165/65 R13 isn't a big tyre, but with the increase in small wheeled EVs it could be a tyre size of the future. With that in mind, and with a suitable test vehicle turning up in the car park (Ford KA) we bought 4 sets of tyres and covered 30,000 miles across all surfaces and during all conditions to work out which tyre is the best in the real world.
While commuting in a Ford KA isn't as glamorous as chucking an Audi R8 around a track in Portugal, the little KA has a dynamic chassis which both rewards a balanced tyre and punishes a bad one.
On test we have one premium brand, a Continental Eco Contact 3, two mid range brands comprising of a Toyo 350 and Falken SN828 and a budget Nexen SB652. Can one of the lesser brands upset the order and topple the premium Contenental? Check out the totally un-scientific results below!
Continental Eco Contact 3
165/65 R13
All discipline results (6)
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Dry | 10 |
| Wet | 10 |
| Subjective | 5 |
| Comfort | 10 |
| Noise | 10 |
| Wear | 9 |
Total: 54
Toyo 350
165/65 R13
All discipline results (6)
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Dry | 8 |
| Wet | 7 |
| Subjective | 10 |
| Comfort | 5 |
| Noise | 6 |
| Wear | 10 |
Total: 46
Falken SN828
165/65 R13
All discipline results (6)
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Dry | 7 |
| Wet | 7 |
| Subjective | 8 |
| Comfort | 6 |
| Noise | 7 |
| Wear | 6 |
Total: 41
Nexen SB652
165/65 R13
All discipline results (6)
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Dry | 5 |
| Wet | 4 |
| Subjective | 4 |
| Comfort | 9 |
| Noise | 7 |
| Wear | 7 |
Total: 36
Please put available wheel sizes .
I'm afraid it varies from tyre to tyre - you'll have to search a shopping site or checkout www.tyresearcher.com for full details!
i actually find this style of test extraordinarily informative in a "real world feel" sort of way.
more please!
and please track down ssome ecocontact 5 tests when you can
cheers! peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the kind words - as you can imagine logistically a "long term group test" is very difficult to produce, but we too believe them to be incredibly useful and will try our best to continue them.
As for the Eco Contact 5 - we were on the launch event where it was compared to an Eco Contact 3 in back to back driving. As you'd expect, it was a little better in every way, more wet grip, more MPG, more comfort. The only area it felt like a slight step back was the tyres feel - but the Eco Contact isn't a tyre you buy if you want a sporty drive!
actually, i am a (oldish) hoon but a hoon in a renault 4cv with an 5 alpine/gordini motor. my front wheels are 4.5" and rear 5.5", each 14" diameter. tyres are 165/65 front and 185/60 rear. what motivates me is wet grip (braking for the fronts of any rear engined car is a concern and benign and predictable behaviour at the limit when cornering is a good thing with swing axles).
i have run quite a few tyres on this (from original michelin stop/arrete pattern x tyres onwards) and find the e3conti very good in meeting both the braking and lateral limit behaviour challenges in parentheses above. their main fault is that they develop their maximum cornering force at quite high slip angles and so are inherently not crisp in response. my "quick and dirty" fix for this is to lessen their slip angles by inflation increases (35 psi front and, to balance this, 39psi rear). they are now very crisp and not too uncomfortable or skippy on bumpy corners.
i don't think many sporting drivers appreciate enough the tuning merits of pressure increases and playing with front/rear differences to achieve the handling traits they want.
there should be another test article there for you. take an understeering hatch on sloppy tyres at manufacturer's comfort-biased pressure recommendations and then ring some changes.
cheers! peter
That's a great idea for an article - tyre pressure tuning!
Thanks!
just as a post scriptum on this: i suggest the new ecocontact 5 in 165/70-14 on whatever you can borrow that takes this size
cheers! peter
so, whatever happened to this possibility?
It's on the list for a 2015 video :)