I did a search on 185/80 and came up with a lot of Van tyres....
Last edited:
Original Michelins for an early CX
- Thread starter WRB
- Start date
The rolling diameter is wrong .... It's going to be low geared and your speedo will under read. you need 185/80 ... 195/75, 205/65. My preference is anything round under the back and 215/65 under the nose
seeya,
Shane L.
Not quite right (a typo, I suspect). By reference to 185/80-14, the following sizes are under-geared by the stated percentages.
185/70 - 5.7%
205/65 - 4.6%
205/70 - 1.5%
215/65 - 1.4%
Anyway, one won't find anything much (or anything at all) in 205/65 & I can't see anything reputable on offer in 215/65. What were you suggesting as a tyre type?
Personally, I find such under-gearing to be a non-event as one swiftly makes the mental adjustment (my Moke is under-geared by 9.4% & my Djet, coincidentally, by the same 9.4%).
cheers! Peter
I did a search on 185/80 and came up with a lot of Van tyres....
As I stated, Hankook's K715 is available; a copy & paste from Hanhook's website follows:
185/80R14T
Relatedly, the only Conti available in 185/70 is the Comfort Contact 5. It's a soggy tyre with wet-grip below Continental's usual high standards. It's not one I'd recommend. If 185/70 is your chosen size, then I'd fit Hanhook's new Ex (I omitted to mention its availablity in 185/70 in my above quoted email but it is available - from the website: 185/70R14T). It looks very promising despite being a low rolling resistance design.
Below is a copy & paste of an analysis of it which I did in a 175/70-13 thread in the Renault forum. The vehicles in question there (R12 family) make much the same demands on a tyre as the CX.
"..... an intriguing new candidate might be worth consideration - to wit: Hankook's Kinergy Ex.
Yes it's an Eco tyre designed for low rolling resistance & that is a priority in some tension with handling crispness & with wet grip (in compound sensitive conditions). Structure & compound are the key parameters for achieving low R.R.. The Ex is intriguing nonetheless as it seems to promise to have decent levels of both crispness & wet grip.
One of the major influences on handling crispness is sidewall design & the key is to have low slip angles by having forces applied at the rim transferred to the tread without excessive twisting distortion of the sidewall. Usual ways of achieving this are two.
One is by means of so called "flippers" - sidewall fabric turn-ups at the bead or extra fabric folds inserted at the bead area. Although not designed with handling crispness in mind, "extra load" variants of tyres usually have two sidewall plies, not one, & this extra layer can add torsional stiffness to the sidewall in much the manner of a flipper.
The other is by so-called "fillers" - the wedge of rubber in the bead area between the sidewall ply & the turn-up of it after going around the bead wire. Vary the dimensions & stiffness of the rubber filler & one thereby affects the torsional stiffness of the sidewall.
The Ex is intriguing in that it extends the sidewall ply turn up in the manner of a super long flipper to form a second sidewall ply. Rationale is apparently sidewall strength in resisting impacts. This is an odd feature in a low R.R. tyre as, when low R.R. is achieved by way of structure, the sidewalls are usually very light to reduce energy wasteful intra-tyre heat generation by way of flexing. They are thus vulnerable to damage & this is one reason why some of the European "green" tyres are not coming to rough, tough Australia (we get the Pirelli P1 "ordinaire" for instance & not the more eco-orientated P1 Verde). Anyway, the Ex has effectively two ply sidewalls & that can only be to the good for handling crispness even if that's not their design purpose.
It also has hard rubber fillers. This time explicitly meant for achieving handling crispness.
The Hankook propaganda sheet also explicitly talks about crisp response. To see such a matter given such prominence is a bit unusual in this class of tyre; so this is promising, especially when one can see how this might be actually achieved given the structure.
I spend some time on this because tyre sidewall torsional tautness is an important trait for the R12 family's handling feel & response.
Hankook also make wet grip claims, particularly under braking (as is now commonplace, they use silica in place of some carbon black as a compound filler although the detail of this is clearly directed more towards lowering R.R. whilst marginally improving lateral wet grip compared to their unidentified reference tyre).
No test results of the Ex at this stage but the related (older) Kinergy Eco K425 & the Optimo K415 & K715 have generally tested well. So, all very promising looking: there's some chance of an important size for many froggers having available a tyre that both grips well enough in the wet & handles crisply. I have no direct experience of it but I suspect that it's the class leader (of what's available in Australia anyway) on these two parameters."
cheers! Peter
Last edited:
The difference in rolling circumference relates to speed thus:
CX Auto
185/80 37km/h/1,000rpm
195/70 35km/h/1,000rpm
The other point to note is 195/70 14 were fitted standard to CXs in the latter years. Steering is noticeably better on 195/70 than anything wider. However the fact that we are talking about an early manual steer CX it would be sacrilege to fit anything wider or lower profile. Probably your best bet is to stick with 185/80 and pump them up. Also make sure everything in the front suspension and steering is perfect so you will be able to drive it. The only manual steer CX I have driven was very hard work.
CX Auto
185/80 37km/h/1,000rpm
195/70 35km/h/1,000rpm
The other point to note is 195/70 14 were fitted standard to CXs in the latter years. Steering is noticeably better on 195/70 than anything wider. However the fact that we are talking about an early manual steer CX it would be sacrilege to fit anything wider or lower profile. Probably your best bet is to stick with 185/80 and pump them up. Also make sure everything in the front suspension and steering is perfect so you will be able to drive it. The only manual steer CX I have driven was very hard work.
It also makes sense considering that it only has 4 gears. I don't know what size tyres it has at the moment (picking it up from tassie later this month) but, the engine was over revving at 110kmh. The steering is precise with only a hint of a shake at 110KMH (probably a slightly worn knuckle) just requires a fair amount of work at low speeds, reversing etc
I would think pumping up the tyres would be a good idea regardless of the profile used.
John
Hmm! "Sacrilege" aside, if you don't want to go with 205/70, then I'd be inclined to go with 195/70 with 185/75 rears. These are near enough the same circumference so a rear could go to the front in a flat tyre situation if your spare was too different to the 195/70.
Even if non-PAS, I doubt that you'd find 195/70 any harder in low speed turning than 185/80. The reason is that, although marginally wider, the contact patch is shorter & your steering link gains more mechanical advantage over that patch when turning. Nor is this just theory, in case for some odd reason you distrust theory. My own experience with two R12s was that steering was lighter, not heavier, when switching from 165/75 or 165/80, to 175/70.
In any event, as noted, one can always lighten steering (& tauten steering response) by increasing pressures at the front (& perhaps rear - to get the handling balance you want). This has two effects. First, it lessens the contact patch area, thus there's less tread to haul over the road. Second, that area lessening is achieved by shortening the contact patch & thus the leverage effect mentioned above is increased.
Nor do I think that you'd notice the 2.4% under-gearing of 195/70 compared to OE 185/80. (If it bothered you, then 195/75 is near as dammit the same circumference as 185/80 & you could have these at the front & 185/80 rears to get some improvement of the handling balance.)
Tyres?
For 195/70, I'd fit the Hankook Ex (for a comparatively tauter front). The Ex is not available in 185/75, so, for rears, I'd fit the K715.
If you wanted to preserve original gearing, the 195/75 & the 185/80 rears would both be K715.
cheers! Peter
post scriptum: Just to note that, whichever variation of the above recommendations you chose, the advertised cost for all four (fitted & balanced) would be c. $400. Hankook have a $50 cashback promotion on at the moment (ends 31 August) so with this applied, total cost would be $350. I venture to suggest that this is rather better than the prices in your initial post
Even if non-PAS, I doubt that you'd find 195/70 any harder in low speed turning than 185/80. The reason is that, although marginally wider, the contact patch is shorter & your steering link gains more mechanical advantage over that patch when turning. Nor is this just theory, in case for some odd reason you distrust theory. My own experience with two R12s was that steering was lighter, not heavier, when switching from 165/75 or 165/80, to 175/70.
In any event, as noted, one can always lighten steering (& tauten steering response) by increasing pressures at the front (& perhaps rear - to get the handling balance you want). This has two effects. First, it lessens the contact patch area, thus there's less tread to haul over the road. Second, that area lessening is achieved by shortening the contact patch & thus the leverage effect mentioned above is increased.
Nor do I think that you'd notice the 2.4% under-gearing of 195/70 compared to OE 185/80. (If it bothered you, then 195/75 is near as dammit the same circumference as 185/80 & you could have these at the front & 185/80 rears to get some improvement of the handling balance.)
Tyres?
For 195/70, I'd fit the Hankook Ex (for a comparatively tauter front). The Ex is not available in 185/75, so, for rears, I'd fit the K715.
If you wanted to preserve original gearing, the 195/75 & the 185/80 rears would both be K715.
cheers! Peter
post scriptum: Just to note that, whichever variation of the above recommendations you chose, the advertised cost for all four (fitted & balanced) would be c. $400. Hankook have a $50 cashback promotion on at the moment (ends 31 August) so with this applied, total cost would be $350. I venture to suggest that this is rather better than the prices in your initial post
Last edited:
Hmm! "Sacrilege" aside...................
Just to note that, whichever variation of the above recommendations you chose, the advertised cost for all four (fitted & balanced) would be c. $400. Hankook have a $50 cashback promotion on at the moment (ends 31 August) so with this applied, total cost would be $350. I venture to suggest that this is rather better than the prices in your initial post
That makes complete sense to me Peter. If I had much less tread than I have, I'd be off to do it myself. Once a suddenly recalcitrant control arm bush or two have been replaced, that is.
You will have to carry a 185 as a spare as 195 won't fit. Mine has a 185R14 XVS as spare. I have had to use it once in 10 years due to a valve problem and even though it must be more than 20 years old, still did the job, although I would treat it as the space saver in the Prius if I ever was stuck in the country with a flat and limit speed to 80 with it on the back. From my experience a flat tyre is a very rare occurrence these days.
Rare unless your neighbours, one by one, demolish and rebuild - that gives years of loose Tech screws on the road. I have a 175 in the spare bracket as the 195 doesn't fit, and yes, emergency use only and drive slowly if I get a front flat.
Reminds me, I think I have an original MXV3 spare on my Xantia dating from 1995. Hope I never need to use it as the rubber will be that brittle it will probably disintegrate.
John
Perpetual procrastination leads to eventual neglect.
John
Perpetual procrastination leads to eventual neglect.