Avis Rental car with Triangle Tyres

gk5000 · 04-03-2016 3:34pm #1

Pretty disgusted with Avis Car Rental.
Got a 141 70k and Triangle Tyres (cheap Chinese rubbish) on the front.

whomitconcerns · 04-03-2016 3:36pm

I would have said nope

toyotaavensis · 04-03-2016 3:44pm

I wouldn't have taken that either. Makes you wonder how well it is looked after elsewhere

CiniO · 04-03-2016 3:58pm

Rented recently from Europcar.
Also got 141 with 50k and Hifly tyres on the front.

Atlantic Dawn · 04-03-2016 3:59pm

Would reporting them to the Internation HQ be an idea to see what the response is?

Caliden · 04-03-2016 4:03pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Would reporting them to the Internation HQ be an idea to see what the response is?

Public shaming will get you the most traction.

Drummerboy08 · 04-03-2016 4:09pm

They're entitled to put whatever tyres they want on the car, as long as they're E Marked and approved for use in Europe.

R.O.R · 04-03-2016 4:09pm

AVIS Ireland is a franchise and part of the same group as Budget.

Technically, Triangle Tyres are road legal, but I'd refuse anything running on them as they are abysmal.

Very old and high mileage for their rental fleet - auto or an MPV of some sort?

Alun · 04-03-2016 4:22pm

R.O.R wrote: »

AVIS Ireland is a franchise and part of the same group as Budget.

Even as a franchise holder you're still expected to maintain certain standards. I'm sure a company of that size, franchise or not, would be able to negotiate pretty decent prices on things like tyres, so there's no excuse for fitting rubbish like Triangles.

NIMAN · 04-03-2016 4:24pm

Jez, triangle tyres sound awful, I'd guess square ones would be much more comfortable.

3941

mickdw · 04-03-2016 4:24pm

Alun wrote: »

Even as a franchise holder you're still expected to maintain certain standards. I'm sure a company of that size, franchise or not, would be able to negotiate pretty decent prices on things like tyres, so there's no excuse for fitting rubbish like Triangles.

Image the rock bottom prices they are able to negotiate for the triangles.

gk5000 · 04-03-2016 4:41pm

toyotaavensis wrote: »

I wouldn't have taken that either. Makes you wonder how well it is looked after elsewhere

It's going back - OH picked it up in the dark - also missing cargo shelf and handbrake is crap.

gk5000 · 04-03-2016 4:44pm

R.O.R wrote: »

AVIS Ireland is a franchise and part of the same group as Budget.

Technically, Triangle Tyres are road legal, but I'd refuse anything running on them as they are abysmal.

Very old and high mileage for their rental fleet - auto or an MPV of some sort?

No, regular astra estate. In future I would refuse anything older than a year.

Turned off the traction control and they spin like hell in the wet, but scared to leave if off on a roundabout. Anyway its going back.

R.O.R · 04-03-2016 5:04pm

gk5000 wrote: »

No, regular astra estate. In future I would refuse anything older than a year.

Turned off the traction control and they spin like hell in the wet, but scared to leave if off on a roundabout. Anyway its going back.

Estate? Did you ask for an Estate? They are very rare on rental fleets in Ireland, and that's probably why it's so old.

If you are just booking an Astra/Focus Size and don't have a corporate deal with Avis, always price budget too. Whenever I've priced both, Budget are always cheaper and they use more or less the same pool of cars.

MarkR · 04-03-2016 5:06pm

Maybe someone got them replaced while it was out rented.

04-03-2016 5:06pm

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

They're entitled to put whatever tyres they want on the car, as long as they're E Marked and approved for use in Europe.

True, but they are an atrocious tyre that increase the likelyhood of a RTA occurring.

When one rents a car you expect the car to have decent tyres.

04-03-2016 5:45pm

MarkR wrote: »

Maybe someone got them replaced while it was out rented.

Thats what i thought too.

carzony · 04-03-2016 7:04pm

I'd bet atleast 50% of cars in Ireland have the 'cheap,dangerous' tyres on them. Cost is a huge factor and most people just want something legal regardless of the quality.

I hope they make second hand tyres illegal soon also. The industry really needs to be improved with beetter standards all round.

JohnBoy26 · 04-03-2016 7:21pm

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.

colm_mcm · 04-03-2016 7:22pm

not this thread again!

RustyNut · 04-03-2016 7:25pm

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.

But the fastest car in the world is a rental.

04-03-2016 7:32pm

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.

With some cheap tyres grip in the wet can be brutal but perfect in the dry.
Ditch finders . I wouldnt blame the op for dropping the car back.
Paying good money to hire the car and not having confidence in it

04-03-2016 7:42pm

I got a 131 from Budget recently, said they had nothing else in category. Both Ryanair and Aer lingus are using car trawler applications now. Prices are good value lately but service and quality might be suffering.

Red Kev · 04-03-2016 7:54pm

colm_mcm wrote: »

not this thread again!

The old tyre thread was below 1.6mm so we had to change it to a new thread.:)

JohnBoy26 · 04-03-2016 8:13pm

9935452 wrote: »

With some cheap tyres grip in the wet can be brutal but perfect in the dry.
Ditch finders . I wouldnt blame the op for dropping the car back.
Paying good money to hire the car and not having confidence in it

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.

gk5000 · 04-03-2016 8:28pm

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.

Well I wouldn't put them on my own car so sure not going to drive a rental with the them. They are not OEM spec - no European car company would put them on a new car. Anyway the handbrake is also dodgy, and we live on a hill.

visual · 04-03-2016 8:29pm

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.

Had triangle tyres on a BMW they are woeful on wet roads it was like driving on ice. Comfort and road noise wasn't an issue grip on dry roads was ok but on wet can only be described at dangerous.

enumbers · 04-03-2016 11:31pm

Hire car companies are a law onto themselves no matter where u are, picked up a car one time in Geneva in January hadnt checked it over really as it was late , queue heading towards the house we were renting in the mountains and car losing all grip on a gentle incline put the chains on which were wrong size and managed to get to the house , check car in the morning and its running a set of well worn but legal summer continentals, took 2 days before hertz delivered a replacement

JackHeuston · 04-03-2016 11:35pm

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the problem with these Triangle and Hifly tyres? Are they just extremely bad? I've never heard these brands.

gk5000 · 04-03-2016 11:46pm

JackHeuston wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the problem with these Triangle and Hifly tyres? Are they just extremely bad? I've never heard these brands.

They are the cheapest chinese tyres possible, with a very hard rubber compound to last a long time, but with very bad grip in the wet.

You rent a car from a large American company but they have put 3'rd world tyres on it - in a country where it rains alot.

Sitec · 05-03-2016 12:12am

gk5000 wrote: »

They are the cheapest chinese tyres possible, with a very hard rubber compound to last a long time, but with very bad grip in the wet.

You rent a car from a large American company but they have put 3'rd world tyres on it - in a country where it rains alot.

"E" marked though. The tyres are fully legal. It's not like a rental 1 point bland will ever push the boundries of tyre technology.

whomitconcerns · 05-03-2016 8:17am

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"

05-03-2016 9:24am

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 · 05-03-2016 12:35pm

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 · 05-03-2016 1:35pm

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 · 05-03-2016 2:15pm

This post has been deleted.

pheelay · 05-03-2016 2:36pm

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

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

dennyk · 05-03-2016 2:37pm

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.

05-03-2016 5:11pm

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 · 05-03-2016 5:18pm

This post has been deleted.

Del2005 · 05-03-2016 6:38pm

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 · 05-03-2016 6:40pm

This post has been deleted.

JohnBoy26 · 05-03-2016 7:46pm

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 · 05-03-2016 7:48pm

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

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 · 05-03-2016 7:49pm

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 · 05-03-2016 8:01pm

This post has been deleted.

hognef · 05-03-2016 8:31pm

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 · 05-03-2016 8:38pm

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

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 · 05-03-2016 9:04pm

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 · 05-03-2016 9:09pm

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 · 05-03-2016 9:25pm

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.

Avis Rental car with Triangle Tyres

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