Which tyres?

[Vimeous]

Konan by the sounds of it you're a fairly straight forward no nonsense driver if your tyres are lasting you that long. The longest I've ever had out of a tyre is 18k miles from a set of Michelins which were guaranteed for 40k (got some money back on that one!).
What do you see as a sensible mileage for tyres as most of us here can only dream of seeing 20k under the same set of tyres? £50-60 for any 205/50 tyre is damn cheap and if you stick to budget tyres you should easily hit 20k+ miles everytime with their harder compounds.
However if you're likely to do 20k miles in one year again I'd suggest that budget tyres are a seriously bad idea. Softer compounds will mean a new set of tyres every year but when you spend that much time behind the wheel surely it's worth it?!

If budget weren't such an issue I'd say Michelins (Premacy for instance) all the way as it will last a while and certainly offer more grip than budget but not the levels that a short life soft compound tyre like Yoko, Toyo or even hard driven F1's would give.
If the budget overrides and you don't drive too hard I'd suggest looking at Continental as they err on the side of long life and won't break the bank either if you look round hard enough.

Good luck!

[Konan555]

Can get nankang for £35 a corner on 205/50 I'll make my will out now.

Cheers there, plenty of stuff to think about. Just to clear up, I'm looking at tires for my 2nd car at the moment, and that's not gonna do more than 5K a year. Maybe something softer is in order, might look at these A539 things.

It's a crying shame the marangonis on my main car are starting to show signs of old age, I'm sure they'd have hit 35 to 40K - even with ye olde ford tracking!

[Stoo]

Actually, I need to check the tyres out on the mini, had the back end slide out on me this morning on the way into work, which is clever seeing as it's a FWD car on a pretty slow corner..

[Raz316]

Welp, its done, just ordered 4x A539's

part of me cant wait to get the tyres on and drive home down the A2, the other part is bleeding internally with the thought of spending 240 quid.

thanks for the input everyone, i need a drink now.

[Konan555]

Welp, its done, just ordered 4x A539's

part of me cant wait to get the tyres on and drive home down the A2, the other part is bleeding internally with the thought of spending 240 quid.

thanks for the input everyone, i need a drink now.

I've gotta order that much in the way of tyres aswell - plus four new shocks and springs and a set of poly bushes for the front.

In short - pretty much gonna lay out the car's value again!

[Raz316]

hurray... they arrived...
2x 205/40/17R's (correct!) and 2x 185/50/15R's (not so correct)

bah! >:\

[Vimeous]

oops!

[Butuz]

Tell em you only recieved 2 of the correct tyres and you want the other 2 pronto

Butuz

[Raz316]

they actually rang this morning asking if the tyres have been delivered yet, I said "nope" he said "yeah, erm when you get them there is a good chance the order is wrong, geez a shout when they arrive"
*they arrive*
"yeah, they are wrong"
"ok ill call back in a sec"
2 hours later
me: "hi yeah, i was expecting someone to call back but they havent"
"ahh right, the bloke you need to speak to is mark... [to someone else] is fatboy here?[/] nah hes not about at the mo, ill get him to give you a shout"

[Butuz]

Where did you order from? Tell fatboy to concentrate less on pie munching, and more on tyre sorting

Butuz

[Raz316]

topgear.co.uk

[Butuz]

Think ill try mytyres.co.uk in that case

Butuz

[Shad]

Think ill try mytyres.co.uk in that case

Butuz

I've ordered from them before, good service, no complaints

[Vimeous]

If you're mail ordering try www.micheldever.co.uk. Although their service was great fun at the garage they happen to be damn cheap as well (for collect or mail order)

[Raz316]

Well the correct tyres arrived today, got them fitted this afternoon and nervously headed for the A2...

hurray! I had the biggest grin ever, ~70mph and as smooth as you like. Its something i should take for granted but im loving it. And the handling around corners now, wow.... : o