My 2 rear Dunlop SportMaxx SP Dunlop Sport Maxx - 285/30 R20 99Y XL (J) MFS TL are nearly down to the limit. Dunlop Fronts are still ok so will be on for a while yet. Was thinking of going a bit wider with 295's. My rears are 10" rims. Would it be ok to fit a 295 on this rim or stick to the 285. Dunlop i don't think do a 295 in this size so would have to got for another type, any suggestions. Also what about gearing and drive, would the be effected.

 

For the rim itself, i don't see a problem. 295 on a 10" rim is not extraordinary.

Just as along as you have sufficient clearance in the wheel well.

 

Not sure what sizes are available with the 295 thread width. The difference in sidewall height between a stock 285x30 and a 295x30 is only 3mm, which is negligeable and if anything, it will make your odometer more accurate. Most factory odometer calibrations are purposely showing higher than actual speeds. I think my XKR is by about 2 MPH at 70.

I just changed my Dunlops for the same sized Conti DWS 06, which is an all season tire. I intend to drive my XKR all during the winter months and for CA, that tire is a great choice. It also rides much nicer and quieter than the Dunlops were.

 

I just put on a set of DWS 06 tires to replace the Dunlops as well. The Dunlops were making so much noise I thought there was a problem with a wheel bearing or the diff. With the Conti's there is still some road noise, but it is much more reasonable. I'm not pushing the tires too hard... but I like them so far.

 

I recently put a new set of P Zero Nero's (OEM on Evora) and am happy with them. They aren't the noisy hard P Zero's of old. Very well priced, the last set I got good mileage from and certain sizes had a very large lip around the end to "protect" the wheel. A buddy just bought a Porsche 991 and it came with the same tires.

 

I have 295 Nitto Motivos. They look great and no ill effects.

 

Anything, ANYTHING is ok as long as they are NOT Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Worst tires (tyres) ever made since the beginning of time. NOT kidding.

 

Have had nothing but great luck with pilot super sports. Know plenty of BMW owners that use them on and off the track. I have had horrible luck with pirellis on Mustangs.

From what I have read on this site the general consensus is to get rid of the Dunlop's but beyond that everyone has their own opinion on what to go to afterward.

Remember to also think about if you need them to work in colder temps. I love my super sports but also realize anything less than 45 degrees and I take my work truck or the wifes car.

 

Maybe just for the fun of it we should take a site poll. We could list Conti's , dunlop , pirelli's , Michelin's , hankook , bridgestone , yokohama as the mfg's and after that a survey on which model of the top 2 brands . Just a suggestion.

 

Seems everyone has a different view on tyres, as for the Dunlops i have on, they were put on new when i purchased the car, and i never had any issues, noise or grip wise. I think it all depends on driving conditions, the weather here never get really warm in summer 25 degrees mostly, but rest of the time around 8-12, so may suit the Dunlops. Maybe will replace like for like.

 

I have Vredestein Ultrac Sessantas on mine, which work very well and are reasonably priced in the UK. I've had a couple of sets of these on my previous car and found them to be excellent. However if I was buying new ones I'd go for their Ultrac Vorti instead as they're supposed to be a step ahead again compared to the Sessantas.

 

Just to report back on the Continental DWS 06 tires after my first longer drive:

Very significant difference in ride comfort and noise reduction. Until I returned my '12 XJL we had 3 Jaguars, a '12 XF and the '10 XKR. Every one of them displays the same ride tendencies, meaning, you basically feel even the road surface texture in the form of input (vibration, if you will) at the steering wheel.

The XJL was, by far, the most troublesome. I had returned it to Jaguar at least 6 times to fix the ride, to no avail. Appears that is how they were designed with springs that are too stiff or shocks that are unable to filter out the road texture frequencies, even with the 19" tires.

So, yes, it did bother me in my XKR with the Dunlop tires. With the DWS 06, I am happy to report, the harshness is MUCH reduced and the steering wheel is "calm", as it should be, under most road conditions. Noise is also MUCH reduced over the Dunlops, so finally the car rides like a GT car should. The handling is still very confident over our narrow, winding canyon roads, although noticeable the turn-in is not as sharp as with the Dunlops. However, with winter is approaching and me planning to drive the car through the colder months, I think these tires are an excellent choice. They also come with a very high wear ratings (520, I think) which should make them last longer than the Dunlops where the rears were done at 7600 miles, and I do not do any wheelspin starts.

 

Why does Jag design car with such stiff springs? Seems counter-intuitive and they do it across the board.

 

After I had a chance to put about 400 miles on the tires I am not so happy with them. When it come to ride comfort, they are a definite improvement over the stock Dunlop tires. Same for noise levels.

However, when it comes to handling it is a different matter. Yesterday I pushed it rather hard through close to 20 miles of tight winding roads and here is what was observed;

The turn-in is nowhere near as precise as with the Dunlops. Not bad but, definitely noticable. The roadholding is also altogether not too bad, the tires do stick in the corners. Understeer is increased, however, quite a bit, so I needed to apply power during cornering to overcome the understeer. This is when I noticed something that appeared strange:

The traction control light kept flashing-on as I was exiting the corners, indicating tire slip. Several times I also lost momentary engine power at corner exits. First, I thought something was wrong with the engine but, after a while I concluded that the tires were simply slipping under moderate accelerations from corners and the traction control was cutting power to the engine as a response. I was in Dynamic mode. I have never before experienced traction control cutting-in, even under harder driving conditions, such as when I was keeping up with the Ferrari 458.

I am happy with the much improved ride and with the fact that I have all season tires going into the winter months when I will be using the car frequently. However, I am not happy loosing the precision handling and not happy that the tires invoke the traction control under rather moderate acceleration. As a long time racer I do have a good feel how much throttle I can apply during cornering and with these tires the cornering limits have gone down considerably.

I am not sure, yet, what I will do, either just settle for the reduced tire performance in exchange for better ride and winter handling, or will go back to some summer-only tires. If I decide to just treat the XKR as a comfortable GT car then these tires would be Ok. If I really want to push the car over twisties, than I obviously need different rubber. On the other hand, I can always use my new Stingray as my "fast canyon carver" a role that it is much better at than the XKR.

Decisions...decisions...

 

Albert, did you try switching to TracDSC? The normal DSC is pretty sensitive, i.e. it's designed to keep the inexperienced out of trouble. TracDSC gives you more leeway.

 

The traction control on mine is pretty aggressive about killing power whether oversteer or understeer. Even in the TracDSC. If it weren't that my priority was a comfortable daily driver, it'd make me want to pull out hair. The stability/traction control is one of the few things a Porsche 911(901) wins big time over the XK. in the XK, it feels clumsily delayed, and then over-reacts big time.

 

I was thinking about this while taking a walk. The sensors are looking at RPM of your individual wheels when making decisions. Even if you used the same size tire as written the on the side wall, different brands will be built differently. There is an unmounted width, and if a tire was stretched onto a wheel wider than that, the tire gets shorter, if the tire overhangs the wheel, the tire gets taller.

If you ended up with an opposite situation on each end, the car is constantly being fed info that there is a small amount of slippage front/rear. Since my car has aftermarket tires, I'm going to have to check on this right now and compare the OEM specs to what it has. Could be the source of both our problems with the traction system.

Edit, seems tire diameter stays bound by the steel inside it. There is a small diameter difference between the hankook's my car was sold with, and the Dunlops, but its only about 1/3rd of an inch per revolution

 

There will have to be a certain amount of tolerance built into this system. Being staggered fitment, the front and rear tyres have a difference in rolling diameter. The car will cope with a couple of different wheel sizes too. Rear tyres will wear much quicker than fronts (assuming pressures are kept right and alignment is correct) so even small differences in construction between different tyres should not be enough to confuse the car.

 

And there's also wear, which won't be the same front and rear - even if you buy a set of 4, the rears will wear faster.

I have slightly oversize rear tyres fitted to mine (305 vs 295 standard), and I've not noticed any change to the frequency of DSC activation since I did that.

 

What size rim are the 305's on as a matter of interest.