Last modified March 2009
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When I bought the car is was running Bridgestone S02's all round and the grip was just fantastic. The grip in corners was just
awesome and direction changes were made without any fuss on behalf of the car. Driver and passenger however had a harder time adjusting to
direction changes as it just flipped one side to other. Awesome feeling and wet weather grip seemed pretty good as well.
And then it happened. Mr Rus T Nail said hello to the back drivers tyre. The dirty basturd wrecked the tyre. Then the really bad news.
Bridgestone had stopped making the S02 as they wore out so much and replaced them with the harder wearing slightly less grippy S03's. No problem says I, a pair of S03's my good man and let me know when they turn up. The nail wasn't allowing all the air out so inflating the tyre every journey kept the pressure ok but nothing long term apart from new tyres was going to work. The new tyres arrived and were duly fitted and oh boy did I get problems straight away. Now, the run to work from my house is down the motorway with a naggery bit at Dumfries to get some 'driving' done but from my girlfriends in Edinburgh it's down the Moffat road, A701 which is just sheer bliss. Bikers and drivers out there take note this road is just amazing which is why I knew something was way wrong with the tyres.
The back end was just all over the place. It was wanting to turn further than the front all the time. Turn in to the corner was very switchy, much like a motor bike on a set of squared off tyres. It just swung into the corners and then hitting bumps caused the back to move all over the road. Even in a straight line hitting bumps was enough to cause the rear end to wander.
Very upsetting. I phoned the tyre place and they suggested running the tyres in a bit longer. Not convinced as I had done 300 miles already I phoned the tech department in Bridgestone to ask their advice. Pump the tyres upto 35psi from the 30psi at present and see how that feels. Mince, absolutely mince. Car was bouncing all over the road and was just tankslapping every chance it had. Really scary, had a few bad moments but did it make me take my foot of the gas? Yeah, just re applied it though at the next corner. Me daft, most definitely.
After 2 and a bit weeks and 1500 miles enough was enough. Numerous phone calls had made no difference and a solution was no where in sight. Fcuk it, I said I was returning the tyres and wanted a full set of Goodyear Eagle F1's in standard sizes.
So a set was ordered and they have now been duly fitted. Ah, nice really nice. Confidence has been restored and the grip is still pretty amazing even though they have slightly less outright grip. Turn into the corner and feel the tyres bite in and your kidneys start moving to the side of your rib cage. That is what this car is all about. Now to see how far the tyres last before they are worn out.
Apparently the wet weather grip is just fantastic though unbelievably it hasn't rained bad enough for me to try this out. Scotland in the summer ;-)
Update on this, the tyres handled really well but as they wore down the grip levels became slightly more variable and the direction changes became slightly more 'jittery'. This as it turned out was the suspension giving up the ghost but as usual I never really paid much attention to it until it became really obvious something was far from right. Anyway on with the tyre story
So after some 15,000 miles the F1's were goosed and down to the last limits of being legal and the std rear size of 225/50/15 is an awkward one that isn't common. Guess what, yup no F1's to be found at anything resembling a sensible price.
Got a pair of these ordered as loads of folk were running them and they seemed like a good choice at the time.
Have to say after running them for a few thousand miles I'm not impressed. I recently had the suspension changed to new Bilsteins and this has shown up the limitations or the Toyo tyres. Now don't get me wrong I'm no racing driver but these Toyo's are no comparison to the original SO2's and they aint that hot against the F1's either. Cheaper yes but not by enough and besides tyres are far cheaper than new bodywork and / or insurance excess's
The problem I have with the Toyo's is that in normal driving they just don't generate enough heat to grip like they should. An example of this is when I 'attack' a motorway sliproad. As I peel in the front digs in very nicely, F1's mind, but the back is more hesitant and less sure footed. In fact having had new suspension all round I can attack the corners more aggressively and thus i think worked out what is happening.
As I peel in the front digs in and the back kinda follows vaguely in the initial turn in. As I get partway round the corner I can feel the back end beginning to dig in and the car begins to turn tighter round the corner. To test this theory out I departed for my favourite and most remembered driving route - the A701 Edinburgh to Moffat. Been a while since I went down that road but in '03 I did that route for nearly six months so even now almost a year later I can still remember most of the corners and the kind of speeds I was travelling at.
So with a full tank of Shell's finest Optimax I headed off for the A701 and began the run at 3/4 attack speed. The roads were slightly damp and I was a bit rusty on this road. Plus it was a test session and nobody gets prizes for killing themselves or anybody else on the road / pavement
I had to drive nearly 30 miles to get to this road so the tyres should have been fully warmed up when I got there but the first 5 corners soon confirmed what I had thought. When running in normal conditions the Toyo's are ok but mince at direction changes and holding grip round corners. However after a mile or so of some cornering the grip levels and direction changes were actually pretty good and confidence inspiring. Shame it takes soo much effort to get them like that
After an extremely scary ride one night in the rain I decided enough was enough and new tyres were needed. Every road surface change was met with a wag of the rear and little shimmy through the steering wheel and this was all at normal motorway speeds. Bang out of order. New tyres please.....
A pair of Yokohama A022 were duly ordered and fitted and what a difference. Even on boring motorway driving the car seemed more stable and surface changes were taken without any noticeable wagging from the car. I also noticed a odd effect. Parked up at work and got out the car and I could smell hot rubber?? I put my hand on the rear tyre and it was actually warm to the touch. After some motorway driving and no sideways loading. Mmmmm warm tyres means grippy tyres no? I needed to test the theory.
A quick check through the old driving roads memory banks and the Glasgow to Fort William road was selected. It has a very boring bit, a very slow / dangerous bit / utterly sublime scenery and driving roads bit and so an excellent choice. Unfortunately I choose to head up this road on a bank holiday weekend so every man and their slow car was also heading this way. Pottering along the side of Loch Lomond you have several opportunities to overtake slower traffic but not if the blighters are nose to tail for 20 odd cars.
Now the highway code states quite clearly that you leave a gap of two seconds to the vehicle in front of you NOT the two metres that most people seem to do. Its kinda difficult to overtake if there is nowhere to pull back into. Also kinda stupid to try it. I have come up with a theory as to what happens and have seen this happen in the wild, so to speak. I have decided to try to put this into a concise list which you can view here
Eventually I get onto the A82 to Fort William and its time for a play through the beautiful scenery that makes up the road. The tyres are really
gripping and the drive out of the corners is just solid. In fact the rear is gripping so well the fronts are beginning to push. Cool. These tyres rock on dry roads and in the few wet sections of roads they give nice confidence through the water and round the corners. Very happy indeed
The one concern I do have is how little mileage these tyres are going to give. Still I prefer grip over durability and they are a slightly cheaper
tyre so I have no real worries.
New bigger wheels which would enable me to have a better choice of tyres and the ability to fit larger brakes on the front. ££££ not at the mo though
Well the Yoko's finally wore out after some 10k miles which isn't too bad but they were definitely worn down. The only choices I had for new tyres were the Toyo Proxies 1-R's as all other tyres seemed to have dried up. So I bought them and thought they were ok to begin with. Certainly seemed to grip alright while I was running them in and then the inevitable happened. Dry roads bedded in tyres lets see what they can do. Answer was not very much and not very comfortable at doing even that. Well I had the mr2oc April drive coming up and this was a major blow for freedom. So now what? Well I bought some 2nd hand Evo 6 wheels from Ebay and fitted on some F1 tyres. The wheels are an entire story, sorry saga on their own so we'll just keep to the tyres here.
Well these tyres just rock though I am worried about what happened when I run out of grip and car starts moving around. On the 15"'s you had some warning when the car was on the edge but all experience of others says the warning on lower profile but large tyres is somewhat less. Anyhow we'll see how the tyres / wheels get on.
I had some good mileage out of these tyres and had some great drives. It really does amaze me how tyre feel varies from one brand to another and how peoples opinions vary. Personally, I think the F1's are great, just made sure you get either German or CHinese made - anything else is lethal
Finally wore out the rears on the 235's and managed to buy myself another set of OZ wheels but this time a staggered 8/9 ET35.
Pretty good feeling from the tyres again but the weather this year has been really bad so not have much chance to really get some pressure on
them. Hoping to change that soon, though summer is nearly over lol - for what it was.
March 09 - Bit of an update, I'm not gelling with this set of tyres and reading some reviews of others gives the same feedback - basically F1's seem to
be loosing their grip ( bad I know ) at the top of Wanted Tyres. I've done some checking and I may be able to squeeze some Bridgestone S02's
on the front 225x45x17 and a pair of 255x40x17's on the rear. Fronts are not worn, rears should be needing replacement either start or end of
winter. Ho hum