It's rego time, and my front Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres were on the precipitous edge of legality. I've been very happy with the PS4s, but unfortunately any new tyres had to be significantly cheaper than the Michelins', so I started searching.
I settled on Achilles ATR Sport 2, mostly because I'd had some previously on another car and didn't actually hate them (not something I could say about all the tyres I've had). Not available, but Achilles 2233 were, so in extremis I paid $105 each for these (from Jax, "I think you'll be surprised" said the salesman, yeah right...).
I opted to downsize slightly from the stock 215/45/17 to 205/45/17, because this would slightly stretch the sidewall (causes the sidewall to behave as if it were a bit stiffer, for better steering response, in theory), and happily this size was still well within the maximum 15mm diameter change mandated by the powers that be.
I wasn't expecting much, but have been very pleasantly surprised (the salesman wasn't bullshitting, who'd expect that...). I was running 35psi in the PS4s, and at first this is what I put in these cheap tyres. This was OK, but adding another 5psi has made them much better. Steering response is very good, and grip seems quite acceptable, even on a wet road, usually the Achilles heel of cheap tyres (see what I did there, I'm just so damn witty...). Having said this, I haven't yet put them to the test in an emergency situation, just some 'press on' driving.
So, I was expecting to be unimpressed, but so far the very opposite has been the case. They are excellent, especially for the price, and substantially better than some other significantly more expensive tyres that I've used over the years. It's a big call, but so far I'm liking them just a bit more than the highly respected PS4s. Whether I would like them as much in the stock 215/45/17 size I just don't know.
Just saying, as the kids say (when saying something unlikely to be believed...).
Regards,
John.
The last time a pair of tyres surprised me, I changed them ASAP. ;)
CB,
There's a significant difference between surprised and frightened...
Had some of those tyres too...
Regards,
John.
Quote from: johnl on June 20, 2018, 03:55:39 PM
I settled on Achilles ATR Sport 2, mostly because I'd had some previously on another car and didn't actually hate them (not something I could say about all the tyres I've had). Not available, but Achilles 2233 were, so in extremis I paid $105 each for these (from Jax, "I think you'll be surprised" said the salesman, yeah right...).
Don't tell my wife. I just put a set of four 215/40 18s on my 147 ... Michelin Pilot Sport 4s. Ouch, $1100 all up. But the good lady is very happy with the grip in the wet so far...
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Quote from: alphahall on June 20, 2018, 04:27:25 PM
Don't tell my wife. I just put a set of four 215/40 18s on my 147 ... Michelin Pilot Sport 4s. Ouch, $1100 all up. But the good lady is very happy with the grip in the wet so far...
Ouch indeed. I'm glad I have the 17" inch rims then. Four PS4s can be had in 215/45/17 (from Jax) for $616 ($154 each if bought as a full set, $179 per if buying fewer). They sell your size at $1,016 for 4.
Even so, having now tried both, I'd prefer the Achilles 2233 tyres on the car now to the PS4s that were on it before. Jax has the 2233s for $99 per tyre (no deal for buying four), so that's $396 for a full set, a bargain I reckon (even though I paid $105, Jax apparently having dropped the price since my purchase). The 2233s don't seem to be available in 215/40/18.
The more I drive on the 2233s the more I like them. It's the steering response that I find is the best thing, I think better than the PS4s, though this might be to do with the particular 2233s that I bought being a bit narrower (205/45) and therefore the sidewall being a bit more 'stretched' and also a tad shorter than the old PS4s (215/45). I just really like the way the 2233s feel to drive with, though I doubt they would outperfom the PS4s on a track, or say in extreme braking.
This is even more impressive considering that the old PS4s were at the near slick stage (but still quite grippy), when steering response is at it's best (no tall tread blocks to squirm around and dull response), and the 2233s are new with full depth squirmy tread blocks. This doesn't seem to be at the expense of decent grip, the car is not understeering any more than it did with the PS4s.
Regards,
John
I've just recently put Bridgestone Potenza Adrenaline RE003's on my 147 GTA and been very happy. She previously had some very cheap "Imperial" brand tyres on which squealed with only mildly 'spirited' driving. Potenza's feel glued to the road now. They go for about $200 each but Bridgestone often have a buy 4 only pay for 3 offer on.
A more general note, it seems tyre sales might be - on the whole - a bit depressed at present. Quite a lot of stuff being vended at amenable prices.
It introduces a different problem - what to choose, what to choose! :)
Quote from: sportivaPlease don't go there!
Remember how there was always a kid who'd touch the electric fence after being warned not to do it? ::)
Besides, just mentally put yourself in the peanut gallery while everyone at the front huffs and puffs, rather like these blokes trying to impress a young bird:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTwy8ruyY40
Seeing this thread has taken a pause , veered to the left and is now exploring tap dancing enjoy this little more recent (1955) clip, one of my favourites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOoNOs8Ql28
Sorry now back on topic "Alfasud Ashtray Restoration" sorry tyre discussion . ( simple : you get what you pay for with tyres)
Classic! IMO they had better sync than the first two but less physicality.
Also had a guffaw at a couple of lightning quick references (in the Hope/Cagney dancing) to the old school ballet queens.
A baffling reception awaits the person who innocently posts "There's a tapping noise coming from the front of my car"...
I suspect I'm going to be sorry that I started this thread. Being tyre related, I should have known better...
Regards,
John.
Have you trawled the Bay of E lately for indicative tyre prices? You'll see what Sportiva and I are talking about.
My only complaint is not being able to buy set after set of the different possibilities and try them all. Always happy to be open about the limitations as discovered by me, of any tyre I may choose to fit.
Maybe that history of silly tyre prices is one reason people have reluctance to bin a pair, even if lightly used. Now, my 80 litre Pug tank is well past $100 to fill, usually $120-$140 depending on the location and how empty. That's more than a decent tyre!
I remember the A008 as being an aspirational tyre, I remember retreads on the Falcon, and I remember the used tyre bloke in the back of Milperra charging me $60 F/B for a nearly-finished Goodyear to replace the one a mate had driven flat.
Was eyeballing some Ecsta V720 tyres, $375/4 with a Fleabay voucher then my homework led me to a forum thread where this chap destroyed some on a track:
https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-racing-25/kumho-ecsta-v720-review-261367/
Which kind of rattled my confidence!
Quote from: sportiva on July 02, 2018, 09:56:10 PM
A retread explained
https://www.youi.com.au/youi-news/why-you-should-avoid-retreads
To my knowledge youi does not insure large commercial transport vehicles or aircraft, only passenger vehicles, could this have anything to do with their position? ;) ;D
(Only kidding, as far as I am concerned retreads for passenger vehicles should be illegal world wide)
As an impoverished student I could only afford a set of retreads for my VG Valiant Safari. They were great til I ignored the recommended speed limitation and the tread separated on two wheels simultaneously when I was doing 100 on the freeway.
" My VG Valiant Safari."
Now your talking. I had a VF ute, 3 speed colum shift with the old slant six in the mid 70's, it weighted nothing I also had the 1750 GTV at the same time. I remember the ute being quicker in a straight line, went like a cut cat but it was bloody dangerous in the wet on the old cross ply's. Drove it to Perth a couple of times towing a boat . Never missed a beat
Worm and ball non-power steering boxes on some cars of that era, more turns lock-to-lock than days in the week... I believe a lot of sticky ends were precipitated by the pilot's inability to correct in a timely manner. We are spoiled now by comparison, and can crash harder at higher speeds. :-\
Being a bit like the bloke who goes to the Folies-Bergère and looks instead at the audience, I actually find it fascinating how much one can sometimes feel the machinations of a tyre as it's driven, courtesy of chassis improvements such as those noted above.
My VG was one of the fastest cars in a straight line I have owned (or so it seemed at the time anyway). Big 245 Hemi with extractors. But no weight over rear wheels so it could get exciting in the wet. Great looking thing too, slept in the back. Drove Perth to Melbourne and back in it with my gf of 2 months who is now my missus.
VG? VF? What luxury!! I bet they even had heaters, right? Not like my AP6.
Funnily enough was talking to a bloke at work about retreads only yesterday, and how I've never been that desperate. He did indeed have a choice of tread patterns back in the day and Pirelli was one of them.
Working heater yes. Locking doors no. And by the end, she wasn't burning oil so much as pumping it straight out the exhaust (I think valve stem seals were shot).
I traded up to a '75 VJ Wagon with key operated electric rear window, and plastic wood trim on the dash.
Bloody luxury.
Except for the porous cooling system which meant I had to top up the radiator at each end of every journey (and often midway too).
But those were the days - I had no money to fix 'em, so I just bought old bangers and ran them til they died. Bloody loved those cars. And the poo brown HJ Kingswood wagon that followed: three on the tree with nice fat chromies, a bent rear passenger door that wouldn't close completely and which started by turning the ignition lock with your fingers (look mum, no keys!)...
Back in my student days I never once resorted to buying retreads, I'd seen too many falling apart. 'Remoulds' were my usual purchase (if I didn't happen to score some decent second hand tyres for a good price). Remoulds (I think they were branded 'Falcon') were much like retreads, but with the new rubber bonded from bead to bead instead of just to the tread area, so everything you could see was 'new'. I ran a number of these on my Nota, and never had a single problem with them.
The new bonded rubber was invariably quite soft, and gripped amazingly well, espsecially when you got a bit of heat into them, especially when embarrasing a GTHO Falcon on the Galston Gorge Rd (and other youthful misbehavior that I choose not to recount...).
Of course this softness also meant that their longevity wasn't the best, but the Nota only weighed about 550kg, so they lasted well enough. A substantially heavier car may well have tested their probably questionable structural integrity more severely, so they may not have been so trouble free with a less featherweight car...
Regards,
John.
I had to Google Nota John. What model was yours?
It was a Nota 'Sportsman'. Think something somewhere between a Lotus 6 and 7, but a semi home made Aussie version. No two were the same, but basically a two seater open topped spaceframe chassis with a mid / front mounted engine (north / south, unlike the better known 'Fang', with it's east / west Cooper S engine in the rear).
When I bought it, it had a 1 litre BMC (Sprite) engine and four speed box, which I modified with a polished 1100S head, Waggot 'rally' camshaft, twin choke sidedraught Dellorto, oversized Mahle pistons (11 - 1 compression ratio), lightweight flywheel, racing clutch (actually a stock Triumph Herald clutch, same part number as the BMC 'special competition' clutch for the Sprite, but much cheaper...). This little engine put out about 70hp at the rear wheels, estimated near enough to 100 at the flywheel (according the bloke running the dyno). It broke about four gearboxes, one or two differentials and a couple of half shafts.
The front suspension was a Ford Prefect beam axle, cut in half to form a low pivot point swing axle (which worked much better than it sounds like it should). Front brakes were Ford Zephyr drums. The rear axle and rear drum brakes were BMC A40 Farina (I think), with the axle located by four radius rods and a panhard rod. Other odds and sods from this and that.
When I sold it, it had a Fiat 1800 Twin Cam and 5 speed box from a 124 Sport, front brakes from a Mk2 Cortina GT, rear axle from an RX2 (unbreakable, unlke the fragile BMC axle and differential...), rear disc brakes from the same Fiat 124 Sport as above. The Fiat engine was far less temperamental than the modded BMC engine, with significantly more power and a lot more torque at lower rpm (the BMC engine wanted heaps of revs all the time and didn't feel happy at lower rpm, which was a bit licence threatening...). Eventually the mighty little BMC engine died, hence the Fiat conversion.
It was a rather shabby little thing (cosmetically challenged), but with either engine it was pretty rapid (with only 550 or so kg, and geared for only about 110mph at max rpm, which equated to about 6 seconds 0 to 100kmh, very good for the time, and would keep up with big bikes from traffic light to traffic light). It handled fantastically well in the dry, but routinely would try to kill me in the wet (pay attention, or else...). No roof, no windscreen, no speedometer (you just had to know that X rpm in Y gear equalled Z speed, I had a little chart on the dashboard detailing 60 80 100 and 110 kmh at certain rpms in 4th and 5th gears...).
The joke was that NOTA stood for "No Other Transport Avaialable", and to prove the truth of this it was my daily transport for 13 years. When I sold it, with the proceeds I bought an Alfetta sedan (1800cc), and a racing kart...
I'm feeling a bit nostaligic just now, wiping away a tear...
Regards,
John.
So, where/how did you carry your guitar, surfboard, pulpit, tap shoes, whatever the accoutrement was - that a young bloke figured most likely to impress young women? (Answers squarely above the waistline, please!)
Everything that came with me had to fit in the 'tunnel' that also doubled as a footwell for unsuspecting (or foolhardy...) passenegers (and best if any said items were reasonably waterproof, in case of rain...). In wet weather you got wet, in cold weather you froze, in hot weather you fried, which was of course all part of the fun. It was very much like a four wheeled motor cycle, that you sat in.
The NOTA did impress young women, briefly. After their first ride, with the lack of any actually functional wind protection messing the hair, the lack of any meaningful suspension movement painfully jarring their breasts, and on one occasion the gearbox oil that unbeknownst to me had leaked all over the passenger side floor terminally staining the party dress, quickly disabused any notions of my reflected sex appeal...
The Nota was fairly poor as a 'chick magnet' for the above reasons, it was just too uncomfortable and too 'hard core'. My wife married me despite my car, not because of it, which must be true love (and, we could go wherever in her horrid Corona...).
Regards,
John.
Great backstory John.
Well, PB - maybe I can sell you the go-fast bits to build a Special out of a Ford 10 chassis? Extractors, nice big downdraught carby on a Kleinig manifold and modified Y-link for the front suspension. ;)
CB , Don't laugh to loud something like that won this years Targa Tassie
I could use some decent extractors on my GTV, but the rest would be wasted on me I'm afraid CB.
Quote from: poohbah on July 05, 2018, 02:26:35 PM
Great backstory John.
Don't encourage me...
Another Nota story; after a day watching the 'historic' racing at Amaroo Park, which included a certain Sir Stirling Moss doing 'demonstration laps' in a light green C Type Jag, I was motoring along the Galston Gorge road at an 'entertaining' speed, when I came up on the rear of a certain light green C Type Jag. There were two people on board, though I very much doubt that Sir Stirling was one of them. Anyway, it's not every day you get to drive through the Galston Gorge road in convoy with a C Type that has at least been driven by Stirling Moss...
This may not have been my only encounter with cars once driven by Moss. When I was a young child my parents (and me) attended a few Sydney Jazz Club parties held at a mouldering old mansion called 'The Abbey' (in Annandale Sydney). At one of these events I found myself exploring what at one time had been a fairly large horse stable, but then was used as storage for all sorts of 'junk'. There I discovered two old sports cars under thick layers of dust and bird shit, one was an XK120 Jag, the other a red Ferarri. I spent maybe half an hour sitting in that Ferrari, turning the steering wheel, pushing the pedals, changing the gears. It was just me, my imagination, and a lot of dusty dirt.
Many years later (though still many years ago...) I was reading a copy of Australian Sports Car World Quarterly (remember that?), in which there was an article that referenced a certain Ferrari Monza that had at some stage been raced by Stirling Moss, and which had also been owned for many years by a certain Geoffrey Davis, who was also the owner of The Abbey...
Regards,
John.
Quote from: Citroënbender on July 05, 2018, 08:42:52 PM
Well, PB - maybe I can sell you the go-fast bits to build a Special out of a Ford 10 chassis?
The only Prefect / 10 part in the Nota was the modified front axle. The chassis itself was a purpose built tubular spaceframe.
Regards,
John.
There have to be some Tens around with a body rusted beyond salivation, but a workable chassis...
My Nota was fairly similar to the 'Sportsman' in that photo, but somewhat less 'shmick'...
The Nota in the midle of the photo is a 'Fang', their best known model. These had a space frame chassis with the entire Mini (usually Cooper S) engine, gearbox, front suspension, all still attached to the BMC subframe but transposed to the rear of the car. Front suspension was usually Hillman Imp swing axles (i.e. the Imp front suspension), though a few had a bespoke double wishbone design. There is a nicely restored example that lives not far from me (in Taree, though I've never seen it on the road, just sitting up the back of the owners business workshop).
I've never personally driven any car that was genuinely 'vintage', but have been a passenger in a mid 1920s 12/50 Alvis (on a drive through the Galston Gorge road, again), a 1908 Napier, and a Bugatti Type 37 (mid 1920s). The owner of the Napier and Bugatti was a driver with far more enthusiasm than actual skill, which made these rides equally frightening as enjoyable...
Thinking about it, the Nota may well be the oldest car I've ever driven, circa 1959. Of course I have driven other oldish cars, i.e. a very early Porsche 911 (fitted with a VW engine...), Ford Anglia, early Cortina, Morris Minor 1000, early Minis etc. It's somewhat strange that the Nota eclipsed all other much more modern vehicles I have ever driven in acceleration, handling, braking and steering. The only vehicle I've ever driven that accelerated harder than the Nota would be a 125cc 'gearbox' kart. With nearly 50hp, almost zero weight and low gearing it was seriously accelerative, but really it was the braking performance that was the most impressive...
Regards,
John.