CumbrianFoz

I tried the PS4's last year and in spite of what other folk say about them I'm afraid to say I was rather underwhelmed. Sure they had great grip wet and dry, but steering feedback was not at all reassuring and they seemed quite fragile - lost both fronts to potholes/kerb within 3 months. OK, my driving style is "sporting" and people of a gentler disposition might find them better, but since they're called Pilot SPORT 4's I expected them to live up to that. This year I went back to Nokian Z-lines and can't stop grinning when I drive

I have similarly varying steering on my Forester, though the problem is t'other way round - when it's heavy there is great steering feedback and you can push the limits knowing exactly what you're doing, safely. When it goes light it's too light and it's difficult to tell which way the front wheels are pointing and easy to over-compensate.

Well, I actually like green cars - though preferably a slightly darker hue than that. And if you're doing styling that bold they should have done the wheels in gold Anyway I hope they do well with it, it's a bold step for a small outfit, it would be great if they get to Le Mans.

These tyres seem to be getting reasonable reviews recently, and the price is nice for performance rubber - anyone here tried them?

Stupid too, they should sell them abroad to generate income to fund their infrastructure plans. Destroying them is just a wasteful gimmick.

Could give you a sore wrist

One thing I forgot to mention was the temperature response: these are "proper" winter tyres not "allweather" and at their best below about 8...10 deg C. Not a problem up here for most of the winter months (and I have them on a spare set of rims anyway) but I wouldn't want to suggest they'd be the best all year round.

As promised in my previous thread, my findings/opinions on these winter boots. I went for them on a hunch/rumours that they would have a better dry/wet performance than some other winter tyres, and was willing to sacrifice a bit of snow and ice capability for that as on average winters here are 60% wet 30% dry and 10% cold. Sorry it's been a long time coming, but I wanted to try them in a full range of winter road conditions before commenting, and reasonably deep soft fresh snow wasn't available until this morning. My car is a Subaru Forester Sti, tyres are 245/50 R17 (to get the same tread width as the summer rubber - but that's another story) Tested on various mountain roads around the Lake District and a few long trips "down country" 1) Dry road performance. Best I've had out of a winter tyre, braking is good, they hold a line well at speed, the steering response is positive - obviously not as good as a high performance summer tyre but you've got isolated tread blocks and a gazillion sipes rather than solid rings of hard rubber, so it's not going to be. Sidewalls are firm enough to stop the "falling into corners" feeling, they inspire confidence; and they can handle the power of the car easily, my previous Nokians squirmed worryingly when you went for it when overtaking. 2) Wet performance. general wet grip is good for a winter and there's very little aquaplaning until you're in deep (>8mm) standing water. They're a lot better in this area than previous winters I've run which felt downright dodgy in the wet. 3) Noise. Suprisingly quieter than the summers (Yokohama) I had on before, none of the high frequency thrash, and very little of the tread noise you often get with winters. 4) Snow/ice performance a) Black ice. Grip is pretty darn good, no problems getting up frozen hills, and you can even brake (albeit gently!!) downhill ice Fresh snow - no problems here, went up a 1 in 6 hill today with no wheel spin/wriggling whatsoever c) Frozen snow - superb, almost felt like driving on a normal road! d) Slush - this was on a lane that had recently been cleared by the snowplough leaving about 1" of compacted slush - evil stuff: this was probably the area they did worst at, you could feel the steering go light, but didn't have any problems getting through. All in all I'm impressed, they're as good as anything I've run before (Vredestein, Viking, Nokian) in most respects, and far better in some. Given the reasonable price and that they're made in the UK, I can't help but recommend them.

"Ex" as in previous, past it "spurt" as in a drip under pressure????

I wish war was over: however with people like Vlad Putin, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in power, I'm not that optimistic.

Good point- only more likely a tower block!. With land prices at >20million yen per square metre in some areas of Tokyo, you can see why. On a similar note, an old colleague of mine used to store his car in one of the "stack" parking places in Manhattan. Same kind of mechanism as in the video, only just parking, no residential space.

They do love their tecchy toys over there - bit of a bummer if the lift gets stuck though

I'll give a proper report once I've had a chance to test them in anger on snow/ice: looking at the long range forecasts that might not be too far away, at least on the mountain passes up here. Well my Forester definitely is - a real seat of the pants car (though still practical), that's what I like about it. Alternatively, you might have got better Nokians than my last lot - I did hear some crack about them outsourcing some production to Russia with bad results. Certainly the first set (WR G2's) I got nigh on 10 years ago were awesome, great feel, you wouldn't believe they were winter tyres until you started zooming past other folk in the snow. Since then there seems to have been a gradual decline in the dry/wet performance + feel, though they've always been good on snow/ice.

I presume that was meant to be grip not drip TBH, I couldn't say the Michelins were any grippier than the Nokians, both were very good - TBH you'd need to take the car to a track day (or drive extremely irresponsibly) to find that out, performance tyres are that good these days the public road is not a place to explore the limits IMHO.

As a parting comment, I didn't seem to get the legendary wear that Michelin boast about so much - very much the same mileage as I got from the Nokian z-lines last year.

Fidget spinner crossed with alloy maybe?

Saw a Roller last year that had wheel centre caps that stayed upright as the wheel went round - I guess so that if you hadn't worked out what it was from from the 18 1/2 odd feet of car and the silver lady, you had another chance. Did look cool though

Swapped the wheels over on Saturday as we had a couple of cold nights coming - and more to the point the summer rears were on the verge of being a bit naughty Went for some Avon WV7's this year on a hunch and the people at Avon being so helpful and ind informative; I'll report back in a week or so once I've put enough miles on them to get an accurate opinion. First impressions are that they're an improvement over the Nokian WRA3's I had last year in the dry and the wet, the rather stiffer sidewalls give a much more positive response, you don't feel like you're falling into corners.

Don't I remember Citroen doing something similar on one of the Xantia models back in the day?

Aaah, but at least he will be protected from broken glass if the window breaks - got to remember your health and safety after all

It would do. Some of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record involve fertiliser.

Great characters daschunds: small dog, big attitude. That has to be one very friendly lion though.

I was in China at that time, rumour was it was a large amount of rather incompatible chemicals including ammonium nitrate (often used as fertilizer as well as commercial explosives) being stupidy stored together. I work with stuff that goes bang quite a bit, and believe me a 40ft container of ammonium nitrate that had been "cooked" would be serious when it went up, never mind it rupturing all the surrounding containers of other stuff.

Clever idea if a tad complicated for my liking. I'd be quite happy with a switchable setup, stiff for (good) road use, and softer for the mountain passes and driving across fields. BTW, my friend who races in the BMW compact series actually uncouples the rear ARB when it's wet - best way to keep traction apparently!

You might just have missed them, something seemed to happen end of August.... I meant to get mine last week, but so preoccupied with family grimness I didn't get round to it. Checked prices at my local place again on Monday and they'd gone up by £20 a corner Luckily Blackcircles hadn't changed their prices yet and found an odd one on the Bay of fleas at a good price, so only lost out to the tune of £30.