E30 Zone

I normally use Mark Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres on the trusty 318iS.

Last week I went round a T junction and it was "wahey that's more sideways than I expected, slippery road maybe". Ten minutes later and the same thing happened on a roundabout and I thought "that's not right". At work I had a look at the tyres and found a flat on the back.

After pumping the flat up with a bike track pump I called in at the local tyre place. They took the wheel off and the tyre was knackered from where I'd driven on the flat. Both rear tyres were worn anyway, so I wasn't too sad. The only tyres they had in were "Regal Sport 400's". "What are they like" I asked. "Oh they're fine, they're made by Dunlop" said the tyre chappy. With no choice, I paid £105 for two of these to be fitted. Compare this with the £97 I pay via Blackcircles.com for F1s.

I had my suspicions, and as soon as I was on the road, they were confirmed. These tyres are shockingly bad. The car would not go in a straight line! On the motorway it would wobble one way and then the other over a 4s time period. On B roads it felt like the wheels were about to fall off. Corners were quite interesting too - I could feel the tyre load up and fold over and then when I straightened out it would keep on wobbling the rear end out.

After a week the tyres improved themselves as they were worn in. However, in the wet they inspire no confidence whatsoever. They are borderline dangerous IMO. In the dry they have a certain entertainment value since the car will go quite sideways on moderate corners at moderate speeds.

Moral of the story: avoid Regal tyres at all costs.

yup definatly!! i do put budgets on the back of my tech 1 for a reason lol though......

but never less than W rated on the front at the minute im using Yokoham C drive W rated tyres Cost £80 each lol



ive had similar problems to them ones youve had but another moral!! never ever ever trust a tyre centre i used to go out with a girl whos brother owned one and from that day i never trusted the foookers ever!! they make serious dough out of selling shit tyres to ppl like us m8.

in future get wat you knows the best..

im in a similar catch! 4 brand new tyres (not put on by me) yet it feels like im driving on vaseline! cant go round any corner at anything above 20 if theres the slight modicum of moisture as it goes all brady bunch on me!,

now do i outlay serious money on 4 news, or a few quid on a smaller steering wheel to catch that babys ass when it wants to go all kamikaze?

its always good to have good tyres mike!! for a normal bmw driver id recomend 4 x michelin pilots! most expensive tyre probs but always win hands down in my eyes. but its down to wat u want from the car at the end of the day.


mike you got msn m8?

yeah bud! sending pm

I had cheapo £28 quid regals all round and used them on track days! They have good and bad points...bad points being that the power of my brakes far outweighed the grip of the tyres (Also meant I didn't really get brake fade though!) and that they reacted strangely to high temperatures...sometimes got better, sometimes got worse! Plus side is that they are so hard they last for AGES.

H35-IAN wrote:its always good to have good tyres mike!! for a normal bmw driver id recomend 4 x michelin pilots! most expensive tyre probs but always win hands down in my eyes. but its down to wat u want from the car at the end of the day.


mike you got msn m8?

Wooooaaaa, Michelin Pilots!?
Had 'em on my Seat Leon (run around) and were sh*t. Came as standard on my wife's Volvo (she still has two on the car) and they were/are sh*t. Poor feedback, little feel and 'drift' in the wet. Maybe OK if you like things a bit loose but not for me. Also they wore down on the outside really bad, I couldn't believe the tyre wear considering the cars they were on. Wife now running Kumho KH11's (almost exactly the same tread pattern, out of interest) on the front and they are soooo much better, wet & dry, better feel & better grip and all for 60% of the price of the Michelins (Michilen £103/tyre, Kumho £63/tyre ).

I'm running Toyo Proxes T1-S and they are superb, wet & dry, road & track ab fab! I doubt I'll change these except to put on T1-R's when they're done!

In the end it's all about what you want though, and one tyre/brand may suit other folks driving style better...

well im hard on corners. very hard and dont know the meaning of slow! i dont mind getting out of shape on the twisties, so longs theres something left of the tyre to bring it back

I'm a long time advocate of Eagle F1s.

Plus side is that they are so hard they last for AGES.

Bugger, I was hoping to scrub them down as quickly as possible. Is there any Ebay value in crap tyres with little wear?

I've found Blackcircles.com to be cheapest. I phoned the local Protyre and they wanted £107 all in to fit 2 x F1s, whereas Blackcircles were £97. Protyre wouldn't price match. When I received the order confirmation, the fitting centre was.......Protyre.

thats a fantastic price for goodyear eagle f1's! what size are they? my wheels on my iS are 16" x 7.5" so im running 205/45 R16's front and rear. i got Eagle F1s on the front and Kingstar K106's on the rear. the kingstars are nade by Hankook, and i cant fault them in anyway at all!!! i payed £90 for two, but i got a discount through my workplace

195/50/15s very good size for handling and price.
Go and look on www.blackcircles.com

is the price for one tyre or two?

Been using Avon ZV3's myself, great all rounder tyre, good wet weather performance while giving plenty of feedback as well as massive grip in the dry. 205/50/R16s usually set me back £47 a corner

Tyres. I know nuffink about tyres. (a bit like Phil "the Cat" Tufnell and his loans in a ongoing advert on telly).

So to help out a newbie, what do you guys make of 205/50 ZR16 Pirelli P 700-Z in the front and 225/45 ZR 16 Pirelli P 700-Z at the back with min. 4mm profile ? Will that hug the road better than a size 8 tanktop on Keeley's rather yummy topframe, or will it be looser than Annabel Chong after her world record gang-bang?

Kuhmo KU31's are the bollox the only tyre to come close to the old bridgestone S02's
The only problem that they both share is they dont last 5 mins i done 4 sets of rears
to 1 set of fronts
(but i do drive like a twat most of the time)

tyres tyres tyres this comes up so often

the ones you mention are probably crap. i would never go near a tyre if i kow nothing about it unless its dirt cheap and i have them fitted to a run about

if you like what you find then thats a reason to put them on to a car you will drive hard

not all budjet tyres are crap, the likes of toyo, falken, yoko's ( japanese trend here ) were all seen as budjet tyres a few years back, however a lot of jap performance cars had them fitted and in time has been tried and tested and are now popular and prices keep creeping up

i cant fault my falkens at all, i have always used them and for the money ( cheap compared to the likes of goodyear an michelin) they seem like a bargin

i cant comment on wet weather grip as i do drive carefully in the rain and dont think about pushing my car too hard, but they grip much better than P6000's that were on the car previously.

kuhmos is another example, low cost tyre, they sponsor a few events and run them as a control tyre and way hey the are now popular

end of the day, stick to a brand you know off and feel confident driving with, the best way to do this and cost effective way is to get GOOD part worns, ( i did untill i found a tyre i was happy with )

also, tyre choise differs depending on the size you want (ie a tyre for 15"bbs to 17" alpina replicas) and the type of driving, suspension set up and the car you drive

every tyre differs in its handling characteistics, every driver is different and suspsension set ups differ so what one peron will recomend may be no good for you !!

To some it up, I agree with what Kos said!

I like Barum's because there cheap'ish and German........Which suits my German car!

Plus what is a budget tyre, I can get £100 tyres for like £50

I have used Yokohama's on a number of cars and rate them very highly got some A309's on my little fiesta whizz about now, it would keep up with most things on the twisty bits in complete confidence.

I like falken 512's, seam very grippy for the price.... The worst tyres i have had for wet driving were avon ZV1, good in the dry but you may aswell have been spraying diesel infront of them in the wet.


The best i have ever driven on though are pirelli P5000 drago's..... once i decide what size wheel to go for on the E30 i will be trying to track a set of these down in a suitable size

stuartgallafant wrote:is the price for one tyre or two?

2 tyres fitted, all inclusive, £97.

Re the original post, I ended up with this tosh because I had a puncture and one totally knackered tyre.

thats quite good for two tyres!

Well, the Regals are still there! They are wearing at about half the rate of F1s. I'm either used to them or they've improved a lot because I've tweaking the back end out like I used on F1s. I'm a bit careful though since I don't ultimately trust them like F1s.

I've not been on here for a while, but I've been keeping the E30 flame alive. Such good cars if you like driving. Mine's a bit of a wreck, on suspension I've pushed hard for 2 years now and it still satisfies in a way no new fwd hatch ever would.

Glad to hear your still enjoying it Tom!!