Given
99%
while driving a
Skoda Octavia GT 193hp
(205/50 R17 V) on
a combination of roads
for 200
average miles
I always used to buy top premium tires for my car,an FWD Skoda Octavia 1.8T,remapped to 240hp. After searching a lot and with a lot of hesitation,i decided to order 4 N BLUE HD PLUS tires. Well...what a nice surprise! After 350kms,my first impressions are very good. Dry and wet grip are amazing,they reach perfomance temperature easily, they are smooth and the comfort level is equal to other very expensive tires. I do not know about the wear,the depth of the grooves is about 6.8mm,smaller than others indeed. But their treadwear is rated as " 360 " which means that they will last well. Time will show that. I usually keep my tires for 25.000-30.000 kms,so if they last about 20.000-25.000 kms ,i will be quite satisfied.
And now,the price:...262 euros for 4 of them!!! Not installed. About 40% cheaper than the top premiums ones! They,also, have amazing rolling resistance, i have never experienced that before and this happens without compromising the grip levels! An other "sensitive" factor is the tire pressure. My car placard suggests 30.5f psi /32r psi for 205/50/17 89 V or W. Theese are 93V XL and they should need almost the same inflations. I keep them to 36.5-38 psi for comfort but they can easily go to 40 psi if i focus on low fuel consumption.I have 5 professional tire gauges,so i do not think that my measurements are wrong.Maybe this occurs to their freshness,time will show once again.
In my opinion ,this yre is a bargain and quite equal ,in some points, to other more expensive tires. If they keep perfoming well, very soon to say yet, i will buy them again. The heat in Greece is a strong enemy for tires,so lets see how they will cope with it.