• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Rostyle-fit tire preferences?

Share this page

davester

davester

Jedi Trainee
Country flag
Offline
My 71 BGT is progressing steadily towards operational status so I need to get new tires (my current ones were bought in 1988). I'm sticking with the Rostyle wheels so I'm pretty much limited to 185/70-14. This car is likely going to be driven in the rain but is unlikely to see snow. I also couldn't care less about treadwear, given the small number of miles this car will see.

Based on Tire Rack's recommendation (and the salesman said he based it solely on the H speed rating), the Sumitomo HTR 200 is the best performing tire out there but some on this site have commented on its imprecise steering qualities. Are there any better performing, reasonably priced tires in this size range that people have experienced? A couple of threads have mentioned Vredestein Quatracs, but I can't find any info on them and they're twice the price of the Sumis. Other possibilities are Yokohama Avid T4, General Altimax RT, Pirelli P4 and Kumho Solus which have good Tire Rack reviews but are "standard touring all-season" tires (General, Pirelli, Kumho) or "performance all-season" (Yoko) as compared to the "high performance summer" category of the Sumis, so I'd expect them to have poorer performance (is that really true?). Any input would be appreciated.
 
I have a set of Michelin hydroedges on my 75 in the 185/70/14 and have been very happy with them. Turned out to be a rather sticky tire that's quite and handles mountain roads fantastically and in the 20 mile long torrential downpour I got caught in with the top down they did fantastic in the rain. Lots of standing water on the freeway and inside the car.
 
I have the Yokos on Rostyles on my B. I'm quite happy with them, but I'm not autocrossing anymore, either. Like you, I don't put many miles a year on my car. Under 1,000 usually.


Colin
 
I guess it depends on what your doing with the car.

I have the Sumitomo HTR 200s on my '69 MGB and they're fine for the way I use them.
Like you, I won't drive the car in the snow and I'm really not likely to drive the car in bad weather....just an occasional unexpected rain.
I put these tires on last Summer and I've driven the car 2000 miles since then with no issues. My MGB is driven pretty gently. My car has wire-wheels, by the way.

I had Sumitomo HTR 200s on my Spridget when it was a street car and used that car for an occasional autocross. I thought the Sumitomo were sort of hard and slippery. They wore well (which I didn't care about) and were not really that sticky. I threw them away after about 5 years and they still had plenty of thread.

The Sumitomos are a good value for the price and are fine for normal driving. Not really what I'd call "high-performance". Rain driving has been acceptable as far as I have noticed.
 
Back
Top