FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

Looking into buying a set for the bus and have come up with three brands (in SA) so far -
Maxxis ($127ea), Kumho ($105ea) and GT Radial ($120ea with 5yr manufaturer's warranty).
Does anyone have any good (or bad) experiences with any of these tyres?

Stinky,

I run Sumitomo P185/80R13  90S  SC890 SL Tyres with no problems at all, very happy the performance.

Cheers
John

I also have Sumitomo 185/80R13 90S SC890 tyres on mine. Bought them August 2008 for $111.00 each from JAX tyres and so far have had no problems.

Mike

I've got a set of the maxxis on mine. They ride nice and look pretty good.  Dave

Had Khumo on the wagon and they were great for a year or two then they cured/hardened up so lost their grip. After that were lethal in the wet but still plenty of tread.

185/75 14 Sumitomos are $109 at City Discount Tyres Elizabeth, seems to be a good price for a popular brand.

Stinky,

I do not think tyre 75 series tyre is tall enough, the rolling circumference will be smaller.

Cheers
John

Stinky,

 I bought the set of Khumo 185 70 13 off ebay for $330 the set & can't fault them. Car sits on hiway speeds comfortably with a set of 3.55 diff gears.

Dean.

SC 890s suffer badly from oil bleed which means the whitewall goes brown quickly and has to be cleaned for around a year before the bleed stops. The Maxxis tyres are excellent in this respect and would be my pick and they have a slightly wider whitewall. (I know as I have run both)

The gearing in a stockie is low and if you run any radial less than a 185/80 the car will be screaming at 55 mph. The rolling diameter of a 185/80s is about 3% less than a 640/13 crossply and is the closest to it. Unless you are running a warm grey (which also means bigger bore) or a red, IMHO, any diff higher than a 3.55 is too hard for the engine. In a warm grey or better a 3.36 works well. The other factor is that 13" wheels are small and on a stockie small tyres make these cars look odd.

So, if the ride height is stock or near stock and the wheels are stock or near stock width, run a 185/80. The engine and your wallet will thank you and they look better ;)

For a modified, over to you...

Cheers
John

 ;) the plan at the moment is to run 14"s, I guess I'll need to toss a coin to decide between the Maxxis and the GT Radials.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, every bit helps.

hey, Stinky! You getting a very skinny foxtail to go with them anorexic whitewalls?  ;D

I work part time in a tyre store in Seaford Vic, I just fit a set of the GT white walls to a customer car on Saturday. I can't tell you what they drive like but I can tell you they had practically no runout and took almost no weight when balancing. That's always a good thing.

 what does 
' no runnout mean "  ?

yb.

Stinky, I've got Hankook whitelines, 185/70/14 and 215/70/14; happy with them so far...
Fronts suit stock HK/T/G rims, back suit 6 or 7 inch. From Antique Tyres.
(they couldn't supply a matching skinny foxtail though...)

cheers, jack

Damn, no foxtail  >:( then again there's that cat carcass on the side of the main road, would look great trailing off the roof aerial  :o

Sorry yackboy49, When Tyres are fitted to a wheel, they are then balanced on a wheel balancing machine. These usually have a hood. When you close the hood the wheel spins. Most tyre fitters don't take much notice of the wheel while it is spinning, they just open the hood after the wheel has spun and then add weight where indicated. What most people don't realise is that even if you balance the wheel correctly there is also one other important thing to take into account...runout. As the term suggests this is the displacement of the tyre shape. It's just like putting anything round on a lathe and checking with a dial gauge only on a bigger scale. If you watch the tyre while it is spinning on the balancing machine you will see that they are not always perfectly round, there can often be a few mm of variation in the tread. Even with a perfectly balanced wheel and tyre, if the runout is bad enough it can also cause a vibration. As a tyre fitter, we take these two things into account when deciding if a tyre fits well. A lot of cheap tyres have bad runout due to the way they are cooled. In the case of GT's they seem to spin up really smooth and round with hardly any weight required for balancing. This is always a sign of a well made tyre. From there it's all about grip and Kilometers. The harder the tyre the longer the life but the less the grip. The softer the tyre the better the grip but don't expect a lot of Ks. This is also why so many hard old 80's tyre are still getting around yet new 17, 18 & 19" tyres often only last 40'000 Ks etc.

Pinky