Tyre choice for Polo

[Harleyboy]

Morning,

Need to change two tyres in the kids 2008 Polo 1.4. It runs 195/55/15’s and has two budget tyres on the front with plenty of tread and two bald mid matched ones on the back. Planning on moving the budgets to the rear and changing to Toyo TR1’s. Anyone have any experience of these? They are a good price and seem to fall into mid range tyre options.

Thanks
Adam

[craig1912]

Harleyboy said:

Morning,

Need to change two tyres in the kids 2008 Polo 1.4. It runs 195/55/15’s and has two budget tyres on the front with plenty of tread and two bald mid matched ones on the back. Planning on moving the budgets to the rear and changing to Toyo TR1’s. Anyone have any experience of these? They are a good price and seem to fall into mid range tyre options.

Thanks
Adam

Some info on which tyres to fit where

https://www.oponeo.co.uk/blog/better-tyres-in-the-...

Toyo’s seem OK

https://www.tyrereviews.com/Tyre/Toyo/Proxes-TR1.h...

[Harleyboy]

Thanks. Interesting piece on where to put the best tyres - thanks. Seems best in front axle for optimum wet braking and handling for non ESP car (which the Polo is)

Cheers

[Pica-Pica]

Harleyboy said:

Thanks. Interesting piece on where to put the best tyres - thanks. Seems best in front axle for optimum wet braking and handling for non ESP car (which the Polo is)

Cheers

Best tyres on the rear, whether FWD, RWD, or AWD.
Have you thought of Vredestein Quatrac all seasons? We have the 5s on our Fabia same size tyres, and basically a Polo.

[neenoy]

Budgets to the rears and decent tyres on the front - could make a good drift car

Kids usually equates to less experienced and I would want decent and at least equivalent tyres all round. What are these budget tyres? Are they of reasonable performance or particularly poor?

Never used Toyo until we bought our Mazda 2 and it came on Toyo R39s which are "tweaked" for that car. Mazda seems to be working with Toyo for their OE tyres. In everyday driving, the R39s seem absolutely fine, quite good even, but tests suggested that they were not as good as the best tyres out there. Wet performance seems to be a general Toyo weakness according to the vast majority of tyre test that they appear in, but over all, they appear to be goodish tyres at decent prices.

I would always put the best tyres on the back, but I would actually much prefer to buy 4 decent matching tyres, especially as it is just a Polo - the tyres can't be that big or expensive. Much cheaper than any repairs from a sliding off backwards into a hedge ...

[Harleyboy]

I’ll take a look at the Quatrac’s. The two budget tyres were out in before we bought it two years and they seem fine when I’ve driven it.

The rears are super old and although legal just need changing. They are 195/55/15 and about £75-80 fitted for mid range.

So, best on the back you say?

[neenoy]

Yes, I would definitely keep the budget ones on the front. Much easier to feel what they are doing and drive around any weaknesses.

A summer tyre that seems to be well priced but seems to be turning in really good test results is the Hankook Ventus Prime 4.

All season tyres seem to be getting better and better. There is more choice these days and quite a few are pretty good. Some examples here: https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2021-Tyre-Revi...

[Pica-Pica]

As said, we have the Quatrac 5s. One advantage is that they are an asymmetric tyre, so once fitted to the wheel, they can go on any corner. We have not tried them in the snow or ice, because we rarely get that here (North West Wales), at sea level, but upper roads could get snowy, so they are just in case. They are quiet, no difference in comfort or noise from the Continental summer tyres that they replaced.
Best tyres on the rear, but if you aim to have the same tyres all round, then unless you are getting below 3mm and it’s bucketing down there should be no issues.

[Tony1963]

Find the cheapest Teflon tyres you can, and replace all four with them. That way, he won’t be going as fast when he crashes.

(Slightly tongue in cheek)

Edited by Tony1963 on Friday 29th July 20:09

Edited by Tony1963 on Friday 29th July 20:09

[InitialDave]

As others have said, new/good tyres on the back. A significant enough imbalance of grip favouring the front can actually get you to the point of having on-throttle oversteer on slippery roundabouts etc, which is a pretty weird feeling in a fwd car, and not something I'd want to drop a younger/less experienced driver into.