labrat

OK, I have finally done it. I have ordered some new tyres - and from my Mazda dealer (Grand Prix Mazda Aspley Brisneyland). With all the to-ing and fro-ing and getting various prices and various stories from various tyre dealers, I thought I needed to get back to basics and ask the Mazda dealer what the stockies cost. List price for the RE040 Potenza is $512, a snip at $465 from the dealer. <Gasp> I said, what else have you got? "Well, we have been putting Fuldas on 3's and 6's", the lady said. "What do they have in a 245/40 18?" I asked. While she was away checking price etc.,, I checked out the Fulda website. Unfortunately, it's one of those German sites which refuses to work properly in English, but I sprayed some WD40 on my German and plunged in.

It appears that the Fulda Carat Exelero has been tested by the German TUV organisation, and has been certified by that organisation. The TUV is a giant testing organisation which is responsible for testing everything from pressure vessels to regular vehicle checks on all German registered cars and a huge amount of other stuff in between. If the TUV reckons its OK, its OK.

Here's the link to the full report on the testing,
www.fulda-reifen.de/DE/files/Tyretest.PDF
all 39 pages of it, but you'll be glad to know it's in English, so you won't confuse it with Rommel's memoirs.

The short story is it tested really well, beating the Goodrich g-Force Profiler, the Kleber Dynaxer DR, Firestone FHSZ80 and the Uniroyal Rainsport 1.

The lady from Mazda called me back and said $310 each fitted aligned and balanced, and I thought on a scale of extreme financial pain, that isn't too bad. I'll report back in with updates from time to time if you don't mind.

skc

Sounds like a good buy...well done.

I look forward to your drive report. The tire noise on the Bridgestones are really bugging me now.

skc

timbo

I have a sticker on my laptop indicating it's been tested by TUV...and it stops alright :p

Have heard of these tyres but know nothing about them so will be interested to hear, as I decided to skip Rommel's memoirs. That price is pretty good...but I thought you'd found better pricing for Toyos?

labrat

Yes, but there are none available in Oz at this time. I suspect that the Fulda could be a better tyre than the Trampio. What attracts me is that this is a relatively quiet tyre too (well the TUV reckons its OK)

Wildcard

It's great to see someone trying another brand of tyre. Good luck labrat. Look forward to hearing how they go.

takahashi

Know nothing that you guys talked about... so let me know what you think.

VV! Taka

aa@uow

never knew u can buy tyres from mazda dealers...

Jambos

I have been doing a bit of research in preperation for new tyres and have been reccomended Mastercraft 'Avenger ZHP' they come in 235/40 R18 91W they quoted $ 296 fitted etc.
Will keep doing the research.

RXP33D

Do you guys reckon www.tirerack.com ratings are reliable?

Question, tyre noise on one car can be impedious,

but for another car can it be extremely quiet?

I'm just on 29,000kms and in need of tyres real soon.

takahashi

First question first

tirerack.com's rating are customer's rating. It is much like edmonds.com or opinion.com ratings.... I think you know what I mean.

In terms of noise. Generally not... unless they are comparing A in an orange with B in an apple. :p

I have sat in a lot of cars with Potenza RE040s. The Hondas, Subarus, Mitsu, Nissan and Mazdas - The 8 is just slightly noiser in terms of road noise than the sedans.

rotarenvy

is TUV an acreditation process or do they actually buy and test products? did they specificaly test your tyres in terms of grip, wear, noise, safety etc?
if it's just an acreditation process it isn't somthing that would make me buy the tyres.

sco

Good on you labrat... let us know how they go.

My rear tyres have a handful of mm left before they're hitting the tread wear bar... so I'll be in the market soon.

labrat

"TUV" stands for "Technische Ueberwachungs Verein" - "Technical Accreditation Association". They've been around a very long time in Germany, and reach into virtually every part of German society. If you're in industry, they come and check your boilers and pipes. If you have a car, you have to take it to the TUV for regular roadworthiness checks. In the case of the tyres, yes, Fulda paid for the tests, but if they didn't measure up, they wouldn't be able to put their sticker on it. You pay your money and you take your lumps. Read the report - they also evaluated other tyres competing in the same market. The tests were standard tests for dry and wet handling, dry and wet braking, aquaplaning (straight line and on a curve), drifting in the wet, noise, and rolling resistance. The test methodology is described in the report. BTW, the test for noise was non-subjective and was measured in dB in the cabin.

For those of you who have something to do with electronics, it is a very similar process to getting CE compliance for EMD. You take your equipment to an accreditation agency who test it against standard norms and if it passes you get to put the CE sticker on it. The accreditation agency itself has to pass i checks - in Australia, its NATA for laboratory equipment, and DIN covers just about everything in Germany. I don't believe you can dismiss accreditation agencies just because a company pays for the tests. Consumer associations can be subject to bias too - I'm a Choice subscriber, and I think that many of their reports are biased, particularly when it comes to environmental hobbyhorses.

On the subject of consumer associations and such, if you visit the Fulda site, you'll see that in their ad for the soon to be superseded Extremo model, they list all the evaluations give by the motoring associations, motor magazines and the Stiftung Warenstest - the German equivalent of Choice.

As Taka says, if you go to Tire Rack comments or Epinions you get people's subjective assessments. I've been looking at replacement tyre possibilities for 3 months now, and I'm sick of ending up on XR6 or Lancer forums reading the half-baked opinions of semi-literates. I'm not saying that these are great tyres - I haven't bought them yet - but at least it's the first time I've read a comprehensive objective assessment made under standard conditions. I've yet to see anything like that on any other tyre website.

RXXX8

get toyo T1r's.
i'm aware that someone recently did a review of them but i recently bought new wheels and got T1r's on the front and T1S on the back (because they didnt have T1Rs in the size for the rears). the tyres are very good. once they hit temperature they stick very well to the road.. did a test run around stratty hit the corners pretty hard and traction didnt even come on... good tyre

labrat

If you want to keep your speedo error down, you should be looking at 245/40's instead of 235/40's.

labrat

I'm sure they're a good tyre - but what's the price? With different tyre types, can you switch front to rear?

Jambos

The supplier reckons the error is between 1-2%
which is legal.

rotarenvy

The test report was an interesting read very similar to how car magazines test tyres.

Looks like the tyre is above average in the wet. The dry handling tests were a bit average depending on what you put emphasis on.

To me TUV is still just an accreditation process and it depends where the bar has been set. Compare apples with apples an it’s obvious the average apple will compare well.

yellowrx8inoz

BTW be careful when looking at tyre noise comparisons from Europe - I suspect they may not be directly transferable to Oz because of the cheaper (and grippier?) open-textured asphalt most of our road authorities use. I think it's used a lot less in Europe, because it's not as frost-resistant as closed-textured (and hence smoother-surfaced...) stuff.

Some urban freeways in Oz have closed-textured asphalt in places, to reduce the tyre noise in adjacent residential areas... you'll know it when you find as it's a lot quieter than 'normal' asphalt or concrete road surfaces.

I'm hazarding a guess that different tyre tread patterns set up different harmonics with different surfacing types, so the noise at different speeds probably differs between different tyre/surface combinations. Just to complicate things.

Anyway, I'm about ready to change my noisy Bridgestones... will keep you posted.

labrat

From my reading of car magazines, they use highly subjective measures. Journos don't use instrumentation, they use adjectives. Good testing is actually about comparing apples to apples. Having read the test procedures, they appeared to be well designed and properly executed. You would have noticed that they used two sets of tyres from the same brand. Each test was performed in replicate, and they quoted basic statistics as the mean value and the standard deviation. The tyres tested were deliberately chosen for belonging to what they perceived would be considered near to top of the range.

So having rejected the assessment, how would you design and execute a valid test program?

labrat

The noise tests were actually conducted according to an ISO standard. The test methodology is described in the report. There's actually quite a good introduction to tyre design as it applies to noise on the Toyo site (it's a .pdf download). The Fulda site also has a video (unfortunately in German) which explains their noise reduction philosophy. It has to do with offsetting the various rubber blocks across the different tread sections so that you minimize noise and frequency peaks across the speed range. I'm not sure to what extent if any quality of road surface has to do with relative road noise. It does appear that directional tyres are intrinsically more noisy, due to the larger rubber blocks and channels (to improve water removal). Conventionalasymmetric tyres are designed with smaller blocks to maximize quiet running, albeit in sacrificing handling and performance.

rotarenvy

I haven't rejected the assessment. I’m merely pointing out that a TUV test only tells you how the tyre rates compared to the other tyres in the same class/assessment category.
From the link “The test tires brands were chosen by TÜV Automotive as they form a tire population of which the performance represents the medium to good overall performance of tires in this segment.” the segment being the ‘Pasanger’ car tyre. They are tested for what they are 'passenger car' tyres not performance. You do state in other threads this is what you are after, and I did assume you already understood it, but it is why I say ‘comparing apples with apples.’. They did just that compared an average tyre with another bunch of average tyres.

Here is another accreditation flag.
“The durability (high speed endurance test) does not enter the total result; however, the minimum legal requirement must be fulfilled to get approval for the TÜV-Quality mark. Only the applicant tire is tested in the high” they tested that it passed the minimum legal requirement. The stamp on the side-wall tells you that they can pass this one. Another accreditation body has tested it could pass that’s why they can sell them to the public.

My comments in regard to the TUV tests being similar to magazine tests are that the last magazine test I read used two drivers subjective assessment of handling as did TUV (the magazine timed it as well I think). Do you think these tyres would get the subjective 7 in dry handling if compared against a Michelin pilot sport or some other hypo tyre?

labrat

I guess what it comes down to is that for 3 months I have been looking around for a tyre which will suit my requirements for good highway performance without noticeably compromising handling, and not compromising on wet performance. It should also be relatively quiet. I'm not looking for an ultra-performance tyre of the sort which can be used for occasional track work such as the tyre you mentioned. Oh, and I'm looking for a tyre that I can afford. Paying $450 -$600 is not an option for me.

This is the first time in web searching that I have come across anything remotely like an objective assessment. I'm a technologist, and having lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland, I know the TUV to be a highly respected organisation. It is funded by industry members, and companies pay for testing services, but they also have to take their lumps if the findings are adverse. This can extend to having a plant shut down if equipment doesn't pass regularly scheduled tests. TUV testing has legislative authority in some areas. They handle the regular roadworthy checks on all cars, and a TUV roadworthy test is way tougher than anything we have in Australia

As far as the "passenger" category is concerned, if you look at a number of tyre manufacturer sites, high performance tyres are still listed in this category. In German, the expression is "PKW", the acronym for Personenkraftwagen, which simply means "car". This covers all types of normal passenger carrying cars. A 911 is a PKW. They differentiate for LKW (trucks) and 4x4.

I read in another forum where a driver was complaining that the wear factor claimed for his performance tyre did not accord with his experience. Someone else commented that the manufacturers self-test this parameter, and they have been known to fudge the results. Is this true?

timbo

I'll be interested in your experience, especially regarding noise. I reckon this is a design issue in the 8, and there's not much you can do to reduce it by tyre choice (apart from not choosing bar treads :D )

labrat

While not disputing your proposition that the car may be pre-disposed to noise, and the fact that directional tyres by their very design are instrinsically noisier, there is apparently a lot in designing tread patterns to reduce noise. The Toyo site has an interesting download, and a video on the Fulda site goes into how they tackled the problem.

Here is the methodology used by the TUV in assessing tyre noise. It would appear that the microphones are located outside the vehicle. I would agree that vehicle design and construction will influence noise, but if you are comparing on tyre with another independent of the vehicle, then I guess you have to do it this way.

3.4.9 ROLLING NOISE
The noise measurements are carried out on the noise test track of TÜV Automotive, which satisfies the requirements of ISO 10844. The microphones are arranged at a distance of 7.5 m to the centerline at a height of 1.20 m above the measurement surface .and calibrated prior to commencement of measurement.
For the measurements, the vehicle is rolled across the test course in neutral gear with the engine switched off. The maximum sound pressure levels in dB (A) right and left of the vehicle are recorded together with the speed. This measurement is carried out 8 times at different speeds between 70 and 90 km/h; the different speeds are distributed as evenly as possible across the defined speed range. Regression analysis is used to establish the relationship between the results and the reference speed of 80 km/h. For the compliance with the noise limits laid down in Directive 92/23 /EEC, each tire gets 95 %. Noise levels quieter than the legal requirement are assessed as follows and considered for the overall result:
• 1 dB(A) quieter results in an increase by 1%
• 2 dB(A) quieter results in an increase by 2%
• 3 dB(A) quieter results in an increase by 5%
• 4 dB(A) quieter results in an increase by 10%
• 5 or more dB(A) quieter results in an increase by 20%