2 budget tyres vs 1 budget and 1 premium

2 budget tyres vs 1 budget and 1 premium

Author
Discussion

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
One of my front tyres needs replacing and the other one is nearly new. The nearly new tyre is a budget tyre. Do I replace the worn tyre with the same budget tyre as the nearly new one or buy premium tyre so one would be a budget and one a premium?

Thanks

akirk

5,624 posts

121 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
depends on the car and how you drive it - FWD / RWD / ???

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
quotequote all
akirk said:
depends on the car and how you drive it - FWD / RWD / ???
Fwd, the two rear tyres are premiums and match. And its just a daily driver

gdaybruce

758 posts

232 months

Thursday 12th May 2016
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Buy two premium tyres and make the lightly worn budget the spare?

Personally, I'd want two matching premium tyres on the front of my car. Pretty much every tyre test I've read shows budgets significantly underperforming premium tyres under wet braking. Mismatched tyres would make the car seriously unstable under emergency braking.

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
gdaybruce said:
Buy two premium tyres and make the lightly worn budget the spare?

Personally, I'd want two matching premium tyres on the front of my car. Pretty much every tyre test I've read shows budgets significantly underperforming premium tyres under wet braking. Mismatched tyres would make the car seriously unstable under emergency braking.
Ideally i'd buy 2 premium tyres but it's between 2 budgets or 1 budget and 1 premium. Thanks for the reply

JZZ30

1,089 posts

122 months

Friday 13th May 2016
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I'd rather have the same across the axle, so i'd go with same brand budget in that scenario. As long as you drive within the capabilities of the tyre, I don't have a problem with budgets on a daily driver.

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
JZZ30 said:
I'd rather have the same across the axle, so i'd go with same brand budget in that scenario. As long as you drive within the capabilities of the tyre, I don't have a problem with budgets on a daily driver.
Thanks, I was thinking the same

Frankthered

1,630 posts

187 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
How budget is the budget tyre you have?

If you do buy one (or two) budget tyres, I would suggest swapping your premium tyres to the front and putting the (presumably) newer budgets on the rear. It is recommended practice to have newer tyres on the rear of your car anyway to reduce the risk of the rear aquaplaning unexpectedly.

MrBarry123

6,046 posts

128 months

Friday 13th May 2016
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Frankthered said:
How budget is the budget tyre you have?

Other stuff...
This.

What is your "budget" tyres and what is your "premium" tyre?

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
MrBarry123 said:
This.

What is your "budget" tyres and what is your "premium" tyre?
I've got 2 nexens on the back, a hifly on the front

MrBarry123

6,046 posts

128 months

Friday 13th May 2016
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Car?

jamesj197

Original Poster:

83 posts

118 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
MrBarry123 said:
Car?
vw polo

Russwhitehouse

962 posts

138 months

Friday 13th May 2016
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Guys, you need to get out more.;)

MrBarry123

6,046 posts

128 months

Friday 13th May 2016
quotequote all
Could you just get two premium tyres in that case? It can't be more than £10 extra per tyre for the premium option.

InitialDave

12,237 posts

126 months

Saturday 21st May 2016
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JZZ30 said:
I'd rather have the same across the axle, so i'd go with same brand budget in that scenario. As long as you drive within the capabilities of the tyre, I don't have a problem with budgets on a daily driver.
This would be my direction of thinking also.
Frankthered said:
If you do buy one (or two) budget tyres, I would suggest swapping your premium tyres to the front and putting the (presumably) newer budgets on the rear. It is recommended practice to have newer tyres on the rear of your car anyway to reduce the risk of the rear aquaplaning unexpectedly.
While you're right, in this situation, I'd be inclined to try it both ways round and see how the car feels. The partly-worn premium tyres could still have better wet grip than new budget tyres, and the standard advice on mounting to account for a disparity in grip is made with the assumption that the new tyres will be "better", or at least equivalent to the quality that the worn tyres started with.

anonymous-user

61 months

Sunday 22nd May 2016
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If you really can't put two mid--range on the front then my preference would be to match the god-awful tyre you've already got on the front.

You'll then have two really cheap tyres on the front and some pretty cheap midrange-at-best tyres on the rear which should at least be pretty benign as long as you stay within their limits. I don't see the benefit from chucking a single premium tyre into the mix really.

DocSteve

718 posts

229 months

Sunday 22nd May 2016
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These kind of rubbish tyres are a menace. Of course, when driving "normally" the car will be controllable by an average driver but if a situation placing greater than average demands on the tyres and driver arises then deficiencies will show. Mixing rubbish tyres with decent ones on the same or different axles will make the vehicle less predictable and will cause it to deviate from its default handling characteristics. The driver may or may not have the skills and understanding of the altered characteristics to compensate for this.

I don't know why people try and save money on tyres - shop around and you'll get a decent deal on a reasonable tyre. Unless you're the sort of person who prefers to hitch hike instead of take the bus, eats road kill instead of supermarket meat and uses a bin liner as your luggage bag then why on earth spend thousands of pounds on a car only to put cheap tyres on that will ruin its handling.

I'm not saying you can't get good value tyres but a typical "budget" tyre is for those who care only about making their car legal and nothing else.

watchnut

1,197 posts

136 months

Thursday 26th May 2016
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try buying tyres from Amazon, i bought two recently, they were a premium branded tyre ( I don't buy cheap stuff they don't last so long, and you have to be lucky 100% of the time, where as you only have to be unlucky once,,,,,,when braking heavily....and your cheap brand don't stop you!)

Each tyre was some £25 cheaper than my local supplier, who charged me £10 each wheel to change them, so i was still £30 better off! ( the tyres came from Italy...in 3 days!)

Howard-

4,958 posts

209 months

Tuesday 31st May 2016
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jamesj197 said:
One of my front tyres needs replacing and the other one is nearly new. The nearly new tyre is a budget tyre. Do I replace the worn tyre with the same budget tyre as the nearly new one or buy premium tyre so one would be a budget and one a premium?

Thanks
No. I would buy two new premium tyres.

My car had budget tyres on with loads of tread left when I bought it. I binned them all in favour of some Continental Sport Contact 5s.

davepoth

29,395 posts

206 months

Thursday 2nd June 2016
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It's not like Nexens are going to break the bank - my car takes a very odd size and they're £65 a corner. If you're in a budget hatchback you'll probably get below £50 if you shop around a bit. That's about the cost of a tank of petrol or a night out, and it will make a big positive difference to the handling of the car.