Tired Tyres?

[Simon59]

Having had company cars for the last 30 years I don’t pay too much attention to which make of tyres are on a car, but last Sunday I went for a drive in my Z3, top down to blow away the cobwebs, despite large black clouds looming overhead. I’ve had the car about a year and a half now and only driven her about 3,000 miles in the dry, mainly.

Of course the great British weather intervened. With the top back up, I was going around a roundabout in the rain, not that fast, and really lost the rear, nearly a 180 degree spin. No one was around so no damage was done, but it’s never happened to me before. Scary!

So I had a look at the tyres, which have plenty of thread on them but are probably quite old given that she’s only done about 10k miles over the last 6 years. The car is on its original set-up as far as I know. The rear is 18.8 1/2 J with 245/40/17 tyres made by Admiral, which a quick google informed me “are a budget tyre made by Kumho in South Korea, offering a high quality for a low price”. What do you think guys? Was it me or was it the tyres? As an ex-motorcyclist I’m very sensitive to diesel on the roads and I don’t think it was that.

If it’s the tyres, I wonder if they are just rubbish to start with or if they have gone off with age. I’m going to replace them anyway but as I’ve been thinking of having the alloys refurbed, I wondered if anyone has some decent original alloys with part-worn but good tyres on in the back of your garage that you might want to sell to me.

So I’d appreciate your thoughts on the tyres I have on my car, what tyres I should replace them with and whether anyone has any to sell to me!

Thanks in advance, Simon

[Boosh]

Hi, Simon59,
I had a similar incident in heavy rain about a year ago. Shortly after, I had to have the tracking done as moved over to France. It seemed the rear left wheel was poorly aligned, though the car would drive normally in everyday conditions. Might be worth having your tracking checked over. Incidentally, you can pull a string from the rear of the rear tyre, across both wheel centres, and to the front of the front tyre, and the lack (or not) of symmetry between both sides of each wheel should give you a good indication of whether tracking needs looking at.
Hope that helps,

Boosh.

[Brian4]

Tyres are supposed to have 5/6 year life and would think they will be summer tyres so with age, cold weather, and wet you found the limit of your tyres.
A lot of owners seem to go for the Falken 914 tyres.

The tracking cannot be adjusted on the rear of the zed but also worth checking wear or play in the rubber suspension components.

[bertiejaffa]

You can see the age of the tyre by looking on the side. There should be 4 number, usually in a box. They stand for the week and year of make, e.g. 4810 would be then end of November 2010.

[Dino D]

I wouldn't get part worns if you want nice handling, part worns are fine if you want to bomb around and 'play' but if you want a nice ride they can make more issues than the they solve because of the way they could be already worn (i.e. Inside tread worn more than outside which is common and make you car feel very different). Then to add to it they are likely old and hard anyway which is like driving in marbles (as you've discovered, fun if you on a skid pan of course!).
Falken and simialir are cheap online. I have Nexen N8000 and very happy with those.