UK magazine says budget tyres are less safe

ERJ staff report (DS)

London -- UK car magazine, What Car? has tested the braking distances of premium and budget tyres. The results can be seen online at the link below.

In summary, however, the tests showed that budget tyres took around 14m longer to stop a car from the national speed limit of 70 mph (115kph) than premium brands.

The magazine tested braking in the wet, dry and lateral grip as well as noise.

The six tyres were Michelin's Pilot SPort 3; Goodyear's Optigrip; Continental's Premium Contact 2; Arrowspeed's CP661; Ovation's VI-182 and Sunew's YS112. The Michelin performed best on all tests, except noise, while the Sunew was by far the worst in the wet braking test. In wet braking, it seems, you really do get what you pay for. The most expensive tyres performed best, while the cheapest performed worst.

The magazine concludes: "Don't even think about skimping on tyres. It's tempting to save money in the short term by going for the budget option, but you'd be unwise to do so. Tyres are the only part of your car that make contact with the road, so you're far better off sticking to the premium brands and hunting around for the lowest prices on those. As our investigation clearly shows, cheap tyres could easily cost you your life."

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Tyre test report from What Car? magazine