, where the term ditchfinder came from.
My experience with cheap tyres, my car came fitted with a set of dextero's. anyone heard of the name?
140hp car was able to spin the wheels in 3rd in the wet. Grand in the dry. No issue with road noise or comfort
Put on a set of pirellis and the car doesnt spin the wheels in the wet anymore .
Driving with dexteros was always cautious driving, Afraid of what the car would do.
There is a lot of people out there who are naturally cautious who take it handy and it wouldnt make a difference to them putting on cheap tyres, but in contrast there are a lot of people who like to drive a car on who need the extra grip afforded to them by a better branded tyre and like the peace of mind too

Terrontress

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the premium tyre manufacturers are behind some of the rumours about cheaper tyres. I've never heard of any serious road collisions or fatalities where the tyre compound, rather than the condition, was given as a factor.

R.O.R

Terrontress wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the premium tyre manufacturers are behind some of the rumours about cheaper tyres. I've never heard of any serious road collisions or fatalities where the tyre compound, rather than the condition, was given as a factor.

I'd be surprised if that was the case, but then again, I'm not a candidate for the tin foil hat award.

Google independent tyre test and find out what the likes of whatcar have to day from an independent point of view.

Or are they part of the greater conspiracy?

Fred Swanson

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pheelay

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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If thread depth, condition and age are within limits, then yes.

dennyk

It's a rental car, they obviously have no incentive to put anything but the cheapest possible parts on it and do the bare minimum to keep it roadworthy (and honestly, in my experience you can count yourself lucky if they've done that much; at least you guys have a safety inspection that they have to pass occasionally, so you know the car was probably sort of roadworthy at some point within the last couple years). 95% of customers wouldn't even pay any attention to the brand of tires on the car, and most of the rest wouldn't bother to say anything about it in any case. Any at-fault accidents that occur are most likely going to be the fault of (or at least blamed on) the clueless tourist behind the wheel, rather than the tires, so it's not like there are really any statistics to demonstrate to the MBAs a reduction in accident-related expenses that could be achieved by spending extra money on a set of Michelins.

Rental cars used be rented out by the major companies for a maximum of around six months and were then sold on, typically after the summer season. Thus they would all be fitted with OEM parts and the issue to tyre replacements would rarely arise.
Now it seems that some rental companies are keeping cars much longer than previously. I wonder is this a sign of tight times for them, or has their financial model changed?
In the past I understood that cars were sourced from dealers around the country and were not placed in the rental name. After the six month rental period the car would be returned to the dealer who would sell it as a nearly new demo with high mileage. Recently Enterprise told me that all their cars were registered in their name and were auctioned off after the rental period.

Fred Swanson

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Del2005

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

It would be a massive overreaction to bring the car back imo. Under normal driving condition those tires will be fine. You will only notice any difference in grip if you take it onto a track or if you are absolutely driving the nuts off it.

Cheap tires have more of an impact on road noise and comfort in my experience.

I had a set of cheap tyres fitted to a car. Thing wouldn't grip when pulling from the lights to go around a right turn and would slide with any damp on the road , I never push the car in urban areas, fitted brand name tyres and no problem with grip in any conditions.

Problem with the cheap ditch finders is that they are usually fine for most people, till they really need them and then it's too late.

Fred Swanson

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JohnBoy26

Del2005 wrote: »

I had a set of cheap tyres fitted to a car. Thing wouldn't grip when pulling from the lights to go around a right turn and would slide with any damp on the road , I never push the car in urban areas, fitted brand name tyres and no problem with grip in any conditions.

Problem with the cheap ditch finders is that they are usually fine for most people, till they really need them and then it's too late.

I've had no problem when pulling from the lights or any sliding issues with them tbh. I've not had any trouble with them either when I really needed them like when a fox ran out in front of the car and I had to brake hard to avoid it.

Now I'm not saying you are wrong and I don't disagree that mid range and premium tires are better but I really think people are overreacting when they call them dangerous.

If that was the case they'd be off the market years ago and there would be tyre related accidents happing every day on the circa 90% of cars that these are fitted to.

Del2005

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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No because I dumped the tyres before I hit anything. Would you rather I drive around waiting to crash to prove that some of cheap tyres are dangerous?

JohnBoy26

9935452 wrote: »

Well there can be different compound tyres by all companys which make tyres, soft /hard compound. Maybe you had one which handled wet conditions well, maybe you dont drive the car hard enough for it to make a difference, .
You have to wonder too, if cheap tyres have no issue with grip in the wet, where the term ditchfinder came from.
My experience with cheap tyres, my car came fitted with a set of dextero's. anyone heard of the name?
140hp car was able to spin the wheels in 3rd in the wet. Grand in the dry. No issue with road noise or comfort
Put on a set of pirellis and the car doesnt spin the wheels in the wet anymore .
Driving with dexteros was always cautious driving, Afraid of what the car would do.
There is a lot of people out there who are naturally cautious who take it handy and it wouldnt make a difference to them putting on cheap tyres, but in contrast there are a lot of people who like to drive a car on who need the extra grip afforded to them by a better branded tyre and like the peace of mind too

Indeed there is different compounds and it's plain to see from just looking at the Michelin that it has a different compound. I'm not disagreeing that a premium tyre is better and I understand the difference in compounds.

Just giving my experience is all.

Fred Swanson

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hognef

The cheap Chinese brands have (compared to the bigger brands) traditionally been ok in dry conditions, but significantly worse in wet conditions, with dramatically longer stopping distances, for example. This has been confirmed every year in independent tests, so much so that they would be advised against.

However, in the last couple of years, *some* of the cheap brands have on fact achieved results much more comparable to Michelin, Pirelli, Nokian, etc. Noise, fuel efficiency, and other non-safety-related categories are where they probably still fall short.

I wouldn't be able to say which particular brands these are, without reading up on the reports again, but there definitely are some that perform better these days.

That said, I won't consider such tyres until I see consistent good results over several years.

Edit: Looked it up, this particular test (by NAF, Norway's equivalent to the UK's AA, from last year) includes a Chinese brand (Landsail) that actually did well, particularly in terms of stopping distances (wet and dry), and with an overall score better than Michelin's. For those of you proficient at reading Norwegian (!), here's a link to the summary: https://www.naf.no/forbrukertester/dekktester/sommerdekktest-2015/

CiniO

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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It's not about snobbery.
It's obvious that cheap budget tyres provide worse grip than premium brands.

Some people possibly drive very gently, and are never really close to the border of grip. Those people won't see the difference between rubbish or good tyres.

Some people drive very often reaching border of grip, and those will realize the difference right away.

But in case of emergency situation, no matter how someone drives, even the gentlest driver might need a grip, which his budget crap tyres won't give him, and might crash because of that.

It's a fact, and surely purely for that reason it's worth to have reasonable tyres.

Also it's not like that there's only cheapest chineese ****e like Triangles, and best expensive brands like Michelin or Pirelli, etc...

There's plenty of mid-range brands, which sometimes are only slightly worse than premium brands, for fraction of cost.
There's also mid-range brands, which are only slightly better than cheapest ditch-finders, while they cost not much less than premium brands.

That's why it's cruicial to do research before buying tyres, as it's possible to buy reasonable tyre as low price, as well as high price doesn't guarantee that tyre will be good.

brembo26

Its down too the people who rent the car and dont purchase tyre insurance.

They will just put whatever the cheapest crap is on it.

If the company is paying for the tyre they would usually put on a mid range tyre.

CiniO

brembo26 wrote: »

Its down too the people who rent the car and dont purchase tyre insurance.

They will just put whatever the cheapest crap is on it.

If the company is paying for the tyre they would usually put on a mid range tyre.

Are you saying that someone who rented the same car as OP, accidentally damaged both front tyres, and put set of triangles instead.

And the same in my case, someone damaged both front tyres, and put set of hiflys?

brembo26

I work in a garage that supplies tyres and yes thats what I am saying. 99% of the time anyway.

We have 3 different hire companies that come to us Budget, europcar and Dan dooleys all of which have never put cheap chinese tyres on the car when they were paying for them.

Its only when the customer has to pay for them they get the bottom of the barrel cheap tyres.

Edit: Im not siding with anyone either, and just sharing my experience.

Fred Swanson

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coolbeans

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Now hang on a minute. If these tyres are so unsafe, why are they for sale? Surely the nanny state would step in?

Because it's not the nanny state you believe it to be man.

DakarVert

I love how people automatically form an opinion on tyres without actually trying them.

My last car came with new Landsails on the front and Hiflys on the back, Not once did they spin or lose grip... Tad loud but other than that were fine. That's mixed country roads, town and motorway use... Yes maybe a bit longer pulling up if braking hard but I didn't experience it so can't comment.


95% of renters couldn't give a feck.... It's a business, They'll cut costs where possible to make profit.

Mycroft H

Had Austones fitted when I bought the old xantia. They were noisy but they weren't dangerous. Replaced them with verdsteins and they weren't that much better that people would lead you to believe

R.O.R

DakarVert wrote: »

I love how people automatically form an opinion on tyres without actually trying them.

My last car came with new Landsails on the front and Hiflys on the back, Not once did they spin or lose grip... Tad loud but other than that were fine. That's mixed country roads, town and motorway use... Yes maybe a bit longer pulling up if braking hard but I didn't experience it so can't comment.


95% of renters couldn't give a feck.... It's a business, They'll cut costs where possible to make profit.

I drove for the first and last time on Landsails to our Christmas Party in 14. S-Max 115ps model with half the office in it, including the tyre expert.

Landsails are now on the do not fit list for our fleet as the wet grip was very poor in the wet, and as underpowered Ford was easily spinning tyres in 2nd gear, which tells us they are not good at all.

Better than Triangles though, which I've had the misfortune of using on more than one occasion. If you know just how bad they are, and are prepared to crawl around any bend more severe than 3 degrees, then you'll be grand. You don't want to find out the tyres you have on the car you are driving are utter sh1te the first time you try to go around a roundabout at a moderate speed, and almost end up in the barrier at the side of the roundabout.

Guy:Incognito

R.O.R wrote: »

I drove for the first and last time on Landsails to our Christmas Party in 14. S-Max 115ps model with half the office in it, including the tyre expert.

Landsails are now on the do not fit list for our fleet as the wet grip was very poor in the wet, and as underpowered Ford was easily spinning tyres in 2nd gear, which tells us they are not good at all.
.

Is it not possible that certain models of known brand name summer tyres could have done similar? I doubt it would lead to all Michelins being struck off the list.

colm_mcm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Is it not possible that certain models of known brand name summer tyres could have done similar? I doubt it would lead to all Michelins being struck off the list.

Honestly you'd need to try these to believe how bad they are. Wheel spin in 2nd in a 1.4 Auris type bad.

gk5000

Obviously some people don't care the type of tyre and that is fine.
But I care, and I'm scared of driving round on these ones in the wet - and have experienced the bad effects of driving on these.

But my point is that Rental Cars should fit OEM spec tyres - something that Opel, Ford, Toyota etc would consider suitable for their cars.

ba_barabus

Fred Swanson

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