Right, the blue beast needs a service soon and the front tyres are getting pretty low - last time I let my Dad arrange a service for me and I paid through the nose for rear tyres I didn't even need and ended up with shitty budget shit things, so I thought i'd try the intarweb first.

I had a look on black circles and if I kept the standard wheels, the tyres I could get are these (price-per-tyre):



Thats the installed price - i.e. I drive my car to a garage 11 miles away in Thetford, they then balance (apparently, again according to my Dad, my wheels need balancing) and install them for free.

If I wanted to I could also get them simply delivered and have them fitted as part of my service, but for example if I got 2x Proxes then it would be £15 more to get them fitted / balanced, which I can't see a garage doing for £15.

I can 3% off all these prices.

I was wondering what everyone would recommend?

I understand tyres are very important - but anythings better than the shit I have atm, i'd rather avoid budget but the Proxes seem good. Just not sure if the £8 extra is worth it for the P6000?

Driving wise I have an... aggressive driving style, however i've yet to have too much issue with understeer on my current tyres - however I do have some issues in the wet.

Tyre wise I have 185/60/R14 (steel wheels y0).

Opinions welcomes, please.

Also - considering that, if i'm getting new tyres anyway, I may try to get some alloy wheels with 2 good tyres and 2 bald-beyond-all-belief tyres and then replacing them to get some "sik alloys y0" on the cheap

The Toyos will be more than adequate. But I'd still choose cheaper tyres for a car like yours. If you can find something for £30 per corner...

And yes, they need balancing. All wheels/tyres do.

Where would you, a local country bumpkin sort of lad, be looking for tyres? ATM i'm driving from home (near Stowmarket) to Norwich 4 days a week along the A140 so anything between Ipswich and Norwich is fair game

Quote from Jakg :

Driving wise I have an... aggressive driving style,

In other words you drive like a cock?

In that case buy the cheapest tyres in the world, given that you're only going to abuse them anyway. You can buy nice tyres in 10 years time when you've grown up a bit.

Aggressive as in I have a nasty habit of driving fast (or at least - as fast as the Proton will allow) when I am on my own on the road.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

In other words you drive like a cock?

In that case buy the cheapest tyres in the world, given that you're only going to abuse them anyway. You can buy nice tyres in 10 years time when you've grown up a bit.

Oh so you're back now? yeyyy

This might be of some help to you jack. Bear in mind that the cars that the tyres have been tested with are of course, different to your own, so you may get different results.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gas ... mp;nmt=PH%20Tyre%20Review

In my opinion, pretty much any tyre you pick would be good enough a car such as yours. The only thing i would suggest would be to avoid the "Eco" type tyres, as they very poor, but i guess you may already know this.

From that list though, i would pick the Bridgestone ER300. I had some on my honda pretty recently, and there very good. Great grip and great stability in the wet. There are fairly noisy however, but my tyre size is 205/50/16, so you may notice less noise as your tyre size is a higher profile. I've recently had to change the tyres all round after sorting out a camber issue, but i forgot the name of the damn things. I'll try and grab the name for you if i remember, as the tyres i have recently out on are the best ones i have had for a road car, but they are fairly expensive i believe.

I had P6000s on my Puma and they last for ages and give decent grip but...

They squeal REALLY loudly if you even consider cornering harder than usual. It's a useful way of knowing if you're driving like a cock though.

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

In my opinion, pretty much any tyre you pick would be good enough a car such as yours. The only thing i would suggest would be to avoid the "Eco" type tyres, as they very poor, but i guess you may already know this.

I've never really been one to by any tyres advertised as "low friction" where the friction is the only thing that keeps my car on the road...

Again, if it helps my current drive is 35 miles 8 times a week on pretty much a dead straight road and then 5 miles on a dual carriageway, and 7 miles off country roads and 11 miles of dual carriageway 4 times a week + social use.

As i'm now commuting a large distance I thought it was time to sort my car out properly...

The link basically says "DO NOT BUY P6000's"

I can't imaging tyre companies advertising "low friction" tyres. Low rolling resistance tyres should be on offer, which are supposed to offer nearly as much grip but a few percent more fuel economy.

all i can tell you is that i rather like the potenza s02 my car came with
however they offer way too much grip to get anything out of the car and itll be much worse with a proton
point is get rubbish tyres that allow you to drive like a cock at speeds that are relatively safe for everyone around you

Cheapest "decent" tire you can get (read as "decent brand".) You're not using the car at the track, you are using it as a tool to get from point A to point B. Look at ratings for "grip in the wet" and such. Dry performance, you are not going to outperform even the cheapest pieces of junk. "Wet grip" is where one tire will outshine another tire.

You have to REALLY drive like an ass to lose it due to the tires. "REALLY like an ass" would mean driving on the road like you would on a track. Even the biggest ass on the road doesn't come close to that.

I put the cheapest tires I can find on my cars. Do I wish I had better tires? Yes. Reasons are noise (biggest reason as better tires will be quieter), wet, and snow performance. Wet isn't so bad. When you stick snow in the mix, then things get "interesting".

I don't see why everybody is saying "get the cheapest you can find". Only because it's a proton...

Tyres are the most important thing on a car. It doesn't matter if it's a freaking Ferrari or a cheap Proton. If you get in a dangerous situation (accident, lose control of your car, etc), you want good tires, and not some cheap rubber.

Do yourself a favour and get some decent tires (doesn't need to be overly expensive). Bridgestone, Pirelli, Michellin... something along those lines.

Generally its a good idea to save money, but sometimes you're saving money in the wrong places... good tyres will cost you maybe 20 quid more per wheel compared to shit tyres? An accident will cost you more.

I'm with jibber on this one. Tyres are important and I'd always buy the best I could afford.

Just be careful with BlackCircles. I was talking to my local garage, and they offer decent Michelin tyres for a better price than the ones I got online, so I'll be going straight to them in future.

Premium tyres will always be better than budget eco tyres.

Thats why even though my parents both have kias they both get decent tyres. My dad has some decent hankook tyres on his and some decent kumho tyres on my mum's car

It's a double edged sword - good tyres give you more grip in an accident/emergency (unless the accident/emergency is caused by tyre failure ), but it also means that you are more likely to be going faster when the accident/emergency occurs.

The difference between 'shit' tyres and 'amazing' tyres isn't as much as some would have you believe. If you are struggling in the wet, then just drive slower. If you are aware of what your tyres can give then you are far far safer on crap ones than having great tyres but blind to their abilities - did you know that most people in an emergency stop still don't brake hard enough to activate their ABS? So what's the point of having tyres that can brake 10% harder if they're only using 50% of the crap tyres ability???

I'd choose cheaper tyres (cheaper than the ones he listed) any day, no matter if I was using the car for commuting or track days.
Of course, if I can find decent tyres on sale then I'd probably buy those, but as a rule I don't pay more than is sensible.

Jack - I normally use Central Tyres on City Road in Norwich, although recently I've been erring towards a Wilcoo Fastfit because it's more convenient and they didn't go through a phase of selling all their machines BEFORE buying new ones

Modern cars have too much grip.

Quote from Jakg :

I've never really been one to by any tyres advertised as "low friction" where the friction is the only thing that keeps my car on the road...

You had an enormous thread moaning about your fuel efficiency yet you don't want to fit fuel efficient tyres? Unless you need the extra performance offered (you don't) then there's no point in wasting fuel with tyres that'll just slow you down.

Look round local tyre depots for better deals than online, I got Continental Eco 3s for £40, but I only went for a premium tyre because I wanted tyres that were good near the limit in the wet for rallying. By good I really mean tyres that are easier to drive on and don't behave unexpectedly when push to the limit, not outright grip. If you're driving a Proton and it starts raining then simply slow down to a sensible speed. Stopping distances are nearly all down to the driver, reacting in time, braking correctly (either hard enough to activate the ABS or not locking up when they don't have it).

On a serious side note given what Tristan has mentioned it is worth going and finding an empty strip of road and finding out just how quickly you can stop from speed even on shitty tyres, you'll be amazed at just how quickly a modern road car can stop.

Quote :

The link basically says "DO NOT BUY P6000's"

Apparently they do drop off quite suddenly and can catch you unawares, according to a couple of mates who've ended up in ditches using them...

I had an accident once where I left a country road whilst doing 25mph in the wet because 4 remould tyres afforded me no grip, it was downhill, a little bit leafy and quite wet, but I should have had "some" grip, I had none. I've avoided remoulds ever since, but budget tyres seem to be fine to me.

Outside of the race track i've never seen the point of softer compounds. I used to get half decent brands on a few company cars i've had over the years, but unless you really want to do 90+mph around the roundabouts in Milton Keynes, there really is no benefit to them - and besides, MK has 2 brown wrappers

Quote from Jakg :

Aggressive as in I have a nasty habit of driving fast (or at least - as fast as the Proton will allow) when I am on my own on the road.

Didn't you do a massive thread trying to workout how you could save fuel? Then you openly admit to driving like a dick.

Quote from ajp71 :

but I only went for a premium tyre because I wanted tyres that were good near the limit in the wet for rallying.

That's the key right there. As I said, if you are using your car as a tool to get from point A to point B, you aren't going to get "near the limit" thus you don't need "good" tires.

Buy tires for a purpose, whether they be for track use, it rains a lot where you are, or will get you going in the snow when needed.

My 2nd car, when I was young and stupid in a not so fast but handled like it was on rails car, I couldn't get anything but "good" tires for it in its unusual size. Top speed of the car was 120 mph and I couldn't find a turn on the roads that I couldn't take at 120 mph. But when the snow flew, I wasn't going anywhere. I had no choice for a few years until I finally found a good all-season tire in that size.

When I say they couldn't handle snow, I meant even if it looked like it was going to snow, the car was all over the place. Could barely get it to move as if you just eased the clutch out without throttle the wheels spun, nor could I turn once it did get moving. I literally had to use the handbrake to turn if I wanted to pull off onto another road at a junction or the front end would just slide straight. Forget about stupid stops at the bottom of a hill. If I wasn't hammering down to get a run at the hill, I either was turning around halfway up because I was stuck, or in the case of being stopped at the bottom, I wasn't going to move at all.

I drove a Toyota 4x4 pickup truck for years with big off-road oriented, huge sidewalled tires. I had no problems driving around normally on those things and even a cheap passenger car tire would be better than an off-road tire. If you are going to out perform even the shittiest tires you can buy under normal driving conditions, then you are just an idiot on the road and shouldn't be there. Wet performance and snow performance are the deciding factors as I said for choosing a tire.

Round black ones. The square ones don't work so well.

My point wasn't that you'll ever need the better grip of a soft compound race tyre on the road. My point was that in an emergency situation, a cheap tyre will show its weaknesses. You may care about this or not, but it's a simple fact.

On the other hand, most people never check their tyre pressure... which can cause way worse results/accidents than crap tyres.

So if people learnt how to brake in an emergency and checked their tyre pressures I reckon nobody would need to spend more than a pound per tyre

How about old school folks like me who don't have wussy driving aids like ABS? Do I benefit more from a better quality tyre?

Quote from tristancliffe :

So if people learnt how to brake in an emergency and checked their tyre pressures I reckon nobody would need to spend more than a pound per tyre

Nobody needs to, sure, but everybody can feel free to do it anyway. I know how to brake in an emergency situation (can say that from experience), but i still prefer to have decent tyres.

I was mainly talking about situations like...

When you underestimate a blind corner, and all of a sudden the corner takes a tighter turn, you have to steer more, but are already close to the grip limit. Or let's say you lose control over your car, will a cheap tyre react in the same way as a proper one? Etc.
But even if we're just talking about stopping distance, i believe the quality tyres will provide you with better results (there are exceptions i'm sure).

I'm simply saying that a good set of tyres can eventually help you in certain situations compared to cheap tyres. If you think this difference is perhaps going to save your life someday, or prevent a crash, up to you. But you can't deny that some tyres will show better results than others (and it's likely that the cheap ones will be on the worse side).

I don't care, go and get the cheapest rubber you can find. But don't try and tell me you're better off with that choice (except for having a few quid more left in your wallet).