[briang9]

that link above may require a log in sorry

copy of article below

"What Car?’s tyre test team make a good point highlighting the differences between some premium and budget products in their recent tyre test. But it appears they went a step too far when they entitled the feature “why budget tyres could kill” lumping the three cheaper products (Arrowspeed, Ovation and Sunew) together in the their final conclusion. It might sound a touch pedantic, but the addition of the word “some” in the headline may have been fairer as this would have avoided generalising about the overall quality of tyres. It didn’t take long after Tyres & Accessories reported on the tests on our daily e-Newsletter for the manufacturers involved to take up their right to reply. The Korean manufacturer behind Kwik-Fit’s popular Arrowspeed tyre brand arguably has the best case for disputing being tarred with the saw low-budget brush as the Ovation and the Sunew tyres.

This extract from What Car? highlights how the magazine presented its results: “We pitted three premium tyres against three budget alternatives in a series of braking tests, and the results were shocking. In the wet, the budget tyres took an average of 14 metres – the length of an articulated lorry – longer than the premium tyres to pull up from 70mph….In the dry the differences weren’t as vast, but the worst budget tyre still took up to five metres longer to stop than the top premium brand. That could easily be the difference between a nasty accident and escaping with just sweaty palms.”

The fact is the fascinating What Car? test results tell a story that is actually far more nuanced than the premium-good-budget-bad conclusion suggests. Rather it appears that there are three bands of performance and cost – premium, mid-range and budget. The results clearly show that at £70 each the most expensive tyres tested (the Michelins) were either top or second in everywhere category. But what they don’t show is that there is no direct correlation between price and quality, despite the report seeming to suggest this.

If this thesis was true you could reasonably expect tyres costing twice as much (as the Michelin’s do over the Sunews) to perform twice as well. This pretty much is the case in What Car?’s wet braking test, but that is where support for the theory runs out. The Arrowspeeds are a third cheaper than the test winner and only £7 a corner more expensive than the Sunews, but are 14.2 metres ahead of the worst wet weather tyre tested, 7.8 metres better than the identically priced Ovations and only 3.9 metres behind the Continentals. True this is a distance equivalent to an estate car, but based on price difference between best and worst alone, the tyres actually performed twice as well as they mathematically should have done.


There is further evidence to support this in the dry braking results. Here the second most expensive tyre tested (Goodyear’s Optigrip - £60) actually came second from bottom, equal with the Ovations. Both with a 53.4 metre stopping distance, which was just 50cm ahead of the Arrowspeeds. In this test the cheapest tyre tested (the Sunew) actually stopped 1.7 metres ahead of Goodyear, blowing the budget versus premium generalisations out of the water.

Something similar occurred in the lateral gip test where the whole test range was within 0.07g and the bottom four were separated by just 0.02g. This time round Arrowspeed were found to be joint third place with Goodyear on 0.75g – a product that is £26 per corner more expensive.

Right to reply

With this in mind you can see why a manufacturer like Nexen objected to a “very aggressive” headline calling its tyres lethal. Here’s how one company representative candidly interpreted the results: “Drying braking: OK it is not a great result for Arrowspeed, but we have to consider that Arrowspeed is not far away from Goodyear’s result. Wet braking: Arrowspeed is the best out of the lower priced brands and also not far away from the other premium brands such as Continental. Lateral grip: close to all premium-brands and the same result as Goodyear. Noise very good result, better than Michelin and Goodyear and same result as Continental”

The company also points out that “considering all factors, including price-offer, the Arrowspeed – tyre has the best price-performance – relation in the test.” When you consider that other leading magazine tyre tests do take price into account, this is also a valid point. What Car? may have drawn their conclusions purely from the test data, but on another day in another magazine, this tyre would almost certainly have appeared much higher up the table.

However, the final word should really go to the test winner Michelin whose Pilot Sport 3 tyre came out as a clear winner. Michelin UK car tyre marketing manager Jianni Geras said: “Although we are obviously very pleased that the Pilot Sport 3 was the clear winner in this test, the poor performance of the budget brands is very alarming. It’s clear from this that the large investment we make in R&D is hugely beneficial to drivers and this doesn’t even take into account the environmental performance of our tyres in terms of improved fuel efficiency and class leading longevity.”