Car Tyres - need some advice

[alittlebitfrench]

My beloved Saab 900 'classic' is now ready to rock and roll (fixed all the issues) and it will become my every day car.

Now, the last problem I have got is that the tyres are over 7-8 years old but the tread is good. But the last couple of years the car has stood idle. A Saab is heavy !!

Given I will taking the kids about in it all over France I think it might be good idea to just change the tyres for the sake of safety. Or that is what I have read.

Is this a good idea, or do you think the existing tyres will be OK. If I change them do you think Uniroyal 'rain expert' tyres are a good choice ?

I drive in a very sporty manner....you know all French like.

Hope someone can give me some good advice.

Many thanks in advance.

[woolybanana]

No question, change them.

I now have all weather tyres on the front which do hold the road well, Uniroyal, I think. They may not last quite as long but the trade off is worth it, particularly in this area.

Try Vrederstein (sp?), Dutch but can be got easily enough in France.

Remember that many modern tyres are designed for lighter cars so will perform differently on a heavier one.

[Chancer]

A challenge for you Wooly, find me any modern car that is lighter than its predecessor!

 

Original Mini = 587kg

 

Modern Mini range from 1145kg to 1735kg

 

Original Fiat 500  = 499kg

 

Modern Fiat 500 range from 1245kg to 1495kg

[woolybanana]

Well, Chance, I assumed otherwise, given all the plastics etc that are now used.

True, the Mini was light; as school kids we once turned one sideways in a garage at Kelly College. I suppose they got it out eventually.

[dave21478]

They would probably be ok, but for the sake of a few hundred sheckels I would change them. tyres tend to harden through exposure to UV. Manufacturers recommend replacement every 5 to 7 years (they would, wouldnt they?) but in this case its never a bad idea.

I rate the Uniroyal rainsports highly and have them on most of my fleet. Wet grip is stunning...You dont have to be giving it the full Formula 1 to appreciate it, just the way they handle puddles and standing water is noticeably better than pretty much anything else I have tried.

The downside is they are very soft, so dont last as long as others, and are sensitive to bad alignment, wearing out easily on the edges etc.

I also find they pick up a lot of gravel and fling it round the wheel arches.

My second choice are Falken Ziex...they grip almost as well in the wet and seem to last a little longer. Apparently being replaced with Falken Azenis, but I have not yet tried those.

[dave21478]

Oh, and my usual shout out to

www.quelpneu.com

for comparison of the online suppliers.

[Chancer]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Well, Chance, I assumed otherwise, given all the plastics etc that are now used. True, the Mini was light; as school kids we once turned one sideways in a garage at Kelly College. I suppose they got it out eventually.[/quote]

 

Its true that when you pick up a plastic piece from a modern vehicle it will be flimsy, light and very cheap compared to a probably metallic part from an old vehicle but there are so many more of them, there are miles of copper wiring, hundreds of motors to do things that humans no longer do, much more metal in the bodies even though most of it is thinner, massive wheels tyres and brakes to cope with all the weight and the vehicles are much much bigger, a family of 4 will turn up here with a huge people carrier often a minibus and towing what I thought was a trailer tent but it turns out they are on their way to or back from a gîte rental, the trailer is necessary for all the toys that the tiny kids (they aint teenagers) demand and there will be a bike rack and roof box as well.

 

My parents with 3 kids travelled on holiday in a tiny Morris 8 tourer with me hanging out the back in the dicky seat surrounded by the tent, camping gear and luggage.

[Harnser]

The basic rules are:-

Tyre age - an absolute maximum is ten years from date of manufacture.

From five years, inspect closely and reject/renew if any sign of cracking in the sidewalls is evident.

Tyre performance and grip will degrade as the tyres get older due to the tread rubber compound hardening, so wet grip and stopping distances will slowly get worse as the tyre ages.

NB - Tyres age from ozone in the atmosphere as well as from sunight and UV.

[alittlebitfrench]

Thanks all.

I will change the tyres. In fact the car has stood idle in our 'cour' that gets very hot in the summer so I guess the tyres will have degraded over time with UV and heat. I am so glad I asked the question.I did not realise that it was UV that degraded tyres.

The back tyres are Uniroyal rainsports and am very very impressed with the way the handle....which is why I asked the question. I will get four of the same.

Again, thanks all.

[BritinBretagne]

It's very hard to find a bad modern tyre and with a car like your Saab there's no point in paying more for softer, stickier tyres that will wear out more quickly and provide virtually no added advantage in everyday use. If you want to be really French, Michelin is the only way to go.

Do you really think that the average French person drives in a sporty manner? I've missed seeing that side of their character.

[Gardengirl]

Definitely change your tyres.

PS We used to have Saabs, love them.

[alittlebitfrench]

B&B said "Do you really think that the average French person drives in a sporty manner?"

ummmm.....yes.

You said that you have 'missed that side of their character' ???? You obviously don't drive a lot in France.

Driving sporty in an erratically and dangerously fashion is a French pastime. I am happy to join in....apart from the erratically and dangerous bit.

[dave21478]

"It's very hard to find a bad modern tyre"

Yeah, no. Its very easy to find absolutely fcking terrible modern tyres.

Linglong, Goodride, Landsail, Jinyu, Meteor, Windforce, Rotalia, fate-o and a hundred others.....All utter sh1te churned out of China by the containerload, made from asbestos, recycled dildos and anything else rubbery they can melt and pour into the moulds.

When I bought a C2 it had a selection of cheap toss on it that was literally deadly in the wet. All recently manufactured and all with 4mm or more of tread but I assumed someting tragically wrong with the cars suspension as it would not corner in damp conditions without crazy understeer then sudden, uncontrollable snap oversteer, and thats not pushing it hard, I couldnt follow average Meganes and the like trundling around round roundabouts or on twisty roads without sliding towards the ditch.

4 good tyres transformed it.

[BritinBretagne]

Oh, I'd never confuse bad driving and sporty driving.

[Chancer]

Driving sporty in an erratically and dangerously fashion is a French pastime. 

 

Remove the word sporty and insert suicidally and I agree with you.

 

Erratically and sporty are mutually incompatible.

 

I drove on a French racetrack a couple of times in the last year after a 13 year break, the public test days really shocked me, driving is not just worse but a hell of a lot worse yet the vehicles the hoons have are like space ships compared to what they were driving a decade ago. Some really really quick modified vehicles that should have lapped really quickly if they werent driven erratically and dangerously.

 

Not one person had the slightest clue about lines and hence were extremely dangerous to themselves, their passengers and the other vehicles on the circuit, idiots coming up all day looking to borrow crash helmets, tools, fuel, oïl, footpump, tyre guage, pretty much everything that even a half wit would have taken with them, all dressed in flip-flops, sweat shirts and jogging bottoms, all highly inflammable of course.

 

The only exception was a couple of racers from Belgium, it was never like that before in the 90's and noughties at Croix en Ternois, there were some real capable pedallers then.

 

Dave, the common denominator of all those dodgy tyres, and I have had a few of em, is the crazy names they dream up for them, plus the UK tyre fitters pushing them always with the same line "all the taxi drivers use them!" [:D]

[idun]

I stick to the speed limits in England.  I often wonder what the xxxxxx's who race pass me are thinking......... perhaps the old dear can't manage to go any faster???[:-))]

And then I get to part of the road where I can go faster, legally, 60mph or 70 and I do, and race past them, because I love driving fast.

As I say to any passenger, I will drive, in a certain way when they are in the car to give the smoothest ride possible, but on my own, I can drive like a mad french person. Which isn't quite true, as I don't tailgate, or overtake on blind bends.... but for me, that recklessness, isn't just 'mad' it is literally insane!

And sporty, no, never looked upon it as that, ever.

[BritinBretagne]

Drive fast and smoothly on the public road and you will probably get from A-B faster than the idiots who are all accelerate, brake and steer around the corners. Chancer is spot on in his assessment.

[Gardengirl]

<< Drive fast and smoothly on the public road and you will probably get from A-B faster than the idiots who are all accelerate, brake and steer around the corners. >>

I totally agree. Not only that, but you’ll save money too.

[alittlebitfrench]

You won't get very far in Paris if you drove all conservative like.

Chancer is not correct, as he clearly has not left Paris on a Friday night heading West to Nantes or Tours or wherever. Or Lyon on a Friday night to go to the Alpes. Then back again on Sunday evening.

That is sporty. You either join in or die. The safest lane is the fast lane....and that could be any one of them depending on how the traffic is flowing.

When you get to your destination you are very pale with very stiff and very white finger knuckles.

[dave21478]

Driving really bugs me here.

A lot of the time I am behind the wheel of a lumbering old 4x4 with off-road tyres. Speed and handling? no, not really. Yet I still find myself being held up by French drivers on the open road.

Its not hard...get your braking and gear changing done BEFORE the corner... turn in, aim for a slightly late apex...as the sight lines open up, get on the gas and power out of the corner...slow in, fast out - its smooth, fast, safe and easy.

What do I see every single day? People plow in way too fast, start to turn in and realise they have too much speed, dab the brakes, turn in too early, drift wide over the line, dab the brakes again, have another hack at some imaginary second apex and they have wobbled round "succesfully" although they are often only on the road thanks to the silent intervention of active yaw control and ESP and all the other modern voodoo their leased uberwagens are laden with.

Faced with the straight they then hit the gas, except they are still in top gear and their turbo diesels do nothing off-boost so they go nowhere, I see the exhaust tip vibrate as the engine labours in too high a gear then the puff of smoke as they drop down to third and boot it, rocketing down the straight leaving me behind with no hope of passing them.

Until the next corner where I catch them again. Rinse and repeat at every single corner for 20 miles every single day.

[BritinBretagne]

Really ALBF? I don't believe you. Join in with the thoughtless driving if you like but there are better and quicker options. Driving smoothly and conservatively are two completely different things.

PS There is a lot more to France than Paris.

[alittlebitfrench]

You don't believe what ?

Going to Nantes from Paris (or Orleans and beyond) on a Friday night and back again on Sunday is bedlam and can be very frightening to fair. Not for babies. If there is a bank holiday on the Monday....it is even worse. people will cut across/weave in and out using all three lanes at 170 kph + to find their quickest route.

Now, if you want a road outside of Paris what about the 'RCEA' or 'route des morts' as it is called. Any idea why it is called 'route des morts' ?

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/rcea-route-de-la-mort-ou-route-de-la-honte-1492439578

Conservative driving won't save you from the psychopaths. It is the psychopaths that cause the accidents and not usually the ones that die in them.

I have many run ins on that road over the years. Flipin mad road. Avoid !!!

[idun]

A lesson I learned as soon as I got to France when I lived in a city, 'join in', because otherwise you would end up in the wrong lane going in the wrong direction.

Timid young me at the time was very upset initially, then I realised that it was 'fun' and did it.......... until I had a baby in the car, and then I still had to join in, on the white knuckle ride to get home!!!!

I can drive how I want. But I adapt to circumstances.

Just a thought, my old city is so congested with traffic these days that driving is not what it was, very slow with lots of very unhappy drivers. And even in the city my son lives in, people do actually tend to stick to the speed limits, and are horrible and unforgiving with buses trying to get away from bus stops and on roundabouts will not leave a gap so that cars can get through, even if 'they' cannot get off at the exit they want.

[Chancer]

I have driven around Paris during the rush hour and I was actually very impressed with the cut and thrust, it was dog eat dog but a huge volume of traffic made very rapid progress on a very congested road, were that to happen here there would be gridlock for weeks, the drivers would  self destruct within a couple of minutes. That said I came to France to get away from all that but when I do drive through/around Paris outside of peak times it is very encouraging to see that real life, that is life as I used to know it, still goes on and that people are out and about after 19.00 or on a Sunday morning.

 

Dave, the driving you described was exactly what was going on on the circuit, I was driving a stock MX5 and was leaving everyone for dead in cars that should have been lapping me every 7 laps, instead I was lapping many of them, and then there are the goons that try drifting, WTF its a race track, you are supposed to try and lap as fast as you can not as slow as you can, most of em were in FWD turbonutterbar5tardmobiles so were just leaning over like a 3 legged stool scrubbing away the outside front tyre, some were so underinflated that they came off the rim, those in Bee-emms with enough power and an LSD to actually drift were really dangerous, instead of making the vehicle do what they wanted they were usually spearing off sideways when they panicked and let off the gas with the front wheels sideways and the rear tyres gripped, they took out several other hoons in doing so, a sort of natural selection.

 

It was however a unique occasion in that it was the first time I have ever witnessed a briefing or speech where people were silent and listening (or so I thought) instead of talking noisily amongst themselves however their conduct on the piste showed that nothing had sunk in, they were even instructed on the correct lines and cones put out for turn in and apex points, every one that got stuck in the gravel trap had not fitted their screw in towing eye as requested with lots of insistence and most of them did not even know where to find it or which bit of plastic bumper to remove to fit it.

[Chancer]

So I suppose yes, the driving around Paris at rush hour would be described as sporty compared to the usual mix of lunacy and incompetence, a close proximity, speed and mutual awareness that I have only experienced on the racetrack.