Factory Spec tyres

[V8 Surfer]

Hi all,
Can anyone recommend a quality 185/70/13 H rated or faster tyre for my 7V8.
There are quite a few ,searching on the web, but I would like a bit of feed back.
cheers.

[Hasbeen]

I have Kumho SOLUS KH17 185/70R13 86T on my 7.

These replaced the Pirelli I had previously, which are no longer available. I fitted these on the recommendation of my tyre supplier, an enthusiast who pays attention to the feed back from his customers.

When first fitted I did notice the turn in was more gentle, [read not as sharp], & I was expecting understeer from this. This was not the case, & the cornering power is very similar, just the turn in is less sharp. It took probably a couple of hundred kilometres for me to adapt my driving to the new tyres, & I then no longer noticed anything special. I believe these have been upgraded to a somewhat better tyre since I bought them almost 4 years ago.

They perform better on our less than great back roads than the much more highly regarded 15" Bridgestones on the 8.

Hasbeen

[Tamas Petrunin]

Has anyone tried Unisport Rainsport 3 tyres on a TR7V8 ?

At the moment I got some horrid Goodyears on that are ok-ish in the dry but are awful in the wet (not that I go out in the wet if I can help it). I've got/had Rainsports on other cars and always been happy with them but the downside is they are fairly soft so don't last that many miles.

Part of the problem (like you I guess) is I wish to keep to the original size wheels & tyres rather than go down the route of bigger wheel & wider tyre which seems to offer more choice.

[TonyS]

Do you mean Uniroyal Rain Expert 3s? If you do, I have them on a standard TR7 and find them excellent in all conditions. As a bonus, I think they look good too.

I paid about £200 for a set and they transformed the car from some elderly Goodyears.

[FI Spyder]

I have Kumho's and are happy with them. I usually drive with in the law but we do have a lot of curvy country roads that these cars were designed for. I taken it into four wheel slides (barely) at speed on these that show off how balanced these cars are. That's with a TR7, don't know how they would work with a V8 but I have them on all my cars. Relatively inexpensive. They won the Paris/Dakar and were the series tire for a Pacific Northwest racing series. Is there a better tire out there? Don't know but they seem to get good user reviews so can't go far wrong.

[Tamas Petrunin]

Do you mean Uniroyal Rain Expert 3s? If you do, I have them on a standard TR7 and find them excellent in all conditions. As a bonus, I think they look good too.

I paid about £200 for a set and they transformed the car from some elderly Goodyears.

Yes you're right, I did mean Rain Expert 3, I've had a look and the missus has got Rain Experts on her Pug and that's as sure footed in the wet as it is the dry, it's great fun to chuck around.

I was getting confused because I have had Rain Sport's in the past on another car but that was running low profile tyres, not the 70 profile that you get on a TR7.

The reviews of the Kumho's sound good apart from the wet weather performance and that is a deal breaker for me, I don't choose to take the TR7 out in the wet but if it rains whilst I'm out I hate having to drive like an old dear because it's got no grip in the wet. The Goodyear's that are on at the moment are absolutely awful in the wet, I have to be so light with the throttle or the back end steps out on me that I end up being overtaken by a 1litre diesel eurobox.

[FI Spyder]

I've driven in the wet on Kumhos and have found them to be adequate in the wet. This included driving at highway speeds on narrow(er) curvy roads (and faster when a logging truck was bearing down on me at higher than posted speeds on Washington's #101) with the rain really chucking down and also a few emergency stops in the wet. The car was always under control (more due to the balance of the car/brakes). I haven't driven it on a wet racetrack and no doubt there are better "rain" tires out there (but maybe not in this size). I also drive my Kumho equipped Integra in the rain six months out of the year (winter), but we don't get prairie down pours here on the west coast just drizzle or misty rain for the most part.

[Beans]

... Can anyone recommend a quality 185/70/13 H rated or faster tyre for my 7V8 ...

For spirited driving I can highly recommend the Yokohama A021-R, 185/70 R13, a street legal racing tyre.
It is designed as a wet weather/intermediate tyre with a softer compound and an increased tread depth for maximum grip and wet weather performance.
But they perform best with a 6" wide rim. Also not cheap and they don't last very long compared to normal road tyres

[V8 Surfer]

Thanks for the replys folks.
I wonder if anyone has fitted a set of Vredestein Quatrac 5. An all year round tyre that appeals to me.

[Hasbeen]

I was caught in one of our summer afternoon thunder storms in the 7, with the Kumho on the front, & the best Bridgestone you can still get in 13" on the back. This thunderstorms dropped over an inch & a half in about 30 minutes, it was very wet.

This was through our Queensland boarder ranges, a very hilly twisty bit of road. Advisory speed signs on it range from 20 Km/H to 50 KM/H, with a lot of 30 & 40.

I was driving at what I thought was about 5 tenths for the conditions. The Kumhos never slid at all, but the Bridgestones were wagging the tail like an excited puppy.

Hasbeen

[John_C]

I have those very Vredestein tyres and I'm of the opinion they are the best I've ever had. However, tyre technology has moved on apace over the years so possibly an unfair comparison.

Hasbeen, I wouldn't be surprised if you got the same effect if you swapped the fronts to rears simply because what you describe is my impression of how the TR7 behaves in wet conditions. It's the short wheel base as we all know.

Here's an interesting little snippet of information I'll hide in here - the perpetual TR7 steering wheel wobble has just disappeared on my car after about eight years of suffering. The only thing that had been done to the car was the replacement of the near side half-shaft which must have been failing for all those years but never picked up in an MOT or anything else. Just about everything at the front had been sorted over the years so the vibration was coming all the way up from the rear axle and causing a propshaft vibration that resulted in steering wheel wobble. I'm incredulous but I guess we can add the half-shafts into the possible solutions for this known TR7 problem area.

[busheytrader]

Here's an interesting little snippet of information I'll hide in here - the perpetual TR7 steering wheel wobble has just disappeared on my car after about eight years of suffering. The only thing that had been done to the car was the replacement of the near side half-shaft which must have been failing for all those years but never picked up in an MOT or anything else. Just about everything at the front had been sorted over the years so the vibration was coming all the way up from the rear axle and causing a propshaft vibration that resulted in steering wheel wobble. I'm incredulous but I guess we can add the half-shafts into the possible solutions for this known TR7 problem area.

Sounds like my recent MOT advisory for a "roughness of the n/s/f wheel bearing" under rotation. As soon as I changed it, the rear end noise I'd been chasing completely disappeared.

[Tamas Petrunin]

For spirited driving I can highly recommend the Yokohama A021-R, 185/70 R13, a street legal racing tyre.

Unfortunately they are not "e marked" so are not legal for road use in the UK, it's a shame as I've always been very happy with the Yoko's I've had in the past, sure they don't last that many miles but they really stick to the road for the miles that they manage to last for.

[Beans]

... Unfortunately they are not "e marked" ...

They actually have an E4 mark, so are street legal even in the UK (but for how long )

[Tamas Petrunin]

Cheers for that Beans, you state that they perform best on a 6" rim, I have a set of the factory alloys which are 5.5", that won't make much of a difference will it ?