club.liberty.asn.au

The car yard I've just bought my 08GT from has put 2 "JINYU" tyres on the rear. They might as well have put a pair of "FUKYU"s on them! Car arrives in a week, I can only imagine how they will handle in the wet.
So I'll be looking for some new tyres, what do you have? Are you happy with them? Fill in the below list and lets see what brands work and what dont.

Brand:
Size:
Handling in Dry:
Handling in Wet:
Noise:
Value for Money:

Brand: Hankook Ventus Sport V12 K110
Size: 215/45/18
Handling in Dry: Excellent
Handling in Wet: Excellent
Handling on Gravel: Excellent
Noise: Very Good (not as quiet as Bridgestone RE050A, but better than Federal 595EVO, Toyo Proxes4)
Value for Money: Excellent

As far as I can tell on my 3.0R-B, they are comparable to the factory fitted RE050A, but for $190 a corner fitted (at a local retailer, not ordered from the US), represent great value compared with the OEM tyre which is nearly $500 a corner

Brand: Carbon Series CS88
Size: 225/40/18
Handling in Dry: OK
Handling in Wet: Horrendous!!!!!
Noise: Hum at low and high speed
Value for Money: OK

Buy these if you need to prop up the cardboard roof on your house behind the dumpster in the alleyway. STAY AWAY at all costs.

Brand: Pirelli PZero
Size: 225/35/18
Handling in Dry: Excellent
Handling in Wet: Excellent
Noise: Minimal road noise, high pitched road noise around 40-50km/h but nothing the radio cant drown out, whining stops if you go faster or slower than 50km/h (strange).
Value for Money: Steal, they were $193 each on Ebay by International Tyre Traders (int-tt) which if i remember are located in Australia so postage is fairly quick. You probably won't be able to find these at this price anymore, probably because they were left over stock or stock that needed to be cleared.

They have Rosso's 225/40/18 for a little bit more, and theyre a better tyre than Pzeros.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PIRELLI-225- ... 3a7bb7c02b

Brand: Maxxis M-35 Victra Asymmet
Size: 225/40/18
Handling in Dry: Excellent
Handling in Wet: Excellent
Handling in Snow: Excellent
Noise: Quiet from new - at ~20,000kms and still dead quiet...
Value for Money: 228.00 each fitted at time of buying wheels, so balance and alignment included in price.

Might be worth noting that I took these to the snow the week after I got them and half way up Mt Hotham through heavy snow everyone else was putting their chains on, I decided to see how I go and If I felt un-easy I would put chains on. - Got all the way to the top without even the slightest traction scare. I LOVE these tyres.

Brand: Toyo T1 Proxes
Size: 235/40/18
Handling in Dry: More than enough for the way I drive on the road, you'd have to do something pretty silly to lose traction.
Handling in Wet: Has hardly rained here since they went on, and not enough to get the roads particularly wet so too early to say.
Noise: I listen to my music way too loud to hear road noise LOL
Value for Money: Hard to say, they're not cheap but apparently they're very durable. It will depend on how many K's I get out of them, but that said, I'd rather pay good dollars for good rubber, it's worth it purely from a safety aspect.

Brand: Maxxis Victra iPro
Size: 235/45-18 (Outback +1 Fitment with 98 load rating)
Handling in Dry: Excellent. These are a HP summer tyre and grip very well up here in Alpine roads. Very predictable.
Handling in Wet: Again very good. Certainly no OMG moments like you get with the cheap Chinese brands
Noise: On the Alpine roads all tyres are noisy but on the Hume to Syd/Melb they are very quiet.
Value for Money: Very good. I'd say these tyres are much better than the OEM Yokos however that's a little apples and oranges. They are better than the Proxes 4s I had on my old Lib but again the Proxes is an all weather tyre. I'd put these up there in the top range for performance but mid range for price. This is my third set and I usually see 40 000ks, again on Alpine roads.

In the spirit of amateur reviews...

My tyres are awesome in all regards 10/10

...

Brand: Khumo KU39
Size: 235/35/19
Handling in Dry: Very good - More than I would think I would ever need on public roads. I took them on the track and they handled it better then I expected but were still my weak link (as you would expect for a raod tyre). The good thing is that when you push them hard and they start to let go they do so gracefully and it is easy to stay in control.
Handling in Wet: Very good. I've never had issues and I still push pretty hard in the wet. I can get some sideways action with a bit of a heavy right foot in the wet, but it only happens if I purposely do it and it is controllable.
Noise: Pretty low noise. Definitely no issues here.
Value for Money: Very good - 4 tyres fitted for < $1000
Wear: Very good - They seem to be lasting very well and they haven't been babied.

Brand: Hankook evo s1 (K104)
Size: 215/45/18
Handling in Dry: Very good. Although I didn't use them for as long and in the time I had them I didn't really put them through their paces like I have the Khumos.
Handling in Wet: Very good again. Never had any issues.
Noise: Pretty low noise. Definitely no issues here.
Value for Money: Very good. Can't remember the prices but definitely under $1000 fitted.
Wear: I didn't use them for all that long but it seemed good.

Other tyres I have had on past cars that I would definitely recommend are Michelin PS2 and PS3.
Both were great when I had those.

Probably the worst tyre experience I have had was the Dunlop SP 3000. That was a long time ago though and was on a ford falcon, so that's a very different car.
They weren't useless but i could very eaasily break traction on dry tar (6 cylinder un-modified performance wise).

i also wasn't happy with the first model of the goodyear eagle F1 directional tyres (the falcon again).
I heard that they were made in different factories around the world and some locations made lower quality than others but I don't know if that's true.

Brand: Kumho KU31
Size: 225/45/18
Handling in Dry: Good for a stock Lib GT, basically on the limit when pushing a tuned GT around the corners
Handling in Wet: Pretty decent, I don't feel in danger with them.
Noise: Slightly audible, but quieter than my exhaust
Value for Money: Good IMO. $145 per tyre, balanced and fitted at St George Tyres, Sydney. Cheapest mob I could find. Had them on for 20000 kms later (3 and a bit months) and they're around the 40% mark now....I'd say premature wear from having too much fun around corners, roundabouts, etc.

Brand: Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetrical 2 - made in Germany
Size: 235/40/18
Handling in Dry: Excellent, very sticky for road tyres
Handling in Wet: Excellent, no concerns
Noise: Slightly audible, but quieter than my exhaust
Value for Money: Got them fitted for $1016 for 4, so happy as.

Motor mag tyre of 2012... http://www.goodyear.com.au/dotCMS/TyreDetailAction?website=GYR&websegmentcode=PASSENGER&websegmentcode2=&mtpcode=00833&from=nPerPage

I'll +1 the KU31's - great in the dry and very good in the wet (but they're crap on dirt roads, predictably). It falls short of "excellent" in both on-road categories, but for the price, you just can't argue with them.

Just a side note here, whilst your tyres are the only direct link between the car and the road, you can do a lot more to ensure they do their job of sticking to the road, the simplest being fatter front and rear aftermarket swaybars. Fatter swaybars means your car rolls less and means that less pressure is put on the tyres to roll sideways and end up having the shoulders do all the cornering work. The end result is more of the important side of the rubber making contact with the road and far more even tyre wear conversely making your tyres last that much longer.

Yeah no. Your theory sucks

And ku31 are scary bad. Proper shit my pants with them on.

Fz201 > r888 > 595rsr > ku36 > re050a > 595ss > Bob Jane all rounders > horses entrails > Kelly chargers > riding a bicycle > ku31.

In order of dry grip, fun and confidence.

Wet... All much the same except ku36 and fz201 are very sensitive to changes in temp. But if you're pushing 8/10ths in the wet you deserve what's coming anyway.

Pick of the bunch for cost is arguably 595RSR. Racing ready in Canberra for a price.

Though I rate the high end pirelli's/Michelin as they're just so quiet whilst being tremendously grippy, but you pay for it.

kiks wrote:Yeah no. Your theory sucks

And ku31 are scary bad. Proper shit my pants with them on.

Fz201 > r888 > 595rsr > ku36 > re050a > 595ss > Bob Jane all rounders > horses entrails > Kelly chargers > riding a bicycle > ku31.

In order of dry grip, fun and confidence.

Wet... All much the same except ku36 and fz201 are very sensitive to changes in temp. But if you're pushing 8/10ths in the wet you deserve what's coming anyway.

Exaggeration aside, I'm interested in those different tyres you mentioned and their characteristics detailed in the OP's template.
And value for money - what's a set of them cost fitted and balanced? For the $580 I paid for the set of KU31s, I'm pretty happy. I definitely want something gripper for my next set so I'll get in contact with Racing ready for the 595RSRs.

I push the KU31s hard and although they squeal a lot at times, I still have confidence in them. I wouldn't say they make me shit my pants....more like test my AWD drifting skills

Had a pair of Rotala F107 on my rears (came with wheels), since changed for a pair of RE050's, we all know what there like.

Brand: Rotala F107
Size:224/40/18
Handling in Dry: Average
Handling in Wet: Non existent
Noise: Low noise
Value for Money: You get what you pay for.

Just something I noted when these came off, the side walls have so much flex I'm able to compress the tyre with my hand.

Prior to these I had Nexen N6000 which for $150/crn fitted & balanced presented good value for money and dare I say nearly as good as the RE050's.