Ekona

Well, I say early, but what I really mean is before you hit the 1.6mm legal limit. I'd not seen the following video before until today, where it was posted on PH following a question from a Boxster owner as to why his car was a bit tail happy with his tyres sitting at said legal limit... Illustrates perfectly just how much extra grip you can lose under braking whilst still having legal tyres. I changed my rears today as they were just under an average of 3mm across the width of the tyre, and already I've noticed more grip and more feel despite them still having the release agent on. I've had a few 'moments' in the last few weeks with the back end getting increasingly mobile under power, culminating in a four wheel drift across multiple lanes when entering a dual carriageway from a roundabout, which was interesting to say the least. Perhaps worth considering changing tyres a bit earlier than you normally would? Is it worth saving a hundred quid or so when you can see the difference in grip levels very plainly illustrated? And don't even get me started on how those differences would be compared between a 452 with 1.6mm and a MPSS with brand new tread...!

You sure?! That would make the MPSS the absolute no brain bargain of the century if they're now that cheap! You do mean the inferior PS3 and not the PS2, right?

I do believe it was you Stew! Really is good stuff, can't wait to use it again this year.

I'm in far greater need than schoolkids. They can get to the back of the queue! I donate my old mags that I don't collect to Jo to take into school for the kids, so they end up with good-as-new copies of Car, Focus and Edge subscriber copies before they actually hit the shops. The only ones I keep are Evo (despite preferring Car as a mag), Total 911 and the PCGB club mag.

Absolutely. De-badge or don't bother, mine went all tarnished and I ended up going back to the originals.

Pah, I do x 2.75 just to make myself look super-awesome! I really want to get my car on a dyno at some point, but because of the silly gearbox I can only use certain dynos (4WD ones that are mechanically linked).

No swirls yet?! It's a black car man, you're clearly not looking hard enough! I don't really get on with LPL very well, I actually prefer something a bit heavier like Megs Scratch-X if you're doing it by hand. LPL works okay on a machine, but even then I struggle to get any decent results with it. Might just be me to be fair. If you really want an awesome product, get some Blackfire Wet Diamond. It was recommended to me by someone on here and I've not looked back since using it, it's stunning.

If they're in good nick I don't mind giving you a few quid for them, although to be honest I do have a fair few years already so would need to check on exactly which ones I'd be interested in. If you could find out the dates of them then I'm sure we could work something out.

If you want shot I'll take them, happy to collect as well

I had no idea this thread had turned into a "I want my car to be quicker than an M3 innit" type of thread else I'd have been here pages ago, we haven't had one for ages and I do enjoy them so very much As has already been said though, enjoy the Zed for what it is and don't try and make it into something it isn't as you'll end up disappointed. It's a cracking car that deserves to stand on its own two feet

This x 1000000000 Numbers alone are just a p*ssing contest with your mates down the pub, the important thing is the difference between the start figure and the end figure, wherever in the rev range you want to look.

Yup, I've got a bottle indoors. It's more of a filler to be used when you don't have time or can't be arsed to correct the paint, and it is pretty good at doing that I have to say, however a weekend of elbow grease with a DA will produce far better results than a few goes of Black Hole ever will, and you'll also not need to rely on fillers again.

I've only ever needed front fogs precisely once in my entire driving career. That's how almost entirely useless they are. Ford irritate me,as their vehicles insist on putting the front fogs on the rocker switch before the rear fogs, so you either have them both on or you have to flash the fronts to get the rears on. Ford need shooting over this, it's utterly retarded.

Just because they're with the same supplier, doesn't mean it's the same tariff. Definitely check that out first, and what their bills say they're paying per unit. I never pre-pay my bills as I'd rather have the money sitting in my bank than theirs. It's a chore, but reading my own meter and paying it monthly for exactly what I've used makes things a lot more straightforward.

Has it only been a year?

That's either not legit, or you'll still need to prove you're a student before purchasing. I couldn't be arsed to register to complete the checkout process to find out, though. If you're a company that needs it then cough up and pay the fee.

There are many places you can get it for much less, but of course no-one can show you those and if you're going to be using it in a business capacity, I wouldn't even dream of obtaining a copy that way either. The £800 or less referred to is probably the discount applied to educational purchasers such as students and teachers. My other half purchased the entire PS CS4 suite for about £155 a couple of years ago now. It's not like the S&T version of MS Office though, you actually have to show proof and set up an account with Adobe to purchase this way.

I had a VXR220 so I feel your pain. The Zed isn't quite as bad, but the bluff end doesn't really help matters too much sadly and it can get quite irritating if you want it to be perfect.

They should be, I totally agree with you. It's hard to see if rolling I guess, and it's more complicated paperwork to prove a misuse of the Construction And Use regs than it is to nick someone for speeding. /assumption

I didn't realise you had a question, if you'd like to re-phrase it I'll try my best to answer. Do you NEED decent tyres on the road? No, you only NEED legal ones, so a set of Ditchfinders would do on any vehicle. A statement of need is not the point I'm trying to make, it's about promoting why a better tyre is a better choice for any application for a multitude of reasons. Of course if you're going faster there's a risk of a bigger accident, but I'm not talking about driving balls to the wall everywhere. It's not about speed alone, it's about control. I would also guess that Intel also spent billions more on their current multi-core CPU range than AMD have on theirs, and they have a much, much better product. What's your point? I didn't say it was an exact science, and if I have to point out again that my numbers were made up off the top of my head I may just explode, my point was that overall as a rule the bigger manufacturers make better tyres. Every now and then there's an exception, but it's very rare. It's the same in any field, not just tyres. Vacuum cleaners, ballpoint pens, mobile phones: The best ones are the ones made by big companies, are they not?

No, because I wouldn't put rubber like that on a 911, warranty issues aside. If you mean did I have them on my 350Z, the answer is still no because of the reasons I mentioned in my first post. If you actually mean do I have any experience of using those tyres on the Zed, then yes I do as my brother ran both tyres on his Zed. Sorry, didn't mean to cut off all your post but I didn't want to quote too much text to keep the thread legible. All good points, but if I could respond to the direct point I've quoted: A tyre like the RE050A would still be better for a long commute as the road noise is far less than the 452, and it's also a harder compound so will last longer and you'll get more miles out of them before needing to change. I'm not convinced that any argument about being able to go faster in wet or icy conditions just because you have better tyres is realistic as you should always drive to the conditions regardless, and if something were to go wrong through no fault of your own surely you'd want the best tyres available to give you the most grip to get yourself out of it? I have to admit that I enjoy driving in wet conditions more than in the dry due to the lower grip levels allowing exploration of the limits at lower speeds, but again it's all about making sure that I'm still well inside the limits of both my own skill and that of the vehicle I'm driving. It's a fair comment that my budget does allow me to run better rubber than a smaller one, but I still used to put the MPS on the Zed because it was worth the difference. I also used to run A048 on the VXR220 before that, and as soon as the MPSS become Porsche-approved I'll jump ship from the RE050As and get those because the benefits far outweigh the cost. We're also talking about Zed owners who will spend £2000 on posh wheels but wrap them in cheap rubber, so it's not like the budget isn't there to spend if they so choose. Of course it's all down to how the individual wants to prioritise their budget, and they're absolutely entitled to do so, I'm just offering an alternative opinion on why I think it's a false economy. Thanks for the comments though Daryl, it's exactly that kind of debate I was hoping this thread would start.

And that makes our opinions less valid than yours how? I think I've actually been pretty fair in my comments on this thread, pointing out that the figures quoted are not the norm and that you need to look at the overall picture on benefits, yet I'm still very much of the mindset that it's still far too much money to be giving to people who do have a choice. To state that some people aren't worth listening to because they only see the worst in everything is a bit pot, kettle, black if you're only prepared to listen to the tree-hugging, sympathy-giving left wing madness that's crippled this country in the last 10-15 years. OH SNAP see what I did there? Some people are fully capable of understanding all the facts involved and still being able to form an educated opinion of their own regardless of what sensationalist media throws at them. With regards to people feeling bad if they have to use vouchers instead of money, so what? For those that are there through no fault of their own then they have nothing to feel bad about, and for those that are just work-shy then they deserve to feel like losers. For all those families that keep breeding despite not having the money for it, TAKE THE KIDS OFF THEM AND GIVE THEM TO A FAMILY WHO WANT KIDS BUT FOR MEDICAL REASONS CAN'T. Sod all this b*llocks about keeping blood family together, blood isn't what makes a family a family, it's the close bond you share as people grow up together. I have zero blood relation to any of my family as I'm adopted, which granted gives me a unique view on the situation, but I'd rather be brought up by people who have been through numerous tests (both psychological and means) to prove they can be fit parents than some filthy chav scum who breed simply because they have nothing better to do. I couldn't care less if I get accused of being a right-wing evil-doer, as I'd rather than that spend the rest of my life paying money out of my own pocket to give straight to life's losers who can't see further than the Sky remote perched neatly on their engorged bellies whilst their seventeen children run wildly round their feet. /and breathe

I hadn't heard this, I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the heads up You're right about Vredestein using outside designers, I believe it's Giugiaro but would have to check. That said, if a massive design company can help make a tyre as good as the VUS are, I wonder what they could do with the real big guns...? Agree with both of these points, to an extent. My costs for R&D were plucked out of thin air for example, I have no idea if their budgets are actually 10x less/more! You're right though, they will rip each others' tyres apart and study it, but nothing is quite as good as doing the original research yourself. With regards to the extra for branding, again I suspect there's a good element to this as to get market share because of their lesser-known name, the smaller companies will have to reduce the cost of their stuff to make it seem a viable alternative, but I've yet to meet a budget tyre as good as the premium alternative. Rich gets closest to this with the R888/A048 comparison, but having tried both extensively the 048 is still the better tyre by some margin and even more so now Toyo have massively increased their prices on their good tyres (R888 and R1R) over the last couple of years. Possibly this could be more down to them realising they've made a name for themselves in that market now so can afford to bump the prices up to increase revenue? I don't know. Not entirely a fair comparison as the RE040 is now a very old tyre, and it's deliberately priced high because Bridgestone really don't want to have to make it any more: They'd much rather people went to the 050A, but some manufacturers still request it for OEM spec on older cars. This made me chuckle

What Clio is it?

I know that I appear to be the 'expert' on tyres on this forum, and as a consequence of that I tend to find myself commenting on just about every tyre thread that gets posted on here. I'm aware that sometimes I take a basic level of knowledge as a given when replying to questions or making a point, however not everyone has that understanding of why I keep banging on about tyres and so I thought it might be a good idea to actually try and explain myself and my reasons in a separate thread. First off, I'll start with the caveat that I have no qualifications in tyre production, or chemical engineering, or any professional racing experience at all. Everything I say from this point on is simply a mixture of my understanding along with my own experiences. If you wish to disagree with me or correct on any point then by all means do, but at least give a reason for it: In turn, I'll try to do the same. If all I achieve with this post is to make just one person stop and think before they order a set of ditchfinders, then that's good enough for me. WHY TYRES SHOULD BE EXPENSIVE A tyre is a consumable, nothing more and nothing less. They come with the car when we buy it, they get used as we drive it, and they get replaced about once a year. Viewed in that sense, they are no more important to your car than brake pads or wiper blades. That said, I'd argue that brake pads are pretty vital to driving as they stop the car, and wiper blades tend to be invaluable when trying to see out of the windscreen when it's raining! What I'm getting at here is that although they are just a consumable, they are also a key part in the everyday operation of a car, be it on road or on track. The perfect tyre should do and have many things: Low road noise, be comfortable, low wear rate, good grip in all conditions, communicative, and be well priced. Sadly there's not many tyres out there that can do all of these things at once, so we always tend to find the compromise and inevitably the first thing to be compromised is the cost. This is even more true in the current financial climate where every penny counts, and yet I'd argue it should be the last thing to be considered. As is often said, tyres are the only thing keeping your car in contact with the road, and so that's what you're relying on to get you around safely. If you actually look at the exact contact patch of the tyre to the road you'll see it's scarily small, which makes tyre choice even more important. Manufacturers of cars and tyres alike spend millions year upon year trying to make the small differences to give a car the edge, whether that's in terms of comfort for the luxo-barges to shaving tenths of laptimes for the trackday specials. To put it into numbers I'm going to pick off the top of my head, so say spending an extra £30 per tyre could be the difference between a manufacturer who spent £1M on tyre development and one who spent £10M. I've pinched the following numbers from the Camskill site today (20-1-12) to give an idea of this: 225/45/18 RE050A - £157.20 VUS - £130.80 452 - £99.95 Chosen deliberately on the grounds that these are probably the most popular tyres for the Zed. Almost £30 between them, and a world apart in terms of quality, and again you're looking between a budget manufacturer (Falken), one that spends a hell of a lot in design but is still relatively unknown (Vredestein), and one of if not the largest tyre maker in the world today (Bridgestone). I don't have access to their accounts, but I'm fairly confident on saying that the R&D budget of Falken is dwarfed by Vredestein, and their one is tiny compared with Bridgestone. You probably see where I was going now with the price difference between tyres and R&D working in terms of percentages. I wouldn't want a tyre that had £4.23 and a couple of rubber bands used in its design. WHY A GOOD TYRE IS A SAFE TYRE I've briefly touched on this on my Mixed Tyres thread, but it's worth mentioning here too. Ignoring any factors about tread design or grooves vs vees, in simple matters a tyre with a good compound will be a tyre that will stop quicker, grip harder and last longer than a poorer rival. Add back in the tread type and you then have a tyre that disperses water well too, so we're left with a tyre that stops and handles in both wet and dry conditions. You know in QuikFit et al where they put those signs on the wall that say how a worn tyre can take twice as long to stop you as a new one? Well they're right, but you can get the same difference between a good tyre and bad tyre. If you have a look through various tyre tests that the press do (EVO magazine is an easy one to find, however I take their results with a pinch of salt given their huge advertorials these days) you'll see the difference between various tyres, and between the top premium ones and the bottom budget ones the stopping distance can be twice as much. Scary when you go pace out an extra 20m of stopping distance and realise how far into the car in front you could end up. Moving away from braking distances, there's also the issue of grip to consider from a safety point of view. Sadly the muppet to decent driver ratio is increasing on the roads, and there are more and more times where you need to avoid someone else being an idiot. In times like that would you really want to find yourself running out grip because you saved a few quid per corner? It's a rhetorical question, but one worth thinking over. BETTER TYRE = MORE FUN Well, it doesn't always as in the right situation a shagged set of cheapo tyres can be far more fun than a set with too much grip (I'm thinking wet airfield on a drifting day), but for the most part none of us bought a Zed because we drive like Miss Daisy. We drive performance cars because we like performance, and part of that comes with the promise of fast speed. A good experiment is to find your favourite wide roundabout and go round it normally, then go round it 5mph faster, and then 5mph faster again (conditions allowing, of course!). Even 5mph makes an incredible change to your perception of what is fast, and if you were offered the chance of an extra 50bhp for £120 I'm pretty sure you'd snatch someone's arm off. Cornering speed is the extra bhp equivalent when it comes to those of us that prefer the twisties to straight line stuff, and as much as it would be fantastic to be able to find a tyre that gives you improved grip at a lower price, I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Sure, you could settle for a set of four budget tyres and still enjoy the Zed, and indeed you would, but you'd also be removing something that makes the car so very special. Referring back to the above section on safety and braking distances, you also have to remember that a tyre that shortens that distance means you can brake later before the corner, and then because you'll have more grip you can then accelerate faster too. I suspect that a good tyre will shave a fair bit off a 0-60 time, if that's what floats your boat. BETTER TYRE = MORE CONTROL This is where it gets very personal and every one will have a different opinion on what makes a tyre 'feel' good. For me, it's one that lets me know exactly what is happening between rubber and road, regardless of whether I'm crawling through town or holding a 15deg slip angle. Normally a tyre with good grip will have good communication as you need one to be able to rely on the other, however some of the most communicative tyres I've ever used haven't actually had that high a grip. The ones that spring to mind are the Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta (on a 350Z) and the Yokohama Advan Neova (on an S1 Elise). The best way I can describe how good these two tyres are at letting you know what is going on underneath is to imagine there's a bloke in the passenger seat beside you, telling you in no uncertain terms whether the road surface is starting to get a little worn, or the camber is changing by half a degree, or if the rear offside tyre is down by 1psi compared to the rest. You may ultimately not end up going as fast as a tyre with more grip, but you'll have so much fun you may not care. If you can get that communication from a tyre then you can really start to explore the limits of the car, and when pushing on that's when you can really get a sense of oneness with your car. WHY CHEAP TYRES ARE A FALSE ECONOMY Of course, it would be churlish of me not to mention the cost of tyres here. To take it to extremes, a set of four Falken 452s would set you back £425.90 but a set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports would be £842.80. Give or take that's twice as much, and that's a lot of money. It's about five tanks of fuel, or a track day at Silverstone GP, or a years RFL, or an extra £1.16 a day if you really want to break it down. That said, I suspect that people who are considering the F452s probably aren't going to be considering the PSS anyway, so it's a slight unfair comparison. How about comparing 452s to VUS? £579.80 for the VUS, or a difference of just £155. That's about 700 miles worth of fuel, or an extra 42p a day. Sorry, but when we're talking about the running costs of a £30K sports car then that's peanuts, it really is. For your extra cash you get a tyre that is much better in both wet and dry grip, and a light year ahead in terms of communication, and it also happens to look pretty good too! Even if you stick to the top end, so comparing RE050A with PSS, £692.80 plays £842.80, or the same £150. Again, we're talking about a tyre that really is very good (I run them on the 911) compared with one that is out of this world. More grip, more feel, and they will last longer too. Suddenly that £150 really doesn't seem a huge amount, not in terms of what you get back if you do spend it. A better quality tyre will usually have a harder compound anyway, so by spending that bit extra you usually will get more miles out of it anyway. Just for a giggle, I priced up the cheapest set of tyres too. AutoGrip F107s, £236.40. Almost half the price of the 452s then, so you're actually better off going super-cheapy if you want to save a few quid. I jest of course, as clearly no-one in their right mind would put those on a performance car as they'll be awful, but if you're trying to justify spending less then why not take a 50% saving over a 36% one? Of course, you'd end up in a ditch after 30m, but hey, at least you've saved the cash, right?! What I'm trying to get across here is that there's more to tyres than just the price versus how quick you can go. There's a lot more to it than that, and without hitting the science I hope I've covered most of it here. I didn't touch on ride comfort or road noise too much as unfortunately these tend not to go hand in hand with performance tyres due to the lower profile, but generally the better the tyre the less the noise. If there's a demand for it I could always do a follow up piece later if people want. I hope that's put my opinion across without sounding too preachy or over-dramatic: At the end of the day, I'm just a car nut like the rest of you and I don't want to be lectured either, but I also don't mind admitting when there's gaps in my knowledge where I can learn more. Next time either myself or anyone says that you're better off buying X tyre over Y tyre despite costing more, have a read through this and decide for yourself after taking all the facts into consideration and you could end up with a car that gives you that little bit wider grin on your face, which the Zed is already top of its class at.