Argh! Tyres!

[Dave29]

So, just wasted 2 hours at my local tyre centre who assured me that the Bridgestones that they were about to fit were NRFT only to tell me, after an hour, that they'd realised that they were RFT.

Having stropped and told them to put my old tyres back on, I now find that nowhere seems to stock NRF star rated tyres

The only thing I can find are Michelin Latitudes.

So questions:

1. can you actually get 20" NRF star marked tyres?
2. will they actually make a difference or am i chasing the holy grail for no benefit?
3. are the Michelins any good / star rated?

Car is currently virtually undrivable due to combination of old RFs and new NRF economy tyres. Losing the will to live!

Please help

[marti]

I always fit NRFT tyres....took the RFT's off my 3 series convert and changed to conti NRFT's better quailty ride in my opinion...

[Dave29]

Look like I've just located some Dunlop SP Sport Quattro Max...anybody using?

[Nictrix]

I am not a fan of runflats and removed them from our Z4 early in our ownership.
But in the X6/X5 it just seems to make sense to have them.
One thing is that there is not the huge amount of money to be saved by buying non-runflats that you can save on smaller tyre sizes.
The other is the safety side of it. My wife had a front blow out on the outside lane of the motorway at almost midnight and it hardly skipped a beat. She said there was a slight wobble and a bong telling her the tyre had lost pressure. She moved to the hard shoulder to check it and after phoning me drove the rest of the 6 miles home slowly.
Without the runflats she could have been stuck there a while.

[Dave29]

must confess there seems to be less anti-RF sentiment here than on other BMW/Mini forums...I've not seen too many people claiming their cars to be dramatically improved by fitting NRFs...are you out there?

[Icicles]

I run the Michelin latitude NRFT
Very happy with them. Quiet. They do the job nicely. I have the 20inch staggered set up.
I'm lucky my e70 came with a spare tyre and jack etc

Chris

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[Dave29]

Decision made - Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GTs going on tomorrow. 

[Chrispy]

I've ordered 4x 19" (staggered) NRFT Hankook Ventus Evo 2's for mine from TyreLeader.....currently awaiting them to arrive by courier.  Can't wait to put them on, so sick of the concrete crashy ride which wakes my 6 month old up if he ever happens to nod off in the car..... 

£503 for all 4, delivered.

Apparently they're standard fit on the newer X5's? 

https://news.blackcircles.com/2013/11/h ... ew-bmw-x5/

They were the only ones with a 111 load rating available for the rear as that's needed for the 7 seater.

[Dave29]

aren't you concerned that they're not (presumably) star rated?

does it matter?

[Chrispy]

[quote="Dave29"]
aren't you concerned that they're not (presumably) star rated?

does it matter?
[/quote]

I've mulled this one over a lot and made my choice.  The chap in this thread http://xdrivers.co.uk/forum/index.php/t ... 536.0.html put on staggered 19" NRFT's to sort out the ride and had no issues, as have many others, yet some insist that the reason their transfer box imploded was due to non * marked tyres.  And yet there are some who have diligently used * marked tyres and still had a transfer box fail, so for me the evidence was too anecdotal either way and I had to make my own decision.

Also as I ultimately have one tyre that's kaput (N/S front) and the rest have some life left in them I had to make my choice now - replace the 1 with a new Bridgestone Dueller and stick with the * marked RFT's for a good while longer, or bite the bullet and replace all 4 with new non RFT's.

The load thing limited me to Hankooks but also the fact they're now standard fit on new X5's according to the articles I found made me more comfortable.

[Alan Gunn]

Are the tyres being delivered to you or a garage.
Either way you could measure them (circumference that is) just to see if there is a big difference in the front and back.

[Chrispy]

They're coming to my house so I can take a look.  Probably get a spirit level across them too out of curiosity.

[celica]

[quote="Chrispy"]
I've ordered 4x 19" (staggered) NRFT Hankook Ventus Evo 2's for mine from TyreLeader.....currently awaiting them to arrive by courier.  Can't wait to put them on, so sick of the concrete crashy ride which wakes my 6 month old up if he ever happens to nod off in the car..... 

£503 for all 4, delivered.

Apparently they're standard fit on the newer X5's? 

https://news.blackcircles.com/2013/11/h ... ew-bmw-x5/

They were the only ones with a 111 load rating available for the rear as that's needed for the 7 seater.
[/quote]

Standard fit on new x5, does that mean new x5 aren’t on run flats?
I’ve looked at these before let me know how you find them

With increased competiton I would have thought tyre choices would be better from range and value now, but still expensive on the x5

[Chrispy]

I think there's a RFT version of the same tyre and it's those BMW have opted for - otherwise they're the same. Now I expect BMW being BMW they'd have gone through the star marking process too.

From what I've read other premium marques are also opting for these Hankooks too so they can't be bad. As soon as the rears come (tyre leader shipped the fronts and rears separately for some reason) and they're on I'll report back.
Expecting a fairly dramatic improvement in ride.

[celica]

I’ve seen more manufacturers with SUV use Hankook too