Any recommendations for decent but not ludicrously expensive new tyres? I have recently acquired my Daimler and have a horrible feeling that although the tread is fine and they otherwise look ok the tyres are probably so ancient as to warrant replacement (i will look up the date of manufacture codes to confirm but will do that in daylight).

Longstone Classic Tyres (whose website is a wealth of info about original tyres / sizes) suggest the Pirelli Cinturauto CA67 185VR15 https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/185...rato-ca67.html but it is rather expensive.

I am considering Vredestein Sprint Classic as they make a 185/80 R15 and there seem to be versions with a V speed rating as well as an H speed rating. These are substantially cheaper than Pirelli / Michelin / Dunlop still fairly costly. I have used them before on my Rover P6 and found them excellent.

I have also seen mention of Retro Classic 185/80R15 93H tyres which were apparently made by Nankang but have been rebranded and are substantially cheaper but nobody seems to stock them.

I apologise in advance is this has been asked and answered countless times before but I did have a quick look and could not find it.

Thanks

NICK

 

i ran a set of Vredestein Sprint Classic's for a while. good price and performance AFAIC. they are not mounted at the moment and when mounted were not on a jag, but on my MG, but i'll not hesitate to put them on my MK2 when the time comes.

 

I'm a Michelin man and will only run them but there is nothing wrong with the Vredestein Sprint Classic. Sometimes have a few bumps in the sidewall which is not de-lamination. Just careless moulding. 79/80 is the correct profile. I have 5 Michelin 185HR15 XVS-P 93H ready to be mounted. The 20 year old plus General tyres on the car now are just for the car to stand on. I drive slowly & watch them like a hawk for signs of trouble. They are new but my restoration got held up by expat assignment.

 

You could go up in size slightly on the 420 and fit a 205/70/15 which is what I run on my S Type or run a 195/70/15 but be careful as this is a Van size tyre. There is a wider range of tyres as 205/70/15 is a more popular tyre size to have on a modern car and if you are not looking for originality a lot cheaper than a 185/80r15. They can be a tight fit on the back getting them under the wheel arch on the S Type and 420 which depends on whether you have wire wheels with splines or bolt on steel wheels. They go on easy with bolt on steels but due to the fact you have to put the wire wheel on perpendicular to the splines so it makes getting the wire wheels on and off a challenge. I find they do fill the arches better and the 70 ratio to the 205 gives the same height as the 80 ratio does to the 185 so the speedo is still fairly accurate.

 

See from post 12 here.

Correct centre lock wheel balancing. Both Cass & I have Smoothride kits.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...itment-200077/

 

Refresh page for edit:

 

I'm runnning Vredestein 185/80 since years on my MK2 (now on my second set after 10 years on the first) . Tire is good but not excellent in wet conditions. Never the less they are good value for money. If you want to spend more I would go to Michelin XVS, They are better in wet conditions and last longer, but for most classic cars it is not the milage but the time which forces replacement. Had them for about 20 years but over the years they got very hard and slippery with age so i moved to Vredestein for cost reason.
If you are using your car mostly in good weather the Vredestein are just perfect.

 

If budget is an issue i'm running these on my 2.4 MK2 and they seem really good to me https://www.vintagetyres.com/hifly-hf201-185-80r15-93t

They don't have the classis looks but at the price they are really good although seem to have shot up recently as I bought five for £219 last December but can't seem to see any currently listed on e-bay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204188034152

Might be worth shopping around to see what deals you can get, the only issue is that being T rated they are only rated for upto 118MPH which isn't an issue for a 2.4 as it won't do that speed if you push it off a cliff! The 420 can marginally exceed this so needs consideration, my view is that with the speed limit in the UK being 70MPH anything above 100MPH is fine and the tyre rating being 93 is more than sufficent.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

When i went to look for the tyres i could not find anything looking remotely like a date code. A few quick internet searches suggests that the model of tyre in question probably ceased to be manufactured in the mid-late 1990s, which if so is slightly terrifying and requiring urgent remedial action. The rest of the car so far as i can tell is fairly original so i thought it best not to change the size. I have opted for Vredestein sprint classics.

 

Just remember that if a car is capable of 120mph. Many insurance companies won't pay out should you not run tyres capable of handling at least that speed irrespective of how the damage occurred.

 

Good point however these are supposed to be V rated which is ample. Even if in reality a 50 year old car might not be able to get that close to its theoretical top speed when new and even if it could, illegality apart, the likelihood of finding a decent enough and sufficiently traffic free bit of road to attempt it would seem somewhat remote.

 

Indeed ~ Just pointing it out. In SA we have plenty of wide open spaces where you can take a car up to it's max speed. I've had my Merc at 270km/h before I chickened out. We don't respect Europe's 250km/h cap. That limit is not controlled on SA vehicles. Come to think of it neither does Jaguar on some of their top models even in Europe. A well restored E Type will push it's nose up against that V rating. Especially if fitted with triple side draught Weber carbs like an Aston Vantage of our era. And no the Tadek Marek engine is not a copy of an XK. Firstly it is not long stroke, secondly it is all aluminium including block & thirdly it runs dry sleeves sealed top & bottom for greater efficiency. No coolant around the sleeve.





Then you had the twin plug per cylinder engine that was even quicker/more powerful but a b*tch to tune. Synchronising twin distributors!

 

I think the insurance companies use the argument that, although a vehicle is extremely unlikely to be driven at its maximum speed, it does provide some measure of the performance of the car and the braking, cornering and acceleration loads the tyres may encounter. Of course, how well the speed rating represents the capacity of a tyre to resist those loads is another question.

 

Indeed Peter ~ any excuse to wriggle out of a claim. The Insurance Industry is a pernicious business. You can't really do without it. But!!!!!