Forum Home / Tyres / your advise please

16/07/2012 09:21:06
Grumpyzs
Sorry about this but I have to ask for your advise/experience. There is a fair bit of advise re tyres for mgfs but I have a zs. Ideally I would like the best of both worlds ie stick like the proverbial for the track and last for thousands on the road. Yeh I know this ain't going to happen!! Some people are raving about toyo atm but I've heard they are not that good on the road in the wet. Your experience and suggestions greatly received Simon
16/07/2012 11:43:38
Mike Hall
I always used to run Bridgestone RE720's on my old F, and when they were discontinued moved to Toyo's as recommended by friends, colleagues, forums and almost anyone else you can think of :) . A great road tyre, especially in the dry, but I just couldn't get on with them on track, and the graining was bad - the car was moving around on the graining in corners with no steering input :rolleyes: . But, as I say, great for road use. With my ZS180, I was stuck to know what to do given the above experience, so ended up with Conti Sports 3, which was a great all round tyre, to the extent that I still now run them on my Leon Cupra, which I find so much better than the Pirelli OEM's for grip and road noise. I'd suggest that any similar 'premium' tyre would give similar results, but have no first hand experience. (As far as the TF is concerned, it's back to the good old GSD2's, which is a great all round tyre for road and track, wet and dry - and it's amazing how much changing the front bushes had improved the handling :) )
17/07/2012 08:12:25
Martin C
Hi Simon, I've had my ZS 120 for 5 years now, when I bought it the tyres on it were Continental Sport Contact 2, 205/45R17's and I was impressed with the overall performance of them. I then bought a set of new aftermarket wheels, these came fitted with tyres called Fullrun? The tyres seemed OK, my first track day being a wet Goodwood and the car handled as well as I expected, but a little while later on inspecting tyres I discovered cracks in the inner sidewalls, so changed then for more Conti Sports. It turned out that Fullrun tyres are Micheldever Tyres own budget brand, fine for general road use but didn't like being punished around a track. As I live reasonably close to Micheldever I use them for full sets and when they put the Conti's on they said of the Fullrun's, it is not what they are designed for (trackdays), they are poping to shop type tyres. This 2nd set of Conti's lasted about 14k, with regular rotation to even wear and they needed changing 2 years ago. So back Micheldever, Conti Sports were about £100 each and they suggested Falken Ziex ZE-912 at about £65 each, so I went with them. I've had no issues with them, wet or dry, a little bit more understeer than Conti's when pushing on out on track in the wet but still way above the level you would normally expect in such conditions. I've just renewed them this week after about 20k at £97 each. Yes the Conti's wore down quicker than the Falkens, softer compound? [URL="http://www.camskill.co.uk"]www.camskill.co.uk[/URL] have these Falkens at £69.10 each, but of course you have to get them fitted, as against the Conti 2's at £118.30 :eek: TBH I don't think the ZS is as critical on tyres as the F/TF seems to be, proven by my experience I had on the Fullruns. I think this is because of the work put in by the engineers when setting up the suspension, the ZS is the best handling saloon I've ever owned on standard factory set up, it is phenominal and very neutral. Like a lot of things, there is a lot of talk about tyres and a certain snobbery in some quarters I think to have the right "Brand". Certainly the Falkens were very worn when we did Castle Combe in the Monsoon last month, can't say that it slowed me any over what I would expect though. Hope that helps.
25/07/2012 20:59:43
Grumpyzs
Thanks for replying chaps. Much appreciated although I'm still very much undecided! I totally agree with you Martin, the zs does appear to be a very neutral handling car even with Gandhis' recycled flipflops fitted (wanli) I've been offered a set of yoko ad08 for a tad over 400 notes which seems to fall into the price band of the premium tyres you both mention. Suppose it's then down to wear rate. Oh the dilemma!!