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Well that's not from some bloke trying to make us spend 2 or 3 times as much now is it.
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Whatever the source it is interesting. Went for MOT last week and they were telling me all about it. I think it's a good idea taking some of the chance out of selecting a tyre to suit your needs.
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It makes it clearer to those who are interested for sure, but its not "game changing", wont "change the way dealers operate" or "more difficult to compete on price alone"
50% will still buy on price alone, and 30% will still stick on whatever the dealer tells them at whatever price.
the other 20% are like us will compare on spec and price.
Like its always been.
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One possible benefit... it may pull the rug from under the fitters that advise tyres based on attributes that are pure fiction.
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It's all bovine excrement.
Perhaps 20% of car drivers check pressures regularly.. Underinflated tyres = poor and unstable braking..
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I thought the bit on noise levels would be useful. How often do we hear of people changing for a different tyre brand complaining that the new ones are noisy?
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>> I thought the bit on noise levels would be useful. How often do we hear
>> of people changing for a different tyre brand complaining that the new ones are noisy?
>>
I changed from cheap tyres to Kumhos on my old Mondeo and they were dramatically quieter.
I have recently swopped a pair of worn Pirellis for Kumhos on my X Type and again a big improvement in quietness. I am looking forward to swopping the other pair.
It will be interesting to see what "the figures" state compared with my experience.
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>>It will be interesting to see what "the figures" state compared with my experience.<<
If you want the figures they are all here on the BlackCircles site ( and I think they have been for some time).
www.blackcircles.com/
Interestingly, for the size that I looked at, the Kuhmos were generally noisier than most of the other makes! What it does not tell you is how the noise rating changes with wear.
Can you post the results for the size that you used.
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>>Can you post the results for the size that you used.
>>
I will dig out the details of what I fitted.
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I have had a look at the figures for both tyres and they appear to be the noisiest of the lot.
E tyres do say re Pirelli / Jaguar - as wear increases so does the noise level.
I am very surprised at the results as I consider my 98 Mondeo to be pretty quiet even at NSL.
I am not expecting the Jaguar to be as quiet as the Mondeo even at power off cruising which is a little disappointing.
We have several good roads near me ( including my street) that have been recently resurfaced with the new quiet non tarmac surface.
It is certainly obvious that some non Prius cars are very quiet and others are quite noisy due to the tyres.
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When I had a Discovery in the 90s, the supplied tyres were a Goodyear one. The first replacements were the same tyre type as I thought that must be the best.
However, whilst I don't doubt the grip was good, they collected punctures and stone damage and for such a big tyre, the lifetime was poor. More importantly they followed the lorry ruts in the M25 like nobodies business. The last replacements were Pirelli Scorpions and while they may not have had the same ultimate grip, they quite simply did not rut follow.
I rather doubt the tyre labels would have helped!
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I question the usefulness of these labels.
Look on mytyres at how many renowned ditchfinder brands get great EU tyre label results.
Last edited by: sooty tailpipes on Sat 3 Nov 12 at 17:42
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A guy who works for us and who does mega miles in his own car ( he opted out of a company car and takes a mileage deal ) used to work for one of the big tyre fitting chains. A national company if you get my drift. Anyway, he was a fitter, then a branch manager and eventually a regional manager before he changed careers.
I'll get back to the point in a minute I promise !
Anyway, I noticed the other day that he'd got some new tyres on his Mondeo estate in which he does nigh on 40k miles a year and had bought some tyres of a brand I've never heard of which he proudly stated had cost him something like £95 for two tyres fitted. I'll check what they are next week and report back.
So of course I sucked my teeth and launched into a ditchfinder deriding tirade of abuse.
He, however, smugly announced that the tyres were in fact some obscure sub-brand of one of the leading labels and were nothing more sinister than an older tread pattern no longer offered by the parent brand. Evidently, according to him anyway, there are good cheap tyres and bad ones but you need to know which are which and he claims he does.
Dunno, might be BS. Sounds plausible though.
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>>He, however, smugly announced that the tyres were in fact some obscure sub-brand of one of the leading labels and were nothing more sinister than an older tread pattern no longer offered by the parent brand. Evidently, according to him anyway, there are good cheap tyres and bad ones but you need to know which are which and he claims he does.
>>Dunno, might be BS. Sounds plausible though.
Totally plausible. I used such tyres for many years. Mine were made by Firestone.
I very good friend of mine worked there and he literally took them from the moulds.
Yes they were the previous pattern tread.
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>> I question the usefulness of these labels.
>> Look on mytyres at how many renowned ditchfinder brands get great EU tyre label results.
I've got a couple of them on my KIA (all I could find in 12"). They were bought as a pair and are identical except one's marked M&S and the other ain't.
What's the penalty for tyre mislabelling?
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"What's the penalty for tyre mislabelling?"
There is currently no policing.
If you ask me, the whole thing is a scam lobbied for by big tyre manufacturers, because to get good EU label ratings you need a tyre design which is useless in the snow. Most new designs are of a slick tyre with just 4 wide circumferencial grooves and nothing else. Then they will be able to say how we must all have winter tyres for our own good.
Last edited by: sooty tailpipes on Sat 3 Nov 12 at 22:33
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If you ask me, the whole thing is a scam lobbied for by big tyre manufacturers, because to get good EU label ratings you need a tyre design which is useless in the snow.
That's based on a mistaken assumption that what applies in the UK tyre market applies equally across Europe. In those countries that have severe winters, winter tyres are already the norm, as we've often discussed here, so the incentive to buy winter tyres already exists; here we get a week of snow in most winters and the rest of the time we do fine on standard tyres. This new system won't have the slightest effect on that.
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>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18870978
>>
"Two identical Volvos deliver vastly different levels of performance, all because one of them is fitted with budget tyres while the other has premium rubber"
No two cars are ever identical.
"When comparing the two Volvos as they are allowed to roll freely down a quarter-mile section of the track at Millbrook, Bedfordshire, it turns out that the car with budget tyres comes to a halt first. The quality tyres have a 7.5% lower rolling resistance, so they keep on going for a few more yards."
The test didn't take into account frictional differences between the two cars.
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>>No two cars are ever identical.
>>The test didn't take into account frictional differences between the two cars.
I agree fully.
For some reason, people are more convinced by tests than they are by theory, or by laboratory testing. But, as can be seen here, it's shockingly easy to come up with a test which appears reasonable at first sight, but actually is so deeply flawed to be meaningless.
While people are averse to theory and the use of test rigs, it's far easier to get meaningful results from them.
For that rolling resistance test to be meaningful, it would need a statistically meaningful number of cars fitted at random with either the tyres being tested or the control tyres, then being subjected to the test. The data analysis would then be comparing the statisitical properties of each group of vehicles to check that the result is statistically meaningful.
Motoring journalists and the general public have fallen asleep by now, and so, we don't see much of this more rigourous type of testing outside of peer reviewed journals. As you might imagine, it's ruiniuosly expensive to do full vehicle tests with this level of rigour, and so, the tests are done at component level on test rigs.
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Ah, But!
do " tests are done at component level on test rigs ever replicate the effects in real life.
Almost never is the answer.
But, they are the only only method for comparisons, or comparative tests.
Like the official fuel consumption tests.
But these carry huge scorn by the general public, because they accept them as real world figures, not as a method of model/maker comparison.
The tyre thing will get the same level of public disbelief.
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Remember the Volvo test was just a journos day out and completely unconnected to the testing that produces the official tyre ratings which will at least give a baseline for the public to work from.
I'm not sure the public will pour scorn on the ratings but they may choose to ignore them on reasons of cost or lifetime held bias to (or against) a particular make.
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>>the effects in real life
a meaningless concept really, because every vehicle sees a different usage and loading spectrum to every other vehicle.
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As useful as Euro NCAP and all other tests - likely to weed out the utter guff, but then at the top-end manufacturers will tend to make products to excel at the tests.
The ratings are too simple to be more that a good/ok/rubbish barometer.
It's possible to make a tyre that handles well in the wet but is susceptible to aquaplaning - the ratings don't discriminate for that.
Every car will vary in which tyre works well due to differences in weight/weight distribution/braking ability/suspension geometry/spring rates/ride height/etc etc. Add if varying load distributions within the vehicle and any "real world" tests soon become no more useful than the official tests.
It's a start but I think more information is required on the labels than the rather simplistic noise/rolling resistance/wet grip ones.
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"It's a start but I think more information is required on the labels than the rather simplistic noise/rolling resistance/wet grip ones."
As originally prroposed, it was just rolling resistance energy efficiency ratings, but the industry complained that it was always a trade-off for wet grip, as anyone could make a low rolling resistance tyre, but it was difficult to make one that was good in the wet. So they introduced wet-grip to the label as a balance.
They may not add more parameters, as it is an energy efficiency label at the end of the day, not a performance label.
Last edited by: sooty tailpipes on Sun 4 Nov 12 at 18:38
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A "good/ok/rubbish barometer" is still more than we have to go on at present!
Its the same with energy ratings on appliances, or MPG - the test conditions can't replicate my actual usage completely, but at least they give me a common basis to compare on.
Buying a tyre, most people want to know 1) is it cheap, 2) is it safe, and a distant 3rd, does it give a comfy ride. At present, all they have to go on is "its E rated, so it must be OK". And a mix of guesswork and advertising.
Looking at the NTSB's lengthy list of tyre attributes (the link was posted here a while back), it struck me how little difference there was in the ratings between the best known brands and many we'd consider 'mid-range' or even 'ditchfinder'. Some food for thought - or testing ;-) - there!
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This label is part of the Eco Design Directive requirements. What is interesting will be the next step when authorities ban lesser performing products. Its already been done with domestic appliances and light bulbs. So what they want to do is take any choice away from consumers and have products which are "good" for their environmental performance.
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except the fakes, of course, wont be good for anything
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Interesting stuff on Tyre labeling - Zero
