Best Tyres for the Toyota AYGO

I have had my 4 year service and they are telling me all 4 tyres are cracked on the outside rim. Will need replacing by next service. I have done 8500 miles on them. W I’ll not buy again as this has never happened before.

Fitted by a Toyota garage (!) to pass the MoT when I bought the car. I have been pleasantly surprised by these ‘cheap Chinese’ tyres: they grip well, wet or dry, and don’t seem to wear at all. They are loud, though, and are inclined to oversteer if I drive quickly through bends. Good for the price and perfectly adequate tyres on a car like the Aygo.

Bought a second hand Toyota Aygo with 'new' front tyres on. Dealer fitted. I'd not heard of them but after laughing at the name I thought I'd give them a chance. I had driven around 100 miles in the dry thinking "maybe it feels floaty and odd just because it's a little car on the motorway". Took it for a more serious test drive and although the breakaway characteristics are predictable enough even when fitted to something with steering approaching the jellier end of the spectrum of feedback the road speed at which they gave up was a bit low. Then I tried them in the wet. I have driven 12 miles in the wet on these, and that was enough to book the car in for some other tyres. The Aygo has 68 bhp and could set the TCS light off accelerating in 3rd gear. I don't think I've ever come across tyres that are so terrible in the wet. The journey back from the tyre shop with 2 new Continental Ecocontact 5 tyres on was a revelation. More grip, less floaty feel, more steering feedback and less road noise. I can't comment on wear; with only 125 miles driven on then I didn't want to drive on them any more. I wouldn't even put a set of Riken Maystorms on my trailer. Even a wheelbarrow would be questionable.

I bought a set of these to replace some nasty GT Radials that were fitted to my car when I bought it. Even from new those tyres had abysmal grip in the wet, and as they began to wear, it got to the stage where my wheels would spin like crazy when pulling away in wet conditions if I used anything more than a kiss of throttle.
At £45 each for my Aygo, I wasn't expecting miracles from the Maxxis tyres, just hoping for a slight improvement. But the difference is night and day. No longer do I fear I'm going to lose it on every roundabout or understeer into a bush round every corner, and I can now pull away with reasonable urgency without the slightest threat of wheelspin. I feel like I'm driving a different car.
Whilst these may not be the best tyres in the world, they're all most drivers will need in terms of traction and all-round performance. I've yet to see how they compare to my old tyres in terms of wear, but at that price, I don't really care. They give me reassurance and that's what matters most.

Good on dry, mediocre on wet. Fitted to my wife's Toyota Aygo (2015 model) they were starting to show cracks on the sides after just 3 years and 21.000 km. This size of tyres under this very light car is made for city trips and low mileage, so should you be able to expect the Continentals to last far more than they've done. Granted, the tread is somewhere around 4.5mm now, so that's not bad, but that means nothing when cracks all around are showing very heavily after just 3 years of Dutch (or UK) weather and I have to replace them. Thinking about replacing them with ADAC's 2018 test winner, the Falken Sincera SN832 Ecorun (with wear the only against it seems) or Toyota's own choice, the Yokohama BluEarth ES32.

I put these tires under my car a week ago., I used these tires in normal dry condtions. The tires are cheap to buy and not noisy. The problem occured by braking, then these tires are very unstable on a dry asphalted road. They move to the right. Also the back tyres are very nervous, not steady on normal conditions. In the corners by dry weather you got a bit of understearing. I changed for comparising these tires for continental summertires and these tires reacted much better on dry conditions. So now i am sure that i will never use these Falken euroseason tires ever again. For the record a mecanic did test these tires and came to the same conclusion, the car is not stable with these tires.
Concerned driver, Netherlands, Toyota Aygo 165/60 R 15

These tyres are fitted on my Toyota Aygo 2009 model in the 165/55/14 size on steel rims. I will replace them with better eco tyres (maybe allseason tyres) when they are done.

Grips pretty ok in the dry (pretty soft sidewall), but is terrible in the wet. Wheelspin off the line in wet conditions and prone to aquaplaning. So lowering speed and better anticipation is the best way to counteract this.

Fairly loud regarding road noise, but the Aygo is also badly insulated, so therefore a 6 instead of a 5 regarding score. Will not recommend except if you are on a very tight budget. But then it would probably be better to buy second hand A-grade tyres then these.

Bought 4x Nokian WRD3s from Tyre Leader in summer 2014 for approx' £38 per tyre in 155/65/14. Had them fitted locally in Nov' 2014 ready for winter time.

These winter tyres replaced some fairly new Continental Contact Premium 2 as fitted by the vehicle manufacturer.

I've had a reasonable amount of experience with Continental tyres in the last 10 years and overall I'm not entirely impressed with them. Sure, they get rave reviews from the magazines that test them at Continental's own proving ground in Germany. But in my experience they wear far too quickly, cost more than they should and in the last 3mm or so of tread life they ride harshly and road noise increases significantly. My Toyota Aygo (a very light car) had covered just 7k miles and the front tyres were at 3mm – this was not through aggressive driving, far from it.

Anyway, I have driven on the WR D3's for around 4k miles now and I have to say I'm very impressed with them. In direct comparison to the Continental tyres the following was noticed:

1) Nokian have a more direct turn-in when tackling corners

2) Nokian are quieter on dry roads. On wet roads the noise from the tyres seems a little louder as you can literally hear all the sipes gripping the road surface, especially driving over white lines. This is only of note and does not irritate in any way.

3) Nokian's softer compound offers as slightly more absorbent ride; road imperfections are soaked up more easily.

4) The 8mm wear indicator has just started to disappear from the front tyre's central band after 4,000 miles. So, 1mm wear after that mileage is very impressive, especially given how quickly the Continental tyres were wearing out.

Dry Roads: The WR D3's grip very well and provide a linear turn-in when going around corners. You can throw the car into corners or around roundabouts with the same grip that a quality summer tyre would provide.

Wet Roads: I feel they provide more trustworthy grip than the Continental's did. They cut through standing water at motorway speeds with no affect on the car's position within its lane; aquaplaning is well suppressed.

Frost: On frost-covered road surfaces the WR D3's grip very well indeed and inspire confidence.

Snow: Driving on fresh snow the Nokian's have a fantastic amount of traction off the line. The same can be said when cornering and stopping. On hard-packed snow delicate use of the throttle is needed whilst performing hill starts. This also applies for stopping and cornering. The deepest snow I drove through was 6 inches and this was tackled with ease - this also includes performing hill-starts and stopping on a 1:5 gradient.

Ice: Again, you have to be very cautious when accelerating, braking or cornering. If you want or need absolute grip on ice you need to buy studded tyres.

Slush: Travelling on slush due to its unpredictability is the most dangerous of all the above conditions. Happily, I can report that driving at about 50mph on a slush-covered M60 during a blizzard in Jan' 2015 the Nokian's were completely surefooted. I overtook several 4x4s on a trip I had to undertake when time was critical. I can only image what they were thinking when the little Aygo blasted past their £50k+ off-roaders' with their fat tyres which dragged them out of their motorway lanes from time to time.


Nokian – winter tyres you can trust:

From Nov' 2014 to Jan' 2015 my Dad was severely ill and I had to travel a 60-mile round trip most mornings and evenings to see him at his home and, latterly, every single day at a hospice to help look after him.

Throughout this time the weather was mostly cold and snowy, sometimes worse. On numerous occasions before setting off to see him I was chiselling ice / snow off the car and driving in sub-zero conditions early morning and at night.

On Jan' 17th 2015 I had left the hospice to go home at 4pm having been with my Dad since 7:30am. My 2 year old son had been asking his Mum where his Dad was each day, so I'd decided to come home to bath him and put him to bed. At 6:30pm I received a phone call from my Mum to say that my Dad had died.

I remember leaving home that evening to head to the hospice, again de-icing / removing snow from the car before setting off and travelling on deep, snow-covered roads to get onto the M60. A severe blizzard was already underway and all lanes of the motorway were quickly covered in icy slush about 1 inch deep. I travelled about 20 miles at 40-50mph on the motorway in these conditions to meet other family members at the hospice and to see and say farewell to my Dad in his room.

Why am I telling you this?

I live in the hills on about 2 miles of unadopted roads that the council don't plough or grit and have been stuck a lot over the years with company cars that had ‘summer' tyres. 4x4 soft roaders get stuck up here regularly, too.

I know for a fact that without these Nokian winter tyres I would not have been able to visit my Dad as often as I did in the last 2 months of his life or been able to make that final journey to say ‘goodbye' to him.

In my book, that makes these Nokian WR D3 tyres pretty damn special.

Mike

PS I have also reviewed Nokian WR A3 and Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons (both lengthy reviews)

These are fitted to my wife's Toyota Aygo MMT and we have only recently tested them on icey roads. On a minor 60mph road with heavy frost -3 degrees at 7.30am they were a bit sketchy at 50mph on sweeping bends but never having used winter tyres before I didn't know what to expect. That said I assumed the car behind had summer tyres as he dropped back quickly. It all seemed a bit light on feedback but predictable as long as I kept speed down a bit. Driving in wet and dry have been fine with no noticeable difference from stock continentals. No noticeable wear so far.

I've used this tyres during last two winters. The dry grip is not bad, but it's important to handle the car knowing that this are winter tyres. The wet grip is awesome, I've never suffered aquaplaning not even crossing deep puddles. In the snow the grip is fairly good, I've never been stuck and I always have the total control of the car, even with 10 cm thickness or driving at 80 km/h on the motorway.

The wear is moderate, I'm using them again next summer because they don't reach the winter indicator (4 mm depth) of the tyre yet. They are more noisy than summer tyres (Conti Premium Contact 2).

I would buy them again.