W124 Owners: Which tyres do you prefer?

[AlanWT]

The two front tyres on my 230TE will soon be due for replacement. It currently has on two 'cheapies', and I don't know whether to buy similar again or whether to buy one of the more expensive 'better' brands.

What do other people buy?

Cheers

Alan

 

[pongee]

Michelin

If you are using standard sized tyres, I've put Michelin Energy MXV8s on all round (may be a different model name in your region).

Great for ride comfort and (lack of) road noise. I can't really say if the 'Energy' moniker really makes any difference on fuel consumption though. Handling/road grip is average, no problem in the wet.

Heard that Conti's & Pirelli are pretty decent too.

 

[Spike]

I am a Nokian (Nokia tyre division) tyre convert... bought from www.mytyres.net - Ive now put 18k on mine and they are still showing 4-5mm left. Noise is much improved over my previous Pirelli P6000's and grip both wet and dry is impressive.

 

[John Turner]

I was very impressed to have got 36K miles out of my last set of tyres. These were Gislaved 195/65/15 s and went on at 94,246 in July 1998 and were replaced at 130,500 miles nearly 3.5 years later still just above the legal limit. These tyres are Swedish, popular on Volvos in Sweden and marketed here in the UK by Viking Tyres (Oxford). Best of all, they come with a replacement compensation guarantee, and so if they are damaged, you get a new tyre in replacement, minus some percentage based on tyre tread depth. This worked too - I had some debris on the motorway go through the tyre and hit the whell and poke back out while I still had 6mm tread depth, and the new tyre only cost me £6! I replaced all 4 with Viking VSS 500 195/65/15s (pretty much the same thing as the Gislaved's) for £190 including valves and balancing in January 2002, and have currently done 23,336 miles on them and they still show just under 5 mm tread depth, and so I expect up to two more years out of them yet. My car is a W124 Estate manual diesel estate (250TD) which has now done just over 150,000, which is driven 'normally' (not exactly the machine for tyre burning accelerations away from lights!).
Regards
John