Tyres-Insignia, how long?

road_high

I really know I am asking how long is a piece of string but I have an Insignia brand new just since last sept 2012. 24.5 thousand KMs on her since then. It's the SRI 160 bhp model so reasonably quick off the mark..and front heavy too. It's just the tyres 245 Continentals are very worn already on the front! Will need replacing to my eye. Just wondering what would people think is "normal" wear for one of these? I appreciate so many factors like driving style, road conditions etc come into play.
Driving a real mix of m-ways, N roads and country roads. Fairly heavy right foot but I 'd never be playing acting like taking off skidding, breaking hard etc...am surprised I didn't get longer out of them.

Crasp

road_high wrote: »

I really know I am asking how long is a piece of string but I have an Insignia brand new just since last sept 2012. It's the SRI 160 bhp model so reasonably quick off the mark..and front heavy too. It's just the tyres 245 Continentals are very worn already on the front! Will need replacing to my eye. Just wondering what would people think is "normal" wear for one of these? I appreciate so many factors like driving style, road conditions etc come into play.
Driving a real mix of m-ways, N roads and country roads. Fairly heavy right foot but I 'd never be playing acting like taking off skidding, breaking hard etc...am surprised I didn't get longer out of them.

thread is useless without mileage?

road_high

Crasp wrote: »

thread is useless without mileage?

Cheers just noticed that, sorry!! It has only 24.5 K kms up on her...

Big Nasty

There's almost 25k on her? 'Course she'll be needing new rubber dude.

road_high

MCMLXXV wrote: »

There's almost 25k on her? 'Course she'll be needing new rubber dude.

That's km's obviously. Defo hardrer on rubber on the previous S40 I had. Lighter car no doubt...thanks heavens it's a co car!

Big Nasty

road_high wrote: »

That's km's obviously. Defo hardrer on rubber on the previous S40 I had. Lighter car no doubt...thanks heavens it's a co car!

How much do you expect to get out of fresh rubber?

road_high

MCMLXXV wrote: »

How much do you expect to get out of fresh rubber?

Have no idea thought I might get a bit longer than that tho! It's scarcely 15000 miles in old money and comparing it to any previous cars they lasted quite a bit longer.

Crasp

don't take up motorcycling whatever you do lol

Ded_Zebra

That seams short to me. Our Insignia has 130,000km on it and it's second set of fronts are nearly down to the limit. That it all motorway/dual carriage way driving plus a small amount of country roads, maybe 10%. It's still on it's original rears.

MuppetCheck

Any reasonably powerful front wheel drive diesel will be heavy on front tyres due to the power delivery and engine weight. That's not too bad in my opinion for the fronts but don't have any experience of that specific car.

road_high

Ded_Zebra wrote: »

That seams short to me. Our Insignia has 130,000km on it and it's second set of fronts are nearly down to the limit. That it all motorway/dual carriage way driving plus a small amount of country roads, maybe 10%. It's still on it's original rears.

I know its quite variable from driver to driver but I'm far from a tiring burnin' maniac so interested to know from others with Insignias. I notice the wear is mainly in the centre of both fron tyres. My country road driving would be far higher due to work.

Crasp

road_high wrote: »

I know its quite variable from driver to driver but I'm far from a tiring burnin' maniac so interested to know from others with Insignias. I notice the wear is mainly in the centre of both fron tyres. My country road driving would be far higher due to work.

What are your tyre pressures like?

vectra

I only got 19k kms out of the front bridgestones on my last vrs.
This one has Contis same as yours and my local fitter tells me they are one of the most over rated tyres out there.

Try a set of Hankooks. They should last much longer.

road_high

Crasp wrote: »

What are your tyre pressures like?

About 30 PSI which is about right I think...checked 'em last week...

Ded_Zebra

road_high wrote: »

I know its quite variable from driver to driver but I'm far from a tiring burnin' maniac so interested to know from others with Insignias. I notice the wear is mainly in the centre of both fron tyres. My country road driving would be far higher due to work.

Well the tyres on ours are kept very hard ( between the "fully laden" and "eco" pressures on the sticker in the door jam). It is also driven gently for the most part.

Country roads will be a lot more wearing as the tyre has to work more as the car is doing a lot of accelerating braking and turning. On the motorway they just roll along

road_high

vectra wrote: »

I only got 19k kms out of the front bridgestones on my last vrs.
This one has Contis same as yours and my local fitter tells me they are one of the most over rated tyres out there.

Try a set of Hankooks. They should last much longer.

Yea cheers. The conti's came with the car obviously, was happy at the time because i'm used to cheaper rubber usually and expected them to last longer!

Ded_Zebra

road_high wrote: »

About 30 PSI which is about right I think...checked 'em last week...

Ours would be 40 (2.7 bar or over) 30 is very soft which would cause excessive tyre wear.;)

Crasp

road_high wrote: »

About 30 PSI which is about right I think...checked 'em last week...

Wear in the centre can be due to over-inflation of the tyres. You should really know what pressures your tyres should be for the load you're carrying. You should check this as it will affect tyre wear and fuel economy.

Ded_Zebra wrote: »

Ours would be 40 (2.7 bar or over) 30 is very soft which would cause excessive tyre wear.;)

I personally haven't seen a car with recommended tyre pressures that high, unless running seriously low profile tyres. Highest I've seen is about 36 for an average load.

road_high

Crasp wrote: »

Wear in the centre can be due to over-inflation of the tyres. You should really know what pressures your tyres should be for the load you're carrying. You should check this as it will affect tyre wear and fuel economy.





I personally haven't seen a car with recommended tyre pressures that high, unless running seriously low profile tyres. Highest I've seen is about 36 for an average load.

Yea will do. It's about 32 from what I've read and was weary not to overinflate as it can be as bad for wear on tyres. Will know for future set as these are defo nearly the end I'm afraid...

R.O.R

25k for the fronts, 40k for the rears.

You're in for fun when you start pricing the tyres....

road_high

R.O.R wrote: »

25k for the fronts, 40k for the rears.

You're in for fun when you start pricing the tyres....

I'm not payin...thank The Lord!

R.O.R

road_high wrote: »

I'm not payin...thank The Lord!

In which case, you probably won't be rolling Contis......

road_high

R.O.R wrote: »

In which case, you probably won't be rolling Contis......

Pirellis all the way...

Digger69

Need new ones

free_man

Hi,
I am on my second set of tyres.
I got 32K km from a set (4nos.) of Toyo Proxis. I of the tires was replaced for a continental sports due to tire burst. The Toyo wore down to min, but the Conti still had loads of mm on it. I replaced all fours with Verdesteins.

I kept Conti in my garage as backup just in case.

I do loads of motorway driving. Verdesteins are great for control and in wet.

I would say 30k to 40k from a set should be very good.

Stallingrad

Similar age and mileage on my Passat and 50% worn on front. But you do have 40bhp more than me. I would be getting different tires next time.

Jesus.

That's very short. The average driver would be buying a brand new set almost every year at 15k. You should be getting twice that.

You must have a heavy foot.

knipex

pretty much what I got out of mine on exact same car..

Bpmull

Goodyears all the way if you want a tyre that will last a decent amount of km. 40k km on the front of an octavia and there was still a good 2mm or more on them when they were changed. Back lasted even far longer. Bridgestone turanzas used to be good to wear but the newer type turanzas wears very quick. Continentals have to be one of the worst wearing mid range tyres on the road there beyond bad when it comes to wear.

To put it in perspective the above octavia that came with Goodyears from the factory is my parents and my grandparents had the same car with same engine spec just a few months older so it came with continentals from the factory 21k km on front tyres when they were changed and they were in worse condition that the Goodyears after 40k km. both were tracked perfectly from factory so wear was even just a huge difference.

Noccy_Mondy

Don't think this has any relevance to anything, but I'm going to say it anyway. Got the car 2 years ago with all new bridgestone turanzas all around. Towards the end of last year one of the front ones got a bulge in it and so had to be replaced, soon after something happened the other front one, can't remember now, but both were replaced by two cheap brands, don't know what the name was, so they must have been shyte. Anyway, NCT there last week, front 2 tyres pass/advisory, less than 3mm, whereas the back 2 bridgestones have plenty of thread left in them (2 years on, close to 30,000 miles later). I know that front tyres wear quicker than rear ones, but still it goes to show the difference that there is in quality of tyres. I'll be going back to the better brands from now on.

MuppetCheck

If your alignments in check there's no reason why you couldn't get 60k+ out of a set of rear tyres.

George Dalton

Some cars are harder on rear tyres than others. In our experience Mondeos and Passats wear out rear tyres way faster than Insignias. I changed a pair of original tyres on a 2010 Insignia recently. There was 96,000km on the car and the tyres were still legal, just not good enough for retailing the car. You would never get that with a Mondeo or Passat.

R.O.R

Bpmull wrote: »

Continentals have to be one of the worst wearing mid range tyres on the road there beyond bad when it comes to wear.

Firstly, Continental is a premium brand, not a mid range tyre.

Secondly, I got over 80,000km from a set of Conti Premium Contacts on my old Accord. Went on at 94,402km, got rotated front to back (and re-balanced) around 115,000km, and got through the NCT before I traded the car (failed NCT on Headlight alignment, passed on everything else), with somewhere around 180,000km on.

That's what I call good mileage from a set of tyres.

dantastic

Tyres are not all the same.
The Continentals are very grippy. The drawback is they wear faster.

The Bridgestones (name dropped a few posts back) would not be as grippy but they would last longer.

Can compare the 2 here
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Bridgestone/Turanza-ER300.htm
http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Continental/ContiSportContact-5-P.htm

To a lot of people the Continentals are probably a too good tyre for what they are driving.

Paulw

I got about 65k out of my Conti tyres on my Insignia SRi. I guess it's down to how you drive them. I changed them before the NCT. Our mechanic advised changing them, but said they would still have passed. They were just getting close to the limit.

Stallingrad

I will be looking for a quieter tyre next time out. Bridgestone Turanza's currently last and do everything well, but are noisy. On On Eiretyres you can filter by Db rating. Turanza are 70db, others go as low as 66db, which does not sound like a big difference but will make for a much quieter drive.

The Pontiac

vectra wrote: »

I only got 19k kms out of the front bridgestones on my last vrs.
This one has Contis same as yours and my local fitter tells me they are one of the most over rated tyres out there.

Try a set of Hankooks. They should last much longer.

The original front Hankooks are gone in my VW Caddy after 29K.

That's only 19k miles. I never remember replacing tyres that soon on my older vehicles.

bazz26

Too many variables involved really when it comes to tyres and how long they last. Varies from brand to brand, the vehicle they are on, type of roads they are driven on and type of driver.

CiniO

road_high wrote: »

I really know I am asking how long is a piece of string but I have an Insignia brand new just since last sept 2012. 24.5 thousand KMs on her since then. It's the SRI 160 bhp model so reasonably quick off the mark..and front heavy too. It's just the tyres 245 Continentals are very worn already on the front! Will need replacing to my eye. Just wondering what would people think is "normal" wear for one of these? I appreciate so many factors like driving style, road conditions etc come into play.
Driving a real mix of m-ways, N roads and country roads. Fairly heavy right foot but I 'd never be playing acting like taking off skidding, breaking hard etc...am surprised I didn't get longer out of them.

Tyre wear varies a lot case by case.
It depends on car weight, but not as much as people thing, as usually the heavier the car, the wider and bigger the wheels, so more rubber to wear. Obviously that's not always the rule, but general tendency.

IMO most important factors to tyre wear are as follows.
1. Type of road you are driving - you will get much more miles off the tyre on straight roads than bendy roads. Motorways are probably the best for low tyre wear, while bendy country roads in mountain regions are the worst. The more bends you have to drive through, the more tyre wear, especially the front.
2. Driving style - Someone driving very gently, never accelerating hard and never breaking hard, proceeding through bends at low speed, will get much more from tyres, than someone driving as fast as possble.
3. Surface type - this is especially important in Ireland, as most roads in West of the country are covered in chippings attached to surface, and because of that are very rough. Generally roads in Ireland are very tyre-wearing. I haven't really seen any of the smooth surface roads like you find nearly anywhere on the continent.
4. Correct tyre pressure and wheel alignment - Any of those out of standard, will cause excessive tyre wear.
5. Tyre itself - some brands wear much quicker than others. Some come with plenty of thread, some with very little. I've seen new tyres with 9mm tread, as well as ones with 6mm tread. That makes huge difference (nearly double).

In general, on my cars, front tyres last less than 10k kilometres.
But that's a mixture of nearly all worst cases from above. I'm driving mostly on very bendy mountain roads, usually very fast, on roads so rough that if you tried walking barefoot on them, you would get hurt. I always have right tyre pressure and correct wheel alignment, but it's not much of a help considering facts above.

As opposition, my father managed to do about 80k kilometres on set of tyres during 10 years, and front ones maybe went down from 7mm to 4mm.
But he is driving very slowly and gently, mostly on straight roads with smooth type of surface (in Poland).

Bpmull

R.O.R wrote: »

Firstly, Continental is a premium brand, not a mid range tyre.

Secondly, I got over 80,000km from a set of Conti Premium Contacts on my old Accord. Went on at 94,402km, got rotated front to back (and re-balanced) around 115,000km, and got through the NCT before I traded the car (failed NCT on Headlight alignment, passed on everything else), with somewhere around 180,000km on.

That's what I call good mileage from a set of tyres.

That is extremely good alright. I've never had an issue with them performance grip wise I am not doubting what your saying it's just from my experience with them, I've had them on the astra, focus and are on the golf now on the rear. Don't have the golf long enough to judge it. But on the other two 25k km seems to be about all they done. But then there is several different types/ models of continentals so I'm sure some last longer that others. I just always found Goodyears/ Bridgestones better and normally a small bit cheaper.

sumo12

Our Insignia has 132,000km on and has just had a set of new tyres. 6 tyres previously replaced (full set and then 2 more)
I would have said they are pretty good on tyres, given the low profile 245/55/ I think is the size. My brother has an E200 estate and rear tyres were completely bald at 9k miles!!