[Vestas]

I've had enough of these Michelin Energy Saver tyres the car came with - they're pretty dreadful when its cold & wet plus the fronts are down to around 2.8mm. I'm sure that doesn't help but frankly the tyres are mid-range performers in the wet during summer and given "winter" seems to involve 6 months of rain with the occasional cold snap I'd prefer something better.

Gave consideration to the Michelin Cross-Climates (after a discussion elsewhere on here) but it doesn't appear they perform particularly well in the wet either - better than these "Energy Saver" ones for sure but pretty disappointing really.

The Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen 3 tyres seem to be the best performing option available at a sensible price given the Ceed SW has 205/55R16 91H factory fitted. I can get the 94V variant for £300 fitted if I buy 4 tyres. Test reviews suggest it outperforms the Michelin Cross-Climate in everything bar snow the dry.

Just wondering if anyone has tried them.

 

[solarpower03]

If you are after winter tyres which would work in summer, then yes. However i have heard that most tyres increase tyre noises, and people seems to recommend Goodyear efficient grip.

 

[Vestas]

I think I'm actually going to go for the Bridgestone A005 EVO tyres. Worse in the snow, better in the wet/dry than the Goodyears but frankly the difference in the snow is negligible for the SW - not like you're going to be letting the back end slide much with the extra 300mm overhang....

They're also available locally in the 91H rating which is the same as the plate on the car. Goodyears are 94V which I know is superior but paying £50 less for the four tyres and not having potential insurance nonsense about changing tyre ratings is OK with me.

I'll report back if/when I refit the tyres.

 

[dave1978]

I think I'm actually going to go for the Bridgestone A005 EVO tyres. Worse in the snow, better in the wet/dry than the Goodyears but frankly the difference in the snow is negligible for the SW - not like you're going to be letting the back end slide much with the extra 300mm overhang....

They're also available locally in the 91H rating which is the same as the plate on the car. Goodyears are 94V which I know is superior but paying £50 less for the four tyres and not having potential insurance nonsense about changing tyre ratings is OK with me.

I'll report back if/when I refit the tyres.

I had them on my Hyundai i30 a couple of years ago - the best tyres I've ever used. They had great grip in the wet or dry, were superb on a thin layer of snow and were QUIET!

 

[Vestas]

Haven't done anything about it yet dave - hopefully soon but thanks for the advice.

The Michelins the car comes with are actually reasonably quiet on decent roads at temperatures above 10C.

On anything other than pristine tarmac the road noise is substantial but I think that's probably got a deal to do with the state of the front tyres which are heading towards 2.5mm tread in the middle and marginally more towards the edge. Even so they are noisy on "average" UK roads.

New tyres of any sort are going to be quieter than these

I just don't like the way the Michelins behave when its dry/wet/dry in a short space of time (during winter) and I think a lot of that is down to the tyre compound used. It doesn't deal well with sudden reductions in road temperature but YMMV of course.

 

[Vestas]

Finally got the Michelins it came with changed for Bridgestone A005 EVO tyres.

Road noise - HUGELY reduced. Cannot emphasise this enough. Its like a pair of headphones with ANC on and off - its really that much difference.

Handling - much improved cornering but that's probably because the old fronts were down below 2.5mm tread.

Not really had much chance to try them out in seriously adverse weather.

 

[Vestas]

Just an update on the Bridgestone A005 EVOs re fuel consumption and other stuff.

They're rated C on rolling resistance so should use marginally more fuel than the Michelin Energy Saver (or Goodyear Efficient Grip which people are using) summer tyres.

They are pretty much where you'd expect them to be at 46.6mpg (measured, not "computed by the car") in-town where the rolling resistance is negligible compared to other factors.

Motorways - not done a long run where I could actually measure the consumption myself yet but it's down on 15-20 mile M1 runs by about 2-3mpg on the trip computer which frankly doesn't surprise me given the difference in tread. 20% of the fuel used by a car is apparently from rolling resistance so any increase in that is going to show up big time on motorway driving.

Adverse weather - we had some torrential rain/hail/snow between sunny spells last week and its nothing like the Michelin when transitioning from warm road in sun to hail/snow/rain rapidly. The grip really doesn't change at all which is all about the tyre compound.

You can feel a slight change in the steering when the tyres are warm verging on hot. There's no loss of grip but there's less "feedback" from the tyres into the steering wheel - this is expected behaviour due to the tyre pattern. Again most people won't notice this at all - if you're driving aggressively into corners you will notice but if you're doing that regularly then these probably wouldn't be your first choice tyre.

So IMHO they're a great in-town tyre which will get you to work/home on roads which don't get gritted when snow falls and lies.

They'll be ideal for people in rural areas or people who mainly travel on single-carriageway A/B roads.

Motorway drivers look elsewhere I reckon.

4.5/5 so far....

NB - car is 1L T-GDi Ceed SW.

 

[gdh300]

That's an interesting read, Vestas.

I want to replace (at least) my front CrossClimates before next winter, so looking early to see what's about. Supposedly the CrossClimate2 is finally coming to Europe so I'll be keen to see what the lad on Tyre Reviews makes of them.

I found the CrossClimate+ very good in snow but never really noticed any deficit in wet handling, perhaps I don't push them enough! I did though notice they did sometimes suffer some aquaplanning when I really wouldn't have expected it.

 

[Vestas]

The Bridgestones are supposedly better than the Crossclimate+ in rain and dry but worse in snow. I reckon you'd have to push the car hard to notice the difference myself.

I think the difference in noise/comfort between the Bridgestone and Michelin (especially on rougher bitmac) is far more noticeable than minor handling differences and that's probably the deciding factor for me.

Re aquaplaning - with very few exceptions the all-season tyres are always going to be inferior to summer tyres in warm temperatures. Seems like you either get great wet handling and not so great aquaplane performance or vice versa. I've yet to see an aquaplaning test at below 7C where I suspect the all-season tyres will outperform summer tyres.

It'll be interesting to see how the Crossclimate 2 performs but I suspect they'll be hard to find in the UK for the first few months (Brexit), just like the Vector4Seasons Gen3 were.

 

[Vestas]

Bit of an update given I've put some motorway/A road miles on them and things have got warmer (28C here the other day)....

1) Motorways - runs to central Scotland from Leics vary from busy motorway (usually dry) to empty motorway with wet spots (Cumbria). Didn't feel any difference even when I hit localised torrential rain and I was doing around 80-85mph. No aquaplaning although I'm sure I could have induced some Driving at less than 3k rpm will deliver around 46mpg at 80(ish) and 75mph will give somewhere around 50mpg assuming you're driving sensibly (ie not braking/accelerating all the time). Quiet enough even at high speeds but noisy on old sections of road;

2) A-Roads - Leicester to Boston (Lincs) & back 3 times in one day (don't ask). Wall to wall sunshine, caravans and speed cameras. This returned a quite remarkable 53mpg with extensive use made of cruise control - saved my sanity but gave me cramp in my hand with the amount of times I was dialing up/down speeds No problems with grip on roads exposed to sun for 12 hours in Lincs/28C ambient temps;

3) Observation - they pick up larger pieces of bitmac on elderly roads in warm temperatures. Haven't seen any damage on car yet.

Still a 9/10 - if it grips like this in summer its fine for the car (Ceed SW 1L-TGDi) all year round.

Edit - mpg figures aren't the trip computer, they're fuel in and miles done - manual calcs.

 

[Vestas]

These were fine in the recent hot weather (33-34C here) although if you push it hard into a corner like a slip road its probably a fair bit less "grippy" than the stock summer tyres. It's not anything you'd get into trouble with on the Ceed SW 1.0 T-GDi anyway.

After maybe 3k miles on them the urban/suburban MPG is about the same as the Michelins were. Motorway MPG is down a bit in the hot weather which isn't entirely unexpected. Haven't introduced E10 petrol to this equation yet - going to try to run it near dry before filling up with E10.