You may remember that just before Christmas we went on the lookout for someone to join the PH team and do a spot of tyre testing for us.
Following the first report roving tyre tester Tony has now put 6,000 miles on the Interstate tyres – an own-brand make from www.blackcircles.com – to see how they handle the ‘light punishment’ he gives his 1990 E34 M5.
The company reckons that they are as good as far more expensive rubber, so we wanted someone to give us some feedback on how they perform.
Unfortunately it has not been an easy month for the M5, having been broken into a few days ago.
Tony’s PH Smiley sticker was right next to the hole punched into the rear window – did no one tell the yob that he could get his own Smiley for £1.50 at the PH Shop?
Anyway, here’s Tony’s latest report on the Interstate tyres:
‘I read a lot of comments on PH after the first report, with most of the comments being around how the trial/test was flawed as it was completely subjective, that I was only testing one brand of tyre, and that it didn’t compare to the objective tests in Evo, Autocar and the like.
‘Don’t forget that we don’t know how many miles are on the tyres when magazines test them (they’re probably brand new), and we all know that tyres take a good few cycles to get them to their normal operating spec. Plus we have all these PH members saying the magazine test is more appropriate to them – even though a lot drive 300+bhp RWD saloons/estates/coupés on the road and the test is done on a 100-200bhp FWD car on a track. It would be a much better test to get tyres that have had 1,000-2,000 miles driven on them in general use, and then test them again to see how they’re performing.
‘Anyway, enough ranting and down to the second report, positives first…
‘As per my previous report, I’ve found the dry weather grip is much better after a good few miles – even though they were worrying me for the first 1,000 miles. The ‘twitchiness’ I didn’t describe very well in my previous report was just a feeling of the tyres being tugged a little by small imperfections in the road at motorway speeds on smooth surfaces – nothing you’d call tramlining, but just a bit of, well, twitchiness!
‘The wet (raining and standing water, rather than damp surfaces) performance continues to be excellent, with very little pull on the steering wheel when aquaplaning in a straight line (only did it on purpose a couple of times to test it out) – of course putting one wheel into the pool will still cause a shift in the direction of the pool!
‘I’m also impressed with how well they’re standing up to the ‘slight abuse’ I’m giving them. I’m now on 130,000 miles (6,000 miles on the tyres), and I am now comfortable with throwing the car around on them in all conditions – although I’ve still not had the time to try them out in anger at Oulton, Donington or Anglesey as I’d hoped. Even with 6,000 miles on them they’re still on an average of 6mm all round – at this rate it will be January 2009 before they’re toast.
‘However, the damp & greasy performance is still not up there with my Michelin PS2s, although to be fair it is an area I’ve found a lot of tyres have trouble with. I was also surprised to find the Interstates were not a rock-bottom price and in fact were not far off the price I paid for my Michelins (£91 vs £115 fitted at the time) – although I realise tyre prices do fluctuate one month to the next (e.g. currently for the tyre only from BlackCircles, the Interstate IXT-1 are £80, the Michelin PS2 are £114 and the Continental SportContact 2 are £100).
‘Although in defence of the Interstates they do seem to be wearing more slowly than the Michelins and will probably last over 20,000 miles, which could ultimately make my annual tyre costs halve, which would leave me with an extra £500 to do a couple of track days, or pay for 4 tanks of petrol, or buy a new car door lock, or get a new window and security film done, or…’
We’ll let you know in another month or two how Tony is getting on with the tyres…
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