Tyre Labelling, how much use is the new system?

[jimmy156]

Looking to replace the tyres on my car and since I bought the last set the tyre labelling thing has been intorudced.

The Toyo T1R's i have on there at the moment and have been pretty pleased with score awfully. F for fuel efficiancy an E for wet braking. In comparison an Autogrip F107 ditchfinder is rated at C for both.

Are these ratings worth paying attention to? There is a Goodyear efficientgrip Performace that gets a C for economy and A for wet weather braking, but i would imagine its not really a performance tyre with a name like "EfficientGrip"

[trickywoo]

jimmy156 said:

Are these ratings worth paying attention to?

No.

I'm running tyres with an 'E' wet rating at the moment. They are the best I've had in the wet and I've had loads of tyres.

Anything 4 grades better should allow you to drive on tunnel ceilings.

[Rochellc01]

Read people reviews, and generally speaking if its a name you have heard of its usually good.

[300bhp/ton]

jimmy156 said:

Looking to replace the tyres on my car and since I bought the last set the tyre labelling thing has been intorudced.

The Toyo T1R's i have on there at the moment and have been pretty pleased with score awfully. F for fuel efficiancy an E for wet braking. In comparison an Autogrip F107 ditchfinder is rated at C for both.

Are these ratings worth paying attention to? There is a Goodyear efficientgrip Performace that gets a C for economy and A for wet weather braking, but i would imagine its not really a performance tyre with a name like "EfficientGrip"

Personally I think the ratings are a bit pointless. As they don't say under what conditions or sizes the tyres are tested (not clearly enough anyhow). Also is this braking with ABS or without?

Noise levels are ok I guess, but can't see that it'd affect anybody so it largely pointless.

And consider this:




Tyre 2 & 3 are different bands, but likely score almost identical. While tyres 1 & 4 are much further apart. But how would you know this?

[jimmy156]

You guys generally echo my own thoughts.

However consider the Toyo T1R, internet consensus is that it is a pretty good, performance orientated, mid range tyre. Cost £70, wet grip rating E.

vs.

The goodyear mentioned in my OP, a "premium" branded tyre, but only £5 more expensive, that is geared towards normal driving, which gets an A for wet grip.

I thought the directional tread pattern of the Toyo would give it a better wet grip score.

So are they more fundamentally flawed rather then just being a bit useless? Or are all the user reviewers about the Toyo wrong?

[300bhp/ton]

jimmy156 said:

You guys generally echo my own thoughts.

However consider the Toyo T1R, internet consensus is that it is a pretty good, performance orientated, mid range tyre. Cost £70, wet grip rating E.

vs.

The goodyear mentioned in my OP, a "premium" branded tyre, but only £5 more expensive, that is geared towards normal driving, which gets an A for wet grip.

I thought the directional tread pattern of the Toyo would give it a better wet grip score.

So are they more fundamentally flawed rather then just being a bit useless? Or are all the user reviewers about the Toyo wrong?

Without putting figures to those stats they don't really mean anything tbh.

[kambites]

I think they're useful things to know as long as you know what they mean and how the testing was carried out. It would be more useful if there was also a dry grip rating too, though.

[jimmy156]

300bhp/ton said:

Without putting figures to those stats they don't really mean anything tbh.

From the tyre website

blackcircles.com said:

The ratings are measured via two types of test when a car is travelling at 50mph. [/snip]

The difference in braking distances between each grade is roughly 3m - the average length of 1 car.

So the goodyear i mentioned would stop roughly 12 meters before the toyo in the wet.

[otolith]

kambites said:

It would be more useful if there was also a dry grip rating too, though.

Agreed - all tyres are a compromise, the tests specified only give half the picture. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of high performance tyres have worse wet performance than mediocre tyres, and the T1R is good value but ultimately a cheap high performance tyre.

[anonymous-user]

The wet grip figure is purely assessing straight-line wet braking and aquaplaning resistance, nothing else. So when cornering you might aquaplane off the road in 2mm of standing water but as long as it's decent in a straight line it'll get an A.

The test is worse than useless IMO because it pushes manufacturers to develop A rated tyres in the two measurements and bugger everything else, must be good because it's A rated, right?

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 12th March 16:11

[300bhp/ton]

jimmy156 said:

300bhp/ton said:

Without putting figures to those stats they don't really mean anything tbh.

From the tyre website

blackcircles.com said:

The ratings are measured via two types of test when a car is travelling at 50mph. [/snip]

The difference in braking distances between each grade is roughly 3m - the average length of 1 car.

So the goodyear i mentioned would stop roughly 12 meters before the toyo in the wet.

It still doesn't say under what conditions though. What width tyre was used, on what vehicle. Are we talking lock up, or braking with ABS? What pressure were the tyres, what temp was the surface, how wet and how much water?

I'm not disputing the test result, I just have no idea how it actually relates to putting those tyres on any vehicle or how it really offers an informed choice.

[kambites]

otolith said:

kambites said:

It would be more useful if there was also a dry grip rating too, though.

Agreed - all tyres are a compromise, the tests specified only give half the picture. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of high performance tyres have worse wet performance than mediocre tyres, and the T1R is good value but ultimately a cheap high performance tyre.

I was actually quite surprised at how well some cut-slicks do on the wet-grip test.

[kambites]

300bhp/ton said:

It still doesn't say under what conditions though. What width tyre was used, on what vehicle. Are we talking lock up, or braking with ABS? What pressure were the tyres, what temp was the surface, how wet and how much water?

I'm not disputing the test result, I just have no idea how it actually relates to putting those tyres on any vehicle or how it really offers an informed choice.

This stuff is all published if you hunt around on the internet.

It's rather like the official EU mpg cycle thing really. Perhaps rather unrealistic, but a reasonable point of comparison none-the-less. Useful for the buyers who just want a simple, quick comparison and don't want to understand what the numbers mean and for those who really want to know what they're buying and are willing to do their research.

[DanielSan]

kambites said:

I was actually quite surprised at how well some cut-slicks do on the wet-grip test.

I think R888's and the like struggle more when it's greasy rather than when properly wet for some reason. That seems to be the general view I've seen on reviews anyway.

[kambites]

DanielSan said:

kambites said:

I was actually quite surprised at how well some cut-slicks do on the wet-grip test.

I think R888's and the like struggle more when it's greasy rather than when properly wet for some reason. That seems to be the general view I've seen on reviews anyway.

That's certainly my experience of my (relatively mild) AD07 LTSs. They disperse water reasonably well but REALLY struggle on things like wet leaves and slushy snow. They're still, at best, on a par with the ditch-finders on the OH's Octavia on standing water, though.

[300bhp/ton]

kambites said:

I was actually quite surprised at how well some cut-slicks do on the wet-grip test.

I think this depends how wet. When I used to run some semi slicks daily they were brilliant in the damp and offered superior grip to 'normal' tyres, despite urban myth claiming otherwise. I believe this is due to the actual compound still being stickier. Where such tyres lose out is standing water as they don't have the same water dispersal abilities.

On the flip side, some very aggressive mud terrains I've run on 4x4's work brilliantly in very deep standing water (due to massive lugs and their ability to move large quantities of water). However they where truly awful on lightly damp surfaces.

[Vince70]

It's sounds to me that the new system is just another waste of money and about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
My theory is if it comes out of china and is cheap or has a name which sounds like flip flop steer clear.

I recently bought a couple of cheap nokians which are great but I asked on pistonheads first as there always seems someone who's more qualified to give you an answer and put you straight.

[kambites]

Vince70 said:

My theory is if it comes out of china and is cheap or has a name which sounds like flip flop steer clear.

The problem is, that's often plain wrong. There are some perfectly respectable tyres coming out of China these days. There are also some very poor tyres from the major European brands.

[peterperkins]

I think the tyre ratings are excellent and it allowed me to pick the best tyre for my car with a combination of good wet grip and low rolling resistance. I wasn't bothered about the price.

http://www.mytyres.co.uk/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?details=...

I note the tyes I choose a few months ago have now been surpassed by an A rated tyre for RR

http://www.mytyres.co.uk/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?suchen=O...


RR is very important and could save the cost of the tyre over it's lifetime in fuel efficiency. Anyone who picks a tyre with a bad RR rating is basically burning £5.00 notes. I agree RR is not everything but the new ratings allow you to get a good feel on the available tyres and hopefully pick sensibly. I wouldn't be surprised to see high RR tyres disappear fairly quickly from the market as they won't sell as well imho of course.

[otolith]

What you have to bear in mind is that the primary function of the labelling system is to get you to buy lower rolling resistance tyres. The noise and particularly the wet grip labels are there to prevent the manufacturers compromising those aspects too badly while optimising for emissions. This is mostly about reducing CO2 emissions.

Incidentally, it looks as if a lot of performance tyres will no longer be available in their current form from late next year - from November 2014, tyres will have to be at least class F on fuel efficiency and from 2018, class E. There are similar timescales for wet grip and noise - I wonder what's going to happen to the road legal trackday tyre market?