RS 175 - choosing tyres for roads

[czechmichal]

Have you got some experience with different tyres for Roadsport 175 for normal road use? I bought the car with 15´´ rims and CR500 Avons and i´m looking for alternatives.
Thanks a lot

[Tango7]

Why do you want to change? If its for road use, surely a 15" CR500 is as good as others

[czechmichal]

Tyres on the car are worn a little bit. As i have no experience for how long they´re gonna work i´m looking for new ones. So i just want to ask Caterham owners about their experience.

[Some Gump]

OP,

IMO the best modification you can do to any seven is to ditch those horrible (but pretty) 15's, and get some 13's.

That aside, CR500's are a great tyre, horrid in the greasy, but very good in wet or dry.

[Tango7]

I think for road use the 15" rim with a CR500 is an excellent combo for all round weather conditions (for what a Caterham is expected to be used for, snow aside!) with good wear rate. The only downside is possibly cost. Not sure of the local availability if you are based in the Czech Republic, but you could try Scudo Stunners or Toyo T1R's or S which are lot cheaper but suffer much quicker wear due to the compound.

If you are thinking of doing track days (even the odd one or two) its much better to get a spare set of cheap rims and fit track tyres. You could buy a set for around £200-250 for rims and slick tyres plus carriage which could pay for themselves in one TD if you didn't have to use your road set

[mickrick]

Echo above regarding 13's. I had them on my R300 with CR500's. Excellent! Nice and progressive. Drift on the throttle at will.

[Nicodema]

For our R300 SV we have the 15" CR500 set that came with the kit. These are great for all sorts of weather, even when fairly worn. We did Andy Walsh's Car Limits day which put a load of wear on, but they're still pretty decent. The CR500 is a very lightweight tyre with compliant sidewalls, having been designed with the Caterham in mind. Most other similar tyres in size and type are designed and fabricated for heavier cars.

We have also bought a set of 13" (x6") wheels and Avon ZZRs for trackdays. Those are superb on track, but wouldn't take much standing water to completely float them, and you end up losing quite a bit of rolling radius. If you want to go to 13" and keep the gearing and ground clearance you do need to get significantly taller aspect ratio tyres.

[Smollet]

CR500 every time

[Purespeed]

Some Gump said:

OP,

IMO the best modification you can do to any seven is to ditch those horrible (but pretty) 15's, and get some 13's.

That aside, CR500's are a great tyre, horrid in the greasy, but very good in wet or dry.

I agree. I found the 15" with CR500's not too good. Once changed to 13" with CR500's the car felt like it went where I put it.

Jason

[MadHatter7]

13" wheels with CR500's for the road

[Tango7]

15" or 13" CR500's are largely to do with setup I reckon for road use

[mickrick]

If you use the 205 13's on the rear and the 175's on the front, then the rears have the same diameter as the 195 15's, but the 175's drop the front by 13mm.
I think the better ride, and feel of the 13's comes from the taller, hence more compliant sidewall of the rears.

[Smollet]

I've got 15" CR500s on my car and initially wasn't too keen as the feeling felt vague but after a bit of geometry change the car now has far more bite when turning in.