TYRES and what to fit

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    • #12676
      Stephen Plummer
        @stephenplummer

        I have rather ancient 15″ P4000 Pirelli tyres on my XJS-C V12 approaching 15-20 years old!! although plenty of tread and no cracks/damage etc perhaps I should replace-any views?

        Any experience of good/bad tyres and what to fit would be welcome.

        thanks

        Stephen Plummer

      • #12681
        Gerard Harings
          @gerard-haringstelenet-be

          ….vredestein makes a good tyre  in this measure…. a rain tyre ….i my self changed to 16 inch because cheaper and more types available…if you lived in Belgium you could drive a cheap winter tyre al year long….as long as you put a post it on your daschboard right in sight that you are not allowed to go above 160 kmh(max speed in Belgium is 120kmh )……( you may write the post it your self)  (not generally known ) …..RARE jongens die belgen

        • #12694
          Norman Thomas
            @jnt78btinternet-com

            Hi Stephen, I would certainly recommend replacing these tyres. At this age, they are likely to have become very hard and quite possibly likely to fail if operating under arduous conditions – high speed/high temperature. I would also imagine that their performance in the rain would be rather suspect. I think there is a general tyre industry code suggesting that tyres should be replaced at around 10 years old regardless of visual condition due to the ageing degradation of the rubber.

            Unless you desperately want to keep the original spec Pirelli P4000 tyres (there are very few tyres available in this size now – maybe only from Pirelli?), there are many other modern tyres available in a slightly different size. I’ve fitted Bridgestone Turanza 215/65R15 on my car (with the original wheels) – the outside diameter of this tyre is slightly smaller than the original Pirelli’s, so the car is now slightly lower geared and the speedo reads about 4-5mph faster than the true speed, and so you will be revving a little higher for the same speed than with the Pirelli’s (only a couple of hundred rpm difference). I think that this is a minor inconvenience for the benefit of having a more modern high performance tyre.

            Personally, I think also that these modern  tyres with a slightly lower profile look better on the XJS that the P4000’s – I reckon that these tyres look just too big for the car.

            Hope this helps, all the best. Norman.

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