185/60 R13 Tyres

Fitted to track day/hill climb (+ odd local trips on B and C roads) Westfield. Replaced set of Federals. Quite sensitive to tyre pressure settings. Unlikely to be used in wet! Wear rate already appears higher than Federals but performance is the measure not miles. Feedback figure is a bit of a crock because it has much to do with the setup of the car as well as the tyres.

I got a set, virtually brand new in 185/60x13 for use on a box trailer. The original Tigar tyres were useless. Aquaplaned, and trailer tended to sway. The Pirellis transformed the towing. Yes, a bit exotic for a trailer, but work brilliantly. I don't believe this small size is available anymore

I have mounted a complete set of 4 new tires on a Citroen AX GTI 185/60/13 and on my Peugeot 106 1.4 XSI 175/60/14. They are good tires with a lot of grip and very quiet, no rolling noises. I use them for daily commuting and with a sporty driving style. The road feedback is good, you feel exactly what is happening and where the limit is when you turn hard into a bend. The only thing what is negativy about them is during a heavy rain shower, aquaplaning is coming up with the 175/60/14 on the Peugeot 106. The tires clearly have difficulty with this, but it is not dangerous. Every band has its pros and cons. But I can say with confidence that the price/quality ratio is at a high level. Would definitely buy them again.

I did quite a bit of research on tyres for my Escort after Uniroyal stopped producing the Rallye 340, this was the ideal tyre for my "on the edge" driving; excellent grip, dry & wet, and utterly dependable & predictable; barrelling into tightening mountain roads in North Wales knowing the tyres wouldn't let go. The Yokohama A539 is very similar, possibly better when braking very hard in the wet.

Just before the recent price hikes I bought another set as spare.

TBF I only drive the car when there is zero salt on the road.

Thoroughly recommend the A539.

These tyres are amazing, since the day I discovered them I only used in my car, the control in dry and wet make me feel so comfortable that I do not need to adjust much my driving style for any condition, I basically love those tyres. Big fan

I have replaced my worn out Nankang XR-611 tyres after 75 000 km or 46 000 miles with the Apollo,s. The pricing was good at 30 Pound/R635.00 /corner and the tyres look good with a good thread pattern and depth. The Apollo's started out good eg. ride comfort, grip, wet road handling, stopping distance dry and wet. After 12 000 miles/20 000 km all went down the drain. The tyres look great, thread depth at 6.5mm. The ride comfort felt like a wheelbarrow, harsh and hard, stopping distance was dreadful, grip was dodgy. Overall what a disappointment after 12 500 miles/20 000 kilometers. The end result I had to replace the tyres prematurely because of safety issues. Not recommended for an all season tyre on urban or highway.

he car I had came fitted with a set of Yokohama A539 tyres. Designed for normal passenger car use they needed significantly more than 500kg on top of them and they were hopeless. Zero grip, got hot, became squirmy and unpredictable and were hopeless on track. Id driven on the ZZS quite a lot but wasn't sure if Avon merited the price premium, and the tyre size wasn't ideal for my model so I opted for the R888R in GG compound.

Shortly after I had a chance at Croft to compare three Caterham's with ZZR, ZZS and the R888R.

Initial impressions are that in the bone dry with all other considerations gone, the ZZR is king. Genuinely a superb stable high performance tyre that stays on the boil for a significant amount of time. I'd suggest a window of at least 10 laps where the tyre was on perfect form. Then a slow transition into being slightly more slippery and excess tyre wear as the temperature increases.

The ZZS is a superb road tyre for a Caterham. Remarkably useful in the wet and even down to quite low temperatures, and works very well on a track as long as you limit your sessions to say 6-8 laps. After this again the transition into slightly less predictable begins and the car just becomes very slidey!

The R888R was somewhere in between the two extremes. I felt that the Toyos offered ALMOST ZZR performance but at a fairly significant discount. They were definitely better from cold than the ZZS and lasted a little longer before going off. They also worked almost as well on the road as a ZZS, dealing with water pretty well. The R888R stayed on my car.

Downsides: the R888R is a heavier tyre with a stiffer sidewall, so this makes them a little less comfortable and adds a touch of unsprung weight to a light car, but their benefits generally outweighed these issues.

Ultimately I feel budget and requirement would dictate which you'd have. On a modern Caterham where ride height and sump layouts allow the smaller ratios, I'd suggest pick either a ZZR/S. But for older academy cars based on 175/70/13 tyres, going down to a 185/55/13 was just too much. The toyo in 185/60/13 was a better bet, with a small tweak to ride height.

I have a Caterham and live in Portugal.

I bought NS-2R 180/Street compound, since I was told they were as good as Toyo R888 and would last the same or more... Utter nonsense... I got 4000Km from them. I am not an aggressive driver and I certainly don't laptime on the road. I have only done 300Km on motorways.
I am very much inclined to say that Portugal has a really hot tarmac... I got none of the great mileage everyone talks about... It's a Caterham, well set up and, with half the weight of most of other reviewers' cars...
Could it have been a bad batch? Maybe... Will I buy or recommend them? Absolutely not.