Altenzo Tyres

[_ethrty-Andy_ 2133]

I will disagree with you ron on this last point. It can be the car. Both my wagons hit the abs whenever they want to, ones on potenza re001s and the other is on goodyear middle-of-the-road tyres, formerly on bridgestones. For me the particular case is on speedbumps. Even that tiney difference in speed going over them is enough to make the car go to hell and the abs to kick in

[DRTDVL 0]

Ron,

The issue with the ABS on the wet metal surface occurred irrespective of which tires where on the car, it's also an issue confirmed by a few other 406 owners in other countries - one of which has the problem occur when he's pulling out of his driveway which has a metal grate at the bottom of it when its wet.

There could be a fault with the ABS maybe, but as i mentioned above and by others with 406's, the car basically free-wheels (yes i know the difference between a lock-up and freewheel before you ask) for a moment before normal braking is resumed - I'm talking about light braking coasting up to a queue of cars waiting at the lights not heavy braking like one would assume. I've never had any issues with the car's abs on gravel (wet or dry) where you typically get a lot more abs activation, or on any other car in the same conditions.

In dry and normal wet conditions (i.e. not a a metal surface) the car stops perfectly fine and grip levels are fine, only twice have i had any issues with the tyres. Sure it a little longer than the Bridgestones when i had to avoid a Bus pulling out that didn't see me this morning, but not by much.

1st - When they where brand new in the wet (less than 500km) they where a little slippery since they have worn a bit this has not an issue since - i'm writing this up to the mold releasing agent needing to wear off.

2nd - A little understeer when going around a corner in the wet that is renown for being slippery (The GF spun her car the day before so i wanted to see just how slippery it was).

I've driven a friends 205 at Taupo in the rain (decent / heavy) with kingstars on it, and it was fantastic fun controlling under/oversteer with the throttle but on the road it would have been shear stupidity to push the car that hard with the tyres it had.

In regards to Andy's response i've had a couple incidents where i almost wrote off my 306 where heavily braking into a gravel corner and hitting the corrugation that exist at the corner entry/exit and it releasing the braking force changing the weight balance the car and causing the back end to breakaway. There is also cases on snow where the sensitivity of some ABS systems has been known to cause problems where it senses wheel lockup as it's slipping a little on the snow layer, the abs releases the braking force never allowing the wheel to break through the snow layer and onto the actual surface of the road, this causes the braking distance to increase. This was more of a problem with the earlier systems than more modern setups.

And my context was regarding the sensitivity of the ABS system in relation to very slippery (i.e. wet metal) where it free-wheeled causing more dangerous situation in my opinion than a small lockup. As i stated before with the way i drive in the 406, i've noticed a minimal amount of difference between good and cheapie tyres - now i know this would be greatly different if they where on my 205 which is much more performance orientated with much much higher initial braking forces (co-efficient of friction of the pads is 0.5) and stiffer suspension (more loading put into the tyre).

Edited December 15, 2011 by DRTDVL

[kiwi535 538]

I have to agree with you here Ron. Our tyre standards are pretty much non-existent and the WOF guys that do the checking are not much better. In fact they are probably the most at fault. There are regulations now that state:

If you run winter tyres you must run 4 ( all though I do not understand why they are even legal here).

Tyres on the same axle must have the same load rating (+/- 2) and they must have the same speed rating. In addition to this vehicles post 2005 must have the same type of tread pattern (asymmetric, directional etc) on all corners.

However, the number of cars we see come through with new warrants that are in contradiction to those regulations is unbelievable . Just in the last week we have had people come in here where one tyre has been failed but the other tyre on the matching axle is actually worse. We have even had a BALD tyre pass compliance but it failed on a string repair. You have to blame the WOF guys for this, and assume they are either uneducated,being pushed to make monetary targets or just plain useless.?

What is really needed is a complete overhaul and an education programme, but we seem to have this fixation on speed and don't actuallly look at what causes the crashes.

People should buy the best tyre they can afford. In some cases they cannot afford a Pirelli or Conti unfortunately.

Stay in MANTROL everyone over the holidays

whilst i agree with what you say paying $398 for a tyre is ridiculous...its only a poxy 205/55 16 runflat for gods sake..

[kiwi535 538]

I wouldn't pay the silly money they are stinging people for run flats either.

$400 per tyre is more than I pay for 245/40/17 Bridgestone 050's

I,d expect to pay $200 to $250 for a good 205/55/16 or $800 to a grand for the set not 2 tyres

And the money for runflats for the X5 was eye watering, even made the Pirelli scorpions at $3,300 for the set look like a bargain.

Even sillier when its actually got a full size spare.

contis and bridgestones are not available had to get a pair of Pirellis.I will make arrangements in advance next time.I may resort to normal tyres .The pirellis are more compliant than the bridgestones they replaced,they were very harsh riding and noisy on anything but the smoothest roads.