New tires for the Benz: Mabor

Hey people!

Time for new tires for the Benz, the Continentals were starting to show the mesh inside at the shoulder, after just below 20000km.


I ended up choosing the Mabor, it's a Portuguese brand that was purchased by Continental. "Mabor Sport-Jet 2"
I gather those are made in Europe, and sold only in few countries outside Portugal, but quite popular over here. The price is much lower than Continental, but still a little more than chinese strange brands that come up nowadays.
There is no web-site for them, it points back to Continental and there is no official info online about them.
I guess the brand will soon bite the dust...


There is another Portuguese tire factory, but they have been struggling for a while now, and may be belly-up very soon.
So much for Europe de-industrialization.

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Jose Pinto
There is another Portuguese tire factory, but they have been struggling for a while now, and may be belly-up very soon.
So much for Europe de-industrialization.

Maybe the market for low end products is on the way down. People prefer premium products. I only buy Michelin tyres.

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Ove Kvam

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Jose Pinto
There is another Portuguese tire factory, but they have been struggling for a while now, and may be belly-up very soon.
So much for Europe de-industrialization.

Maybe the market for low end products is on the way down. People prefer premium products. I only buy Michelin tyres.

Michelin are very good.That is because you know better and can afford the good stuff.

I think that is not the case over here, for most people.
The problem is the "low end" has a new sub-low, very cheap and imported from the far east.
I see older crappy cars, most use bad tires, often worn and incorrectly inflated. The combination may be deadly.

The Mabor ones I bought never were the cheapest thing out there, and they were known to wear quickly. I noticed mine are a bit noisy at speed.
Other than that, they work just fine. I.ve been doing some braking and throwing the car at corners...
The last non-premium brand I bought for the Benz was made in France, and they lasted half what a good set is supposed to (partly due to suspension issues), not costing half the price, so they came out as very expensive choice. :/

With the car as it is now, I hope tire wear to be even, as the handling became much more predictable and stable.

I too have just bought some new tires. I had some 6 year old Michelin all season tires that were nearly to the wear bars. They were not very good in any weather any more but the new set of summer tires are very sticky on dry pavement. Probably not so much on wet. Will have to go back to the snow tires when the rain comes back.

Bob in Lake Havasu

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Bob in Everett
I too have just bought some new tires. I had some 6 year old Michelin all season tires that were nearly to the wear bars. They were not very good in any weather any more but the new set of summer tires are very sticky on dry pavement. Probably not so much on wet. Will have to go back to the snow tires when the rain comes back.

Snow tires in the rain? Summer tires are generally a lot better in rain than winter tires. All season tires do not exist. They are no season tires! :-)

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Bob in Everett
I too have just bought some new tires. I had some 6 year old Michelin all season tires that were nearly to the wear bars. They were not very good in any weather any more but the new set of summer tires are very sticky on dry pavement. Probably not so much on wet. Will have to go back to the snow tires when the rain comes back.

Over here new tires come with a tag where one can see the classification on how they perform on wet, fuel efficiency and noise.


UE serves for something, besides raising our taxes and destroy jobs.


What new summer tires you bought now? Michelin?
Those are good, but for some reason I like the Continental better.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2015 03:25AM by Jose Pinto.

My snow tires are the Michelin X-ice tread pattern with lots of sipes in them. They seem to do ok on wet pavement and when it is cold here. The temp is pretty cool from November to March so a Summer tire is not likely to do as well. Our pavement gets quite worn and slippery too. Not much agressive driving since the misty rain keeps most roads wet.

Bob in Lake Havasu

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Bob in Everett
My snow tires are the Michelin X-ice tread pattern with lots of sipes in them. They seem to do ok on wet pavement and when it is cold here. The temp is pretty cool from November to March so a Summer tire is not likely to do as well. Our pavement gets quite worn and slippery too. Not much agressive driving since the misty rain keeps most roads wet.

I am running Michelin X-Ice Xi3, and they are not really good in rain, at least not compared to a dedicated summer tire.
The sipes are too narrow. My Pilot Sport 3 tires are awesome in wet conditions. I can lap almost as fast in the rain as in
dry conditions on track days (the car is rather underpowered).

That is good to know. I thought about some Pilot Sport 3 tires but since I already had the X ice on a set of wheels for winter, I went for the Pilot Super Sport summer tire. Not sure what they will be like in wet weather.
I will find out come October when the rain comes back.

Bob in Lake Havasu

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Bob in Everett
That is good to know. I thought about some Pilot Sport 3 tires but since I already had the X ice on a set of wheels for winter, I went for the Pilot Super Sport summer tire. Not sure what they will be like in wet weather.
I will find out come October when the rain comes back.

Pilot Supersport is an excellent tire, both in the wet and dry. It does however not like low ambient temperatures.

When you say low temperature, how low do you mean? Below freezing? or less?

Bob in Lake Havasu

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Bob in Everett
When you say low temperature, how low do you mean? Below freezing? or less?

I am not sure exactly where it starts to struggle, but it is slightly above freezing.

I bought Pilot Sport 3 for my Z4 (because SuperSports don't come in R17...).
Quite happy with them for the first 3 months (before summer), but they either don't like high temperatures (we have 37-38 Celsius constantly lately...), or the local roads disintegrate at these temperatures, because they are slippy as hell, my DSC light is on almost all the time. And I'm always nervous when braking hard in traffic.

--
A physics truck just turned over outside. There's physics everywhere!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2015 04:13AM by jaffar.

Yes, my experience is also that PS3 seems to have a rubber compound that is happier at lower temperatures, or when it is raining.

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jaffar
I bought Pilot Sport 3 for my Z4 (because SuperSports don't come in R17...).
Quite happy with them for the first 3 months (before summer), but they either don't like high temperatures (we have 37-38 Celsius constantly lately...), or the local roads disintegrate at these temperatures, because they are slippy as hell, my DSC light is on almost all the time. And I'm always nervous when braking hard in traffic.

The Portuguese Michelin web site suggests the Primacy3.
The Pilot Sport 3 is marketed as a more sports oriented, (as the Super sport), the last thing one would expect such product to be slippy when hot

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Jose Pinto
The Portuguese Michelin web site suggests the Primacy3.
The Pilot Sport 3 is marketed as a more sports oriented, (as the Super sport), the last thing one would expect such product to be slippy when hot

The PS3 is more sporty than Primacy3, but not as sporty as PSS. The PS2 was developed into both PS3 and PSS, where
PS3 is a bit more of a rain tire, and PSS is a bit more of a racing tire compared to the PS2.

And the PSS is made in 17", but not sold in Europe. You can buy it from USA in smaller sizes.