I probably shouldn't even respond to your polemic, but it's rubbish and you know it. The difference beween a decent tyre and a shitty tyre is what? £10 a piece, maybe? Probably even less. Buying the least grippiest tyre available, is not doing "your bit". And having "fun" on public roads certainly isn't either. If your tyres are on the limit, your so-called "safer speeds" are not particularly safe, really, no matter how fast you actually go.

Would be interesting to know how much earlier decent tyres come to a stand-still from 50 mph as opposed to your cheap hardest ones out there. I bet there are quite a few metres difference.

But I'm not going to argue any further about this with you.

I wholeheartedly agree to this, though. Driver safety training should be mandatory in order to get a license, imho. It's fun as well.

Quote from tristancliffe :

(...) learn to brake properly (...)

Cheap tyre (not re-tread) £25. Expensive tyre £60 (this is for a 195/65R14). That's £35 difference per tyre, or £140 per car! That's quite a lot in real life.

I will stick with my harder tyres (no pun intended). If some moron forgets to look, or lets their children play on a road, then I won't lose too much sleep over it. I have a feeling that I can stop sooner from a higher speed with worse tyres than most of the population (as will several people here), and so the odds are in my favour for either not being involved or avoiding the accident.

I don't have fun in busy places, residential zones or anywhere you might get people walking. On a roundabout in the pouring rain with good visibility (and a sighting lap) makes such fun as safe as plausible. Just don't put me in the same boat as the under age road-racer moron that is Atlantian.

If we lived our lives thinking about accidents and the worse case, then we'd all still be in caves.

And if you think I'm saying this to be obtuse, or to cause an argument then you are mistaken. The stuff I write is always (unless meant in jest) what I think in real life, not glorified for some forum people I'll mostly never meet.

Quote from Linsen :

If your tyres are on the limit, your so-called "safer speeds" are not particularly safe, really, no matter how fast you actually go.

I have thought a lot about this, as I've used several sets of high performance tires and cheap all seasons on my Miata over the last 7 years. I think that if you're going the same speed regardless of what tires you have, you will be safer with grippier tires, as you will have more grip in reserve. But if you are driving to the limits of your tires, you will be safer with tires with less grip.

For example, imagine that you are coming around a corner on the limit of grip at a fairly low speed with tires without much grip, and you come upon something in your lane. Given a certain reaction time, you will travel a certain distance before reacting. Now imagine you are coming around the same corner significantly faster with grippier tires. In the same amount of time it takes you to react, you will have traveled further than you would have on the tires with less grip. Sure, your grippier tires will be able to slow you down more quickly, but you will be traveling at a higher speed, and will now be closer to the object than you would be with less grippy tires (due to traveling further during your reaction time). Another potential problem is that if the only way to avoid an accident while at the limit of grip is to drive off the road, you will drive off at a higher speed if you're at the limit with grippier tires.

So any advantage in safety provided by grippier tires is more than offset by the extra speed you would be carrying if driving at the limit around corners with the grippier tires. Of course, if you're driving at the same speed with the two sets of tires, the grippier ones will be safer, but we're talking about driving at the limit...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Cheap tyre (not re-tread) £25. Expensive tyre £60 (this is for a 195/65R14). That's £35 difference per tyre, or £140 per car! That's quite a lot in real life.

I'm not talking about cheap vs. expensive, I'm talking about least grippiest tyres you can get your hands on vs. decent tyres. So I suppose, £25 vs. £35 is not too far off.

Quote from Michael Denham :

(...) But if you are driving to the limits of your tires, you will be safer with tires with less grip.

Maybe so, but that is not the point. See below.

Quote from Michael Denham :

So any advantage in safety provided by grippier tires is more than offset by the extra speed you would be carrying if driving at the limit around corners with the grippier tires. Of course, if you're driving at the same speed with the two sets of tires, the grippier ones will be safer, but we're talking about driving at the limit...

No, I am only talking about driving shitty tyres on the limit, like tristan obviously does. I would never drive my Goodyears to the limit on public roads. And tristan wouldn't either, as he stated. So your comparison is not valid, really.

Ok, well I think what I said is still valid, but it's just not the comparison you were making. So in that case, what is relevant to your discussion is only that "if you're driving at the same speed with the two sets of tires, the grippier ones will be safer" which is pretty obvious of course

Quote from Linsen :

No, I am only talking about driving shitty tyres on the limit, like tristan obviously does. I would never drive my Goodyears to the limit on public roads. And tristan wouldn't either, as he stated. So your comparison is not valid, really.

The only way tires should be exceeded the limit on the street is under full emergency braking. I think even the shittiest tires provide plenty of margin for evasive maneuvers when you're only driving at 0.000001/10ths on the street. In decent weather conditions.

Good tires for bad weather is way more important. So those Azenis which are great in the dry and can brake 2 metres less to save that child would probably be a lot worse if it was in the rain. Better get RA-1s, I hear they're great, wet or dry. Let's not even get started on snow. If it's snowing, you can reach 10/10ths just trying to get out of your driveway, and yet people still manage not to kill themselves.

Sorry, but I fully agree with Tristan. Driver skill prevails over equipment any day. And on the road, there should be absolutely no difference in performance as you should not be anywhere near the limit.

Last time I put tires on my car (1996 Nissan Altima) the cheapies were $56 each I think. 4 tires were $224 not including mounting, balancing, disposal, etc.

When I was 20, I had a POS, but a very light and very nice handling car. It had a very odd size tire at the time and I could not find tires in normal all-seasons. I once bought Pirelli P500's for it, which ran anywhere from $189 to $239 each (went through several sets since I did love the tire, speed, and they only lasted 10k miles). Low end at $756 and high end at $956 for 4 tires. A difference from the cheapies of $532 and $732. This is prices compared in 1992 with the expensive Pirelli vs. ~2004 with the cheapies.

Guess what? Under normal driving conditions, absolutely no difference. Under spirited driving conditions, absolutely no difference. Under maximum limit, which I consider as 100 mph+, I'm sure there is a bit of a difference. But at what point are you at the maximum limits of your car on the road? I'll admit it, back then in 1992, I was reaching close to the limit. Yet, there has been a time or two that I was up closer to the limit in the Altima with $50 tires on it as well. Did I see a difference? Nope. Any difference would be more pointed to a 1600 pound car compared to a 2900 pound 4 door family car.

So, for $500-700 difference, which is quite substantial, what did I get? I did probably get more grip, but mostly I recieved far more feedback from the tires through the car. More feedback equalled more fun for me at 20 years old.

In comparison, I also have been driving Toyota 4x4 small trucks (89 truck, 94 4Runner, 88 4Runner, and 99 Tacoma ExtCab) for the past 12 years up until January of last year. I always had either a 30 or 31 inch BFG AT off-road tire on it and again, even at high speeds (keeping under but close to 100 mph), there was would be no difference. All handled just fine, all could brake just fine, all could corner just fine.

Until you are out on the track and driving at the extreme absolute limit, you are not going to tell the difference.

Quote from mrodgers :

Sorry, but I fully agree with Tristan. Driver skill prevails over equipment any day. And on the road, there should be absolutely no difference in performance as you should not be anywhere near the limit.

Yes, driver skill prevails over equipment most of the time, but sometimes it's just out of your hands whether you are on the limit or not. In an emergency brake situation, you are not in charge anymore. You need all the tyres have got to give. And if your tyres are shitty, you'll have a longer braking distance, whether you're a bad at braking or good at braking. Period. You guys are just too blue-eyed. Any racing driver (and that includes Tristan) knows that tyres do make a huge difference on track. And anybody concerned with driver safety training knows that your tyres can be the difference between life or death on-road. So, deliberately choosing the hardest and least grippy tyres out there is plain wrong.

Quote from mrodgers :

Until you are out on the track and driving at the extreme absolute limit, you are not going to tell the difference.

Wrong. In an emergency brake situation, there can be a huge difference between decent tyres and shitty tyres. Again: We're talking about deliberately choosing the least grippiest tyres out there as opposed to decent tyres which are not much more expensive. And your tyres have to be pretty damn shitty, if you're having noticeably more fun with them at road legal speeds.

Aha, I think you've misunderstood me. I don't buy dangerous tyres. I don't specifically ask for the tyres with the least grip. When I phone my local friendly (but slightly stupid) tyre supplier and ask for prices of tyres in whatever size it is I want, they usually give me a choice of three. One is cheap. One is mid priced. One is expensive. There is around £20 difference between them. I always, without fail, go for the cheap ones.

However, last time I changed tyres (and I really need a new tyre on the right rear at the moment, but it can wait) 'decent' tyres were on special offer - cheaper than the 'cheap' option! I got them instead. In day to day driving, including emergency stops they are NO DIFFERENT AT ALL. Maybe centimeters of difference in the ultimate stopping situation. But on the road they have less feel, more grip (and occasionally I do reach the extremes of grip, but only in carefully controlled and considered situations), are less forgiving, noisier, wear quicker, aquaplane just as quickly etc.

I will of course get them again if they are on special offer. But otherwise I'll get the cheap option.

But there are still cheaper tyres for sale if I really wanted to ask for cheaper than cheap. But that IS silly, and I quite agree.

My Saturn has pretty good Michelin tires. The tires do not spin much when I slam the gas pedal to the floor from a stand still. Just a little chrip-chirp-chirp. And they aren't bad in cornering either. I just have never had a safe place to test the limits of the lateral grip.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

My Saturn has pretty good Michelin tires. The tires do not spin much when I slam the gas pedal to the floor from a stand still. Just a little chrip-chirp-chirp. And they aren't bad in cornering either. I just have never had a safe place to test the limits of the lateral grip.

I think that might have something to do with the fact that you are driving a POS GM car rather than the tires