What tyres does everyone run?
 

Hi Folks,

New to owning a Volvo, bought the car with Michelin Cross Climates on which look to be in good nick - great I thought, they are smooth and quiet and certainly hold the road well in the dry. In the wet though, not nearly so grippy in the corners and I'm no Shumacher but like to push on sometimes as well.

My old car had Mich Primacy 4s on the front and it would really need to be provoked into losing grip, its a smaller lighter less poweful car but the Volvo feels a little bit like having to tiptoe around in the wet.

The inlaws V70 had a nightmare of mismatched ditch finders, I got a deal on Toyo Proxes CF2 which transformed it.

I'll keep the Cross Climates til they are done (hopefully good for the snow) but I must say I am disappointed in the wet performance. What does everyone else run?

Thanks!

Uniroyal RainSport. Good on a dry road, and absolutely excellent on a wet one.

I'm on uniroyal rainsports as well

Ran V rated Michelin Cross Climates for several years on a Torslanda V70 and a 2.3 T5 - if they are not gripping in the wet check the tyre pressure and the centre tread depth. IMHO if they are correctly inflated and running in the correct rotational direction the grip is way better than Uniroyal RainExperts in the rain and astronomically better in snow and ice.

My local tyreman thinks cross-climates are overrated, expensive and very car sensitive, on some they are brilliant, on others not so good.

I'm interested in this as well, I always used Goodyear Eagle F1's on the C70 the grip was amazing but the tyre life not so amazing...

Fair comment - however if the steering and suspension are in good condition it does make a noticeable difference particularly in terms of tramlining etc; I've used Michelin Pilots, Goodyear Eagles, Vdersteins, UniRoyal Rain Experts 1,2 and 3 on 850s and a V70 Tors, currently the C70 T4 has W rated ContiSports and the V70 T5 Nexen V rated WinGuard Sport 2's which were on the cars when I bought them (IMHO should never have been fitted on performance car:eek:)...........for me, the Cross Climates outperform everything else I've used in the last 26 years on the various Volvos we've owned - the Nexens' are OK in the dry, but are prone to understeer in the wet and diabolical in the snow and ice and much too noisy compared with the Rain Experts or the Cross Climates; the ContiSports aquaplane in the wet (they've got around 5 mm centre tread on the front & around 6mm on the back plus they have a tendency to tramline and given their 225 front width 245 rear width a little prone to float on surface water - the landes just don't clear the water fast enough.

With tyres, you get what you pay for - my grandfather insisted that as you only have a piece of tyre the size of a plimsole at each corner of a motor it makes sense to get ones with the best tread pattern.

Both the C70 and V70 will have cross climates fitted later in the year.

Nokian weatherproof on an XC70 D5 185bhp - but I live on an unadopted, cobbled muddy track where, when we get a 'good' winter, we are often above the snow line - much better all round than the pirelli scorpions that it came fitted with.

So much depends upon where you are driving, the experience you have in snow and ice as well as understanding the limits of the vehicle you are driving :regular_smile:

My recently new-to-me S60 came with Nexen Nfera SU1 all round which I'd actually never heard of before; they seem to grip alright in the dry but have worn down quickly (based on when PO bought them). The fact I can find very little about them, or even Nexen generally, online, told me straight away I won't be having them again although they do seem quiet and it rides well.

I had new rears last week and went for Michelin Pilot Spot 4. Swapped the Nexens from the rear onto the front; eventually she'll be Michelin all-round but there's a lot of life left on the Nexens so I'm going to keep running them for now. The old fronts were almost illegal.