Given
40%
while driving a
BMW 318is
(195/65 R14)
on
a combination of roads
for 2,500
average miles
First of all I'd like to clarify that I bought the car in late february 2023 with these tyres (DOT 0119) fitted on by the previous owner sometime during 2019. Between the tyres being fitted and me buying the car, it was not used very much. In fact it was sitting for most of that time with occasional use to keep the battery "healthy". I've driven about 4000km on them and I think it's fair to say I am not very impressed.
The first problem I encountered was the fact that while they aren't dry rotted, microcracks have started forming inside the grooves in the tread and on the sidewall to a lesser extent, but since they had still plenty of tread left I thought to give them a go for a while before changing.
On average-high quality dry pavement the grip is not phenomenal but I wouldn't consider them dangerous to drive on. They can spin for a few meters when launching in first gear and momentarily when changing to second quickly near the redline. Totally expected for an old rwd car with about 140 horsepower more or less. When starting uphill on poorer quality pavement the wheelspin is unavoidable no matter how smoothly I try to take off. In the wet on the other hand it takes almost zero effort to spin at low speeds and it's not hard at all to induce oversteer when cornering at a slow pace.
I haven't found the limit of grip to be progressive, as when inducing oversteer on purpose and the "drifting angle" becomes a bit higher there is a tendency to fishtail.
When driving on a twisty road, the front tyres are slow responding, meaning there's lag between turning the wheel and the car changing direction. I know the 65 series profile is big but I'm not too keen on that behaviour.
The worst part is braking, as I've had to "panic" brake on two seperate occasions (average pavement, dry weather, tyres were not cold) from moderate speed in order to avoid obstacles and the tyres didn't brake efficiently enough. The front wheels locked up much more quickly than anticipated (car has no ABS), meaning the brakes outpowered the tyres by a lot. I'd expect better performance and having to pump the brake pedal less to keep control of the situation. Thankfully none of the afformentioned situations resulted in an accident.
To summarize I wouln't buy these tyres again and I wouldn't reccomend buying them to anyone since they somewhat disappointed me. Sure, I didn't buy them new and they weren't stored in the best conditions when I got my car and started driving it but I surely expected better braking and handling to some extent.
