Advice for tyres

howamidifferent

I'm driving a 2003 Skoda Octavia. It needs 4 new tyres. I know nothing about cars other than how to drive them. Was hoping to get nearer to the winter before buying a set but need them sooner now. Anyone who can advise on a good tyre that will give me good grip on ice in the winter but will still be ok right now? I have no idea whats good bad or indifferent so want to make sure I dont buy duds.

Sh1tbag OToole

Uniroyal Rainsport 3

Official Boards.ie motors forum tyre of choice

punisher5112

Look up oponeo it gives reviews and good prices.

You will have to pay a Tyre place to fit but still savings to be made.

Del2005

Tyres won't grip on ice. You need chains or studded tyres to grip on ice and neither are any good for the rest of the year.

myshirt

You are looking for mid range all weather tyres. You are not looking for points on your licence, or someone killed.

What condition are the tyres in?

pete4130

Just buy known brands.

The sh1ttest known brand tyres will perform way better than any sh1tty non known brand/asian cheap tyre that a tyre fitter will tell you is popular or good.

Good known brands being

Pirelli
Bridgestone
Goodyear
Michelin
Continetal
Yokohama (more unknown i Ireland but highly rated here in Australia)
Dunlop
Hankook
Coopers



Anything like Triangle tyres etc or any brand you've never remotely heard of will be utter crap. If unsure, google it on your phone and look up reviews. Just don't buy the cheapest thing you find.

Mint Sauce

Unfortunately most tyre retailers and fitters only sell what most people want, and what most people want is the cheapest, have even had the retailers and fitters tell me this.

Have a found a few that will sell the higher end of the mid range stuff, Hancooks, some of the Pirellis, Bridgestones, etc, and now stick to them, although have not ruled out online.

First set of tyres I bought was a full set of Wanlies all round for a 1.2 Corsa. Was still in my first year of driving, wasn't working, and admitingly, wanted something afordable as well.

Now by no means, do I drive high performance, or 20k plus a year, i have moved on from the Corsa, but still want to keep my self on the road and upright, so never again would I go for them.

The_Honeybadger

pete4130 wrote: »

Yokohama (more unknown i Ireland but highly rated here in Australia).

My local indie garage highly recommends these so I went for a set not long ago. So far so good, they seem to be good value.

colm_mcm

Just get them online on the likes of eiretyres and use a fitter that they list in your area.
If you want choice and instant prices/information.

sunnysoutheast

howamidifferent wrote: »

I'm driving a 2003 Skoda Octavia. It needs 4 new tyres. I know nothing about cars other than how to drive them. Was hoping to get nearer to the winter before buying a set but need them sooner now. Anyone who can advise on a good tyre that will give me good grip on ice in the winter but will still be ok right now? I have no idea whats good bad or indifferent so want to make sure I dont buy duds.

If you can get Michelin CrossClimates or Goodyear Vector all seasons in the size you need I'd go with those. Both I think have the 3 peak winter tyre marking.

Supergurrier

Cheapest decent tyre i would buy are Kumho ku39

CiniO

colm_mcm wrote: »

Just get them online on the likes of eiretyres and use a fitter that they list in your area.
If you want choice and instant prices/information.

None of the fitters eiretyres list, ever heard of eiretyres....
I remember trying to go by the list first time I bought tyres off eiretyres, and most fitters asked for some ridiculous money like €100 to fit a set of 4, and they say they never had any dealings with eiretyres.
Some guy in garage near Castlebar even increased his quote for fitting 4 tyres from €80 to €160 when he heard that I got his deatails from eiretyres as their approved fitter, and said something like "ahh those feckers...."

CiniO

howamidifferent wrote: »

I'm driving a 2003 Skoda Octavia. It needs 4 new tyres. I know nothing about cars other than how to drive them. Was hoping to get nearer to the winter before buying a set but need them sooner now. Anyone who can advise on a good tyre that will give me good grip on ice in the winter but will still be ok right now? I have no idea whats good bad or indifferent so want to make sure I dont buy duds.

As Del2005 said above - there's no such thing.
Only studded tyres are good for ice. Nothing else...

166man

CiniO wrote: »

None of the fitters eiretyres list, ever heard of eiretyres....
I remember trying to go by the list first time I bought tyres off eiretyres, and most fitters asked for some ridiculous money like €100 to fit a set of 4, and they say they never had any dealings with eiretyres.
Some guy in garage near Castlebar even increased his quote for fitting 4 tyres from €80 to €160 when he heard that I got his deatails from eiretyres as their approved fitter, and said something like "ahh those feckers...."

Surely you can understand where the local tyre fitter is coming from? Hardly expect them to be fitted for free.....

Esel

I'm thinking the OP didn't mean ice...

sunnysoutheast

Esel wrote: »

I'm thinking the OP didn't mean ice...

Well exactly I was assuming they meant frosty mornings and below-zero conditions of the typical Irish winter rather than the compacted ice/snow common in the Nordics.

Neighbours of ours have the CrossClimates on both their cars and say they are excellent. They don't make them in my sizes unfortunately.

colm_mcm

CiniO wrote: »

None of the fitters eiretyres list, ever heard of eiretyres....
I remember trying to go by the list first time I bought tyres off eiretyres, and most fitters asked for some ridiculous money like €100 to fit a set of 4, and they say they never had any dealings with eiretyres.
Some guy in garage near Castlebar even increased his quote for fitting 4 tyres from €80 to €160 when he heard that I got his deatails from eiretyres as their approved fitter, and said something like "ahh those feckers...."

That's mad! I got a few local places to fit tyres from eiretyres and they even had their price per tyre on the website.

CiniO

166man wrote: »

Surely you can understand where the local tyre fitter is coming from? Hardly expect them to be fitted for free.....

I don't expect them to fit tyres for free, but what they are doing is purposly inflating cost of fitting just to penalise customers that they dared to buy tyres elsewhere (online).
You must admit €100 for fitting 4 tyres which takes qualified person no more than 30-40 minutes, is mad price.

I had a thread here few years ago about it...

Garage which used to charge €10 for fixing puncture properly which consisted of taking wheel off, taking tyre off, patching, putting tyre back, balancing and putting wheel back on the car, asked €20 for fitting new tyre which actually involves less work.

No one is going to tell me, that €10 per tyre is not a fair price for simple job like that which only requires tyre fitter machine and tyre balancer and 10 minutes labour.

Yes very few garages are happy to do it, just purely for the fact of penalising customer for not buying tyres at his place.

CiniO

Esel wrote: »

I'm thinking the OP didn't mean ice...

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

Well exactly I was assuming they meant frosty mornings and below-zero conditions of the typical Irish winter rather than the compacted ice/snow common in the Nordics.

Well, he said "ice" in original post.

I'd assume just white ice or black ice - same thing reallly and no regular tyres (winter or summer) are good for that.

I thought ice - especially black ice is fairly common during winter in midlands here (it's not that common in the west where I live).

challengemaster

166man wrote: »

Surely you can understand where the local tyre fitter is coming from? Hardly expect them to be fitted for free.....

You can't really, even 80-100 for fitting is expensive already. Saying €160 to fit means anyone with their head screwed on will never use them again and will tell everyone they know to avoid the rip off xxxx. Up to them if they want no business though!

15 a corner is what I'd expect as normal/fair.

howamidifferent

Thanks to all for advice. And I meant the usual irish frosty/black ice type.

jca

howamidifferent wrote: »

Thanks to all for advice. And I meant the usual irish frosty/black ice type.

You'll get the cross climates for the octavia but God I think they look terrible, they look like tractor tyres. You'd think we got frost and snow every winter. It's 6 years since "the snow" and people are still harping on about it. I got 4 Dunlops for my Octavia from openeo and paid a tenner each to get them fitted.

Del2005

howamidifferent wrote: »

Thanks to all for advice. And I meant the usual irish frosty/black ice type.

Ice is still ice no matter what colour it is. Once water freezes the only way to get grip is by breaking the surface and no tyres that work for the majority of the year can break ice.

jca

Del2005 wrote: »

Ice is still ice no matter what colour it is. Once water freezes the only way to get grip is by breaking the surface and no tyres that work for the majority of the year can break ice.

OK ok we get it..... The op just wants a bit of help choosing tyres for his car.

Mc Love

Have the Goodyear Eagle F1's but I think my next set will be the Vredstein Ultra Vorti