Given
70%
while driving a
Volkswagen Polo 1.4 8v
(175/60 R13) on
a combination of roads
for 8,000
spirited miles
I was looking for some replacement tires, with a smaller sidewall for improved responsiveness and found these within my budget.
At first I was quite unimpressed with the lack of grip, although that could have been toe out related, they felt very hard and solid, after putting a few miles through them, and having the alignment sorted they really came into there own, especially compared to other tires.
Wet grip was pretty average, and when loaded up you could accurately predict the limit, Dry grip was very good, almost surprising infact, you could really load up the tire, feel the flex in the steering wheel and just hear it roar slightly in the corners, approaching a chirp as it got to the limit or if you carried too much speed. SO it goes hand in hand that the feedback and progressiveness of these tires was great, there wasnt a sharp cut off it warned you before hand.
There are a couple of drawbacks, all the luxury of grip and feedback does come at the quick wear rate, I went through a set on the front a lot quicker than I would have liked, at the price they were though, not big money to replace. Road noise wasnt that bad, relatively speaking, but my cabin isnt the best for sound proofing, comfort wise, the sidewalls do flex quite well under load, but you can tell theres stiffness there when tootling over speedbumps etc.
I would reccomend these to anyone looking for a good tire on a budget.