4X MICHELIN tyres!! :)

Xantia2.0 · Unread post by **Xantia2.0** » 14 Aug 2010, 14:26

Got the 4 new tyres fitted yesterday - MICHELIN ENERGY SAVERS

The car feels SO sharp now! No wheel spin on full acceleration from stand still and grips the road like GLUE round corners!! Plus I sold the 4 old tyres for £50! So after getting that money back I only spent £120 on the tyres! (Cost me £170 for the new tyres + fitting to the alloys).

I've also bought a £15 Falken tyre with 2.2mm treds on it to replace the bald GoodYear spare tyre it has just now. I know I said I wasn't going to, but £15 is SO cheap for a 3 year old Falken that cost over £70 new!

Sid_the_Squid · Unread post by **Sid_the_Squid** » 14 Aug 2010, 15:11

4 MICHELIN for £170

Where did you find that so cheaply?? Cheapest I've seen a MICHELIN for is £75 a tyre fully fitted.

Diabolical · Unread post by **Diabolical** » 14 Aug 2010, 15:35

That is cheap I was quoted £80 each and told a BARGAIN!

My CX GTi T2 has TRX's £250 each, came with new ones on, so I keep mileage down and no wheelspins from me.

Citroenmad · Unread post by **Citroenmad** » 14 Aug 2010, 15:39

What size tyres does your Xantia have?

£170 for 4 new Michelins is extremely cheap, where did you get those?

I got a pair of Michelin Energy Savers for the front of the Xm a month or so ago. 195/65/15 for £120 i think it was.

Xantia2.0 · Unread post by **Xantia2.0** » 14 Aug 2010, 17:58

Got them from my local garage. They are really cheap! Plus I'm a "stand-in" mechanic there! So I got a 10% discount!

Anyhoo! Got to go to Aberdeen to get my UBER cheap Falken tyre!! 60 mile journey there, and 60 mile back. So it'll cost me about £15 in petrol! But still, £30 is nothing for a Falken Sport tyre!

I will have to take the Citroén, as the Focus is in the garage for a coolant flush.

Citroenmad · Unread post by **Citroenmad** » 14 Aug 2010, 18:46

Well thats a very good deal.

Though i can't understand driving 120 miles to get a tyre, £30 for the tyre and £15 in fuel, you might as well have got another new Michelin! Falkens are nothing special.

Xantia2.0 · Unread post by **Xantia2.0** » 14 Aug 2010, 19:56

It's £15 for the tyre! £30 including fuel. I want a run anyway, I've been in the house for days, only been out to get shopping. A nice run will do both me and the Xant good. Now I really do have to go! The seller phoned and delayed it, but I'm going to collect the tyre now, as he's home!

Kowalski · Unread post by **Kowalski** » 14 Aug 2010, 21:58

Xantia2.0 wrote:It's £15 for the tyre! £30 including fuel. I want a run anyway, I've been in the house for days, only been out to get shopping. A nice run will do both me and the Xant good. Now I really do have to go! The seller phoned and delayed it, but I'm going to collect the tyre now, as he's home!

I looked into buying part worn tyres and they looked cheap. In trying to decide whether they were actually worthwhile, I compared their second hand price to their new price versus the amount of life left in them compared to life in a new tyre. In the end I decided that it wasn't worth buying part worn tyres at the prices I could get them at, they didn't make sense economically and there was a risk of buying a tyre that had been damaged in use but showed no obvious sign until you got it onto your car.

New tyres come with 7mm or so of tread, they're legal as long as they've got 1.6mm of tread, that means you get 5.4mm of usable tread on a tyre.

The tyre you're buying has 2.2mm of tread on it, that means 0.6mm of usable tread.

0.6mm is about 11% of 5.4mm.

Lets say for arguments sake that the Falken tyre costs £70 when new, you're paying £15 which is roughly 21% of its original cost.

So, if you do the maths, that part worn tyre simply is not worth buying, you're paying 21% of the cost for the last 11% of it's wear / life!

addo · Unread post by **addo** » 14 Aug 2010, 23:02

I rate Falkens - Paris wears a set. Terrible tread life but excellent dry weather grip.

Conversely, I despise the XM1s!

Have bought used tyres (for a work truck) when it was all I could afford.

Unread post by **myglaren** » 15 Aug 2010, 00:07

If it is for the spare then a part-worn isn't such a bad deal as it will more than likely crumble away before it is used - mine is completely new and unused but eight years old and probably worthless.

Xantia2.0 · Unread post by **Xantia2.0** » 15 Aug 2010, 00:18

Well actually I've seen Falkens go on for over 10 years and still be safe to drive (as long as it isn't bald obviously, cracking I mean), so if it's going to be sitting for years unused as a spare it will hardly age. And yes maybe it isn't worth £15 but it's a good tyre and I don't have the time to shop around for a nearly-new cheap tyre. And guess what ? Another issue... On the way home the temperature gauge creeped up to the 3 quarter mark... And that was in 5th gear at 65MPH on the back road... Barely reving the engine at all! I think I'll give it a check-up tomorrow, see if the cooling regulator is clicking when it gets up to temperature. I thought I heard it a few times while driving earlier but of course that could have been the hydropneumatic suspension regulator, so I'll do a thorough test tomorrow with it sitting in the drive way! Anyway, better go, as it's getting late and I want to get up early tomorrow to collect my beloved Focus from the garage after its coolant flush! At least one car will be keeping as cool as a cucumber!! Never know, maybe all the Citroén needs is a coolant flush, though it had one of those not long ago...

rmunns · Unread post by **rmunns** » 15 Aug 2010, 04:19

THe biggest thing to concern yourself about when buying part-worn tyres is their history.
What if they were badly kerbed?
My son is a driving instructor and he needs to discard 2 or 3 tyres a year 'cos they have been potholed / kerbed etc.
And at that price strikes me these tyres you have bought are either not new or there is something else dodgy going on.

robert_e_smart · Unread post by **robert_e_smart** » 15 Aug 2010, 09:17

Part worn tyres come with various thread depths, (check out e-bay for example). Many part worn tyres come in from Germany where they have to change over to winter tyres for a good part of the year. So their summer tyres are taken off regardless of what thread depth they have, and new winter tyres are put on. Some people will have 2 sets of rims, and don't enter into this, but many don't.

They really are worth the chew. I have part worns on some of my cars. Mainly on cars that I don't use much, becuase the tyres will have long perished before they are worn out. And I have had no problems with them at all. Michelin energy savers with 6mm thread for £17.50 fitted and balanced. I'd rather have them on my car than some new Chinese tat tyre that I have never heard of before.

However when you buy a used car, do you go and buy new tyres for it? It comes with part worn tyres. When buying the tyres you need to inspect them closely for tyre wall damage, signs of puncture repair, and perishing. If you do that, you can't go too far wrong. If there isn'ta lot of thread depth, move on and look at the next tyres.

citroenesque · Unread post by **citroenesque** » 15 Aug 2010, 11:01

I recently had 4 Michelin Energy Savers fitted to my XM to replace the new Westlakes (Chinese rubbish). I can vouch for their quality. But I paid £229 for the set (icluding a 25% discount on buying 4, and including a £40 cash back voucher from Michelin). How did you manage that price? Down here a set of reasonable part-worns fitted would set you back £114 plus.

Unread post by **myglaren** » 15 Aug 2010, 11:45

I'm currently running on a pair of Firestone part worns. The ones I had fitted last year (Vredestein or Kleiber, I forget now) suddenly started wearing quickly. I'd had an advisory on the last MOT about a ball joint but that vanished on the retest. Had the service station/MOT station look at it but they couldn't find anything wrong.
If they had found anything and repared it I'd have put a pair of Toyos or Kumhos on but delayed until I found the reason for the tyre wear.
Went to the CCC Northern in Wetherby early on the Friday only to discover that nothing was happening there.
On the way home, called at a scrapyard in Bishop Aukland, intending to get a spare on an alloy, rather than the steel that I have. Nothing suitable but I did check the tyres on leaving, fortunately, and discover they were slicks by now.
Went to a part worn place near the scrapyard and sourced the Firestones, in the right size for the car (none of the others are

) and they rode better than ever, despite the guy not being able to balance them.

They are up to now not showing any signs of wear at all although they were only a stop-gap and not expected to last for more than a couple or three weeks. Not bad for £40 the pair, including fitting