Tyre bargain - too good to be true?

[agards]

I need to replace my tyres (95 4.0 Coupe) and have been recommended Millenium Star tyres made by Cooper Avon. Very tempted at £81 per corner, fitted. Can anyone recommend these tyres? they seem too cheap to be any good Should I stick with Pirellis?

[dhdove]

Agards
Apparently Avon Tyres were bought out by the USA Cooper Tyre & Rubber Company.........
I used to fit Avon "Turbospeeds" to my V8 Rover and they were fine, (but an approved tyre by Rover) I dont think Jaguar ever recommended Avons for the XJS.
I guess you pays your money and takes your choices........I've always run my XJS's on Pirellis.........if you shop around Pirelli 6000's should be available, fitted and balanced for just over £100.00 inc. VAT, an extra £20.00 per corner.
Having said that I used to run my 2.8i Capri on Kum-Sang Chos, or something like that!!! from Malaysia, £30.00 each inc. everything. Soft as s**t, gripped the road like glue and lasted 12,000 miles if you were lucky!
IMHO for the XJS it's worth going with the spec.............. for the length of time that the tyres last I would go with the puckah gear.....so its £80.00 extra over two/three years with regular use???
Best Wishes
DH Dove

[ng4xjs]

That’s the point isn’t it . You pays yer money! Practical Classics ran a really good article last month (ish – the one with a Mini Cooper on the front) on how tyres perform and the relevance of this versus cost.

Personally I have used Dunlop Sport for the last 10 years and found them to be an all round good tyre. I note also that Perelli is a very popular application for our cars. These types of tyres are not the most expensive but they are far from being a Budget option.

Nick

[cya266x]

A complete and "proper" set of tyres for the XJS is going to cost nearly £500's and I found discrepencies and ambiguities in advice from the various local tyre outfits (The "recommendations" would have been set at least ten years ago by Jaguar).
The club "valuations" as they are at the moment you may be spending a good chunk of the car's value on it's tyres! (that was probably an unecessary criticism)
So, take a look at mytyres.co.uk (for example) it has lots of information and test results comparing tyres; noise, grip wet & dry, and wear rates. I now have a new "high tech" set of tyres for less than half the normal price, can't fault them, very happy and have some money in the bank to maintain the car.

[poprivet]

Can someone tell me what is the correct tyre for the 16"x7" 5 spoke wheel CCC4943 as fitted to later cars.
Is it 225/55 ZR 16 or 225/60 ZR 16 ?
Pop

[dhdove]

Pop
Owners Handbook states..........
"5 spoke alloy road wheels
Road Wheel Size 7J x 16
Tyre Type/Size Dunlop SP2000 225/55 ZR 16
Alternative tyre type/size Pirelli P4000 E 225/60 ZR 16
Caution Do Not Mix Tyre Size and Make"
I guess this is a slight trade off between firmer roadholding and comfort.............
I'm running on Pirelli P6000 225/55 ZR J ( J = Jaguar approved/specified).
NB Following a puncture this morning and repair this afternoon got a quote for same of £98.00 all in
Regards
DH Dove
PS Have you bought some new "wheels" or some new wheels?

[MARKPEARSON]

agards You might try black circles .com p6000 with correct jaguar rating (important) retail at £93.33 inc vat each plus £10 delivery for 1 to 4 tyres bargain tyres if you want to go that route are £46.54 each they also do a local fitting service. Sometimes quickfit do very good offers (4 for3) and if you take an account card with them you get a further discount just make sure you pay it off in full on first statment.

[ptjs1]

Pop,

Tyre size on the late 5-spokes was determined by the type of suspension fitted. Basically "Touring" (or "Comfort") Suspension meant you got 225/60 ZR 16, and "Sports" Suspension meant you got 225/55 ZR 16. The Pirelli 225/55 ZR 16 tyres were originally P600 which became replaced by P6000. The 225/60 ZR 16 are P4000s.

For late cars, all 6 litres got Sports Suspension as standard. 4 Litres had Sports on Coupes, and Touring on Convertibles. You could theoretically specify either Sports or Touring on any model if one wished.

Hope that helps (although I suspect it actually makes it more confusing!)

Regards,

Paul

[ptjs1]

Pop,

Just found a 1995 options price list:

£210 to get Jaguar to put the alternative suspension on.

Sounds like a rip-off! Assuming that Sports shockers & tyres etc must be more expensive, they still charged you £210 to put the cheaper items on the car instead if you wanted Touring Suspension!

Paul
(Currently with Touring suspension & P4000s, but with a set of Bilsteins in the garage waiting to go on the car, and I'll put P6000s on next tyre change)

[ptjs1]

agards,

apols for hijacking yr thread.

Pop,

Just had another thought:

Speedos and final drives and ECUs etc are all the same on Convertible and Coupe 4 litres. So what determines the correct speed on Touring or Sports suspension, as there's about 7% difference in circumference between 225/60 & 225/55 tyres? Is there some clever speed control module with a different part number for Touring or Sports Suspension? I can't seem to find such a part.

So, is that also why all the owners who have moved to 225/55 think their car is so much quicker but appears to have awful fuel consumption?

Paul
(Slow but frugal....)

[poprivet]

Good interesting stuff! A long time ago when I first got my xj-s, it had a mixture of 225/60-15 which needed replacing. Apart from wobbly handling due to the cheap/bold tyres fitted, the worst for me was that it was under-geared and showed a very inaccurate speedo (measured against GPS). At that time a full set of correct 235/60-15 although pricy, were readily available and were fitted. Spot-on speedo accuracy and much grippiness ensued, if a bit noisy, I digress.

Now of course, the correct P600s are becoming increasingly difficult to find and rather the using 225s again I thought it would make sense to start looking for a set of 16" wheels, conflicting tyre details in the books I have resulted in my question, which has been admirably answered. However, the rolling circumference still makes me ponder, using
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html
gives the following circumference and revs per mile data:

235/60-15 82.0 773
225/60-15 80.5 787
225/55-16 80.9 783
225/60-16 83.7 757

So in theory at least, although the 225/55-16 is the closest match, its still a fair bit off so perhaps the best solution is to stay with my 15" wheels and use the easily available 225/60 tyres to save buying five new 16" alloys and just put up with the innacurate speedo.

Who knows, one day someone (like JDHT for instance) may find a suitable supply of 235/60-15 tyres?
Pop

[dhdove]

Pop
Why not fit these.......
http://www.event-tyres.co.uk/sse/select.php?ID=2016
Pirelli P600, 235 60 15 R, W rated, set of four £100 per corner (plus VAT).
Fitted at your home I believe........
As I have said previously, when it comes to tyres, saving a few quid here or there is counter productive compared to the life of the tyres, annual mileage, spec., safety etc.
DH Dove

[ptjs1]

Pop,

From a personal view, I think that 16" wheels look better but I also think that lattice alloys look better on the pre-facelift cars. So why not go for the Jaguar 16" lattice alloys (made by Fondmetal, I think) with 225/55 P6000s? I think that would be a great combination.

Also, it won't be the JDHT who re-introduce tyres. The JDHT don't source or market parts. It's Jaguar Classic Parts who do that. There just happens to be a link from the JDHT website to the Jaguar Classic Parts online ordering system, which I think is why people assume that it's JDHT sourcing parts.

Jaguar Classic Parts have been talking to us recently about they can understand the latent demand for obsolete parts. However, I suspect that they will not get involved in tyres because of how the tyre market works with external suppliers. I'll mention it to them though, next time I talk to them. You never know..

Paul

[dhdove]

Lattice alloys........cleaning..........
DH Dove

[MARKPEARSON]

dh has a good point i like my wipe clean 5 spokes and p6000 look right on them