The age old debate, premium tyres vs non-premium. Which tyres do you use?

[Shez1878]

Had 4 x Pirelli's on my 'new' Porsche Cayenne, the front two needed replacing so I decided to change all 4. On previous cars, BMW X5, Range Rover I opted for Nexen's and they were great tyres. Unfortunately they don't make 295's so after a fair bit of research I opted for Accelra's purely because I feel spending £1000 on new tyres every year is a tad too expensive.

There was drama during fitting and after my initial visit to the tyre fitter I genuinely thought Acclera were the worst tyres I had ever experienced. The drive was firm, noisy and the steering wheel started vibrating at any speed above 50 MPH. By complete coincidence I saw an episode of Wheeler Dealer and on there they talked about the red dot that appear on brand new tyres. They explained that this was the tyre's 'heavy point' and if not aligned perfectly with the intake valve the tyre would never truly be 100% balanced.

After much debate with the fitter's, they agreed to align all 4 Acclera's (red dot) to the air intake value.....low and behold ALL the issues went away. The tyres are now smooth, quieter than before and the drive feels incredible.

So not only have I learnt something new, but I saved myself £400 and now have a car that drives better than it did on the more expensive Pirelli's.

What tyres do you guys use?

 

[JHMotorsport]

Had 4 x Pirelli's on my 'new' Porsche Cayenne, the front two needed replacing so I decided to change all 4. On previous cars, BMW X5, Range Rover I opted for Nexen's and they were great tyres. Unfortunately they don't make 295's so after a fair bit of research I opted for Accelra's purely because I feel spending £1000 on new tyres every year is a tad too expensive.

There was drama during fitting and after my initial visit to the tyre fitter I genuinely thought Acclera were the worst tyres I had ever experienced. The drive was firm, noisy and the steering wheel started vibrating at any speed above 50 MPH. By complete coincidence I saw an episode of Wheeler Dealer and on there they talked about the red dot that appear on brand new tyres. They explained that this was the tyre's 'heavy point' and if not aligned perfectly with the intake valve the tyre would never truly be 100% balanced.

After much debate with the fitter's, they agreed to align all 4 Acclera's (red dot) to the air intake value.....low and behold ALL the issues went away. The tyres are now smooth, quieter than before and the drive feels incredible.

So not only have I learnt something new, but I saved myself £400 and now have a car that drives better than it did on the more expensive Pirelli's.

What tyres do you guys use?

Yes this is an interesting one as I personally think there are very few opinions that have been gathered in a proper balanced (no pun) back to back test comparison.
Most people have to buy new tyres because theirs are old and at least partly worn, so are basing their experiences of new tyres on their older ones. How they would recall how their old ones performed a few years ago is beyond my level!
Dont get me wrong, I can feel the difference between a brand new set of race slicks and a set that have gone through a few heat cycles, but unless you have the cash to do back to back testing, I feel these new tyre views are often pretty flawed.
On the other hand, I do trust a resource like TyreReviews and their YouTube channel as they put so much time and effort into multiple runs averaged out to achieve as fair a comparison as possible. Anyways, worth checking them out.
Four wheel drive often makes it even more challenging as the grip on one of our average roads is more than good enough when pulling away and unless you get on a closed bit of road, you cannot safely get to the true limit of corner grip. Big topic really.

Joining the dots…
It sounds like your tyre fitters didn’t know their industry standards very well!

The red dot is the standard for showing the high point on the tyre, in terms of ‘uniformity’. Red dot is in theory supposed to be aligned with the low point on the rim (if present on rim it should be market with a dot or indentation).

To make it potentially more confusing…
a yellow dot (or sometimes circle) is sometimes also present on the tyre which is the ‘lightest point’. So if only the yellow dot is present, then it should be aligned with the heavy point on the rim when fitting (likely the valve).

Then there are often both red and yellow dots…. In which case the red is supposed take precedence and you ignore the yellow, to align red with the valve, just like you mentioned.

 

[Andystocker]

I've got a 2007 s and just fitted Uniroyal Rainsport 5s - really happy with them. Car definitely feels more poised and less noisy on certain road surfaces. They are significantly cheaper than any porsche rated tyre - I would highly recommend them if you want to save a couple of hundred quid.

 

[gtipirelli]

Personally as the tyres are the only contact patch between car and road, I try and fit the best possible tyres and in the case of Porsche, I fit the ones recommended by them. In recent times it has been Pirelli P Zeros N1s

 

[SwimAce]

Personally as the tyres are the only contact patch between car and road, I try and fit the best possible tyres and in the case of Porsche, I fit the ones recommended by them. In recent times it has been Pirelli P Zeros N1s