[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

I thought you created a separate ownership thread for the 5 and that got merged with this ownership thread.

If I owned it completely, there would have been an ownership thread. But I get to "use" it only over the weekends. You are a married man, you'll understand how this works

I recommend the Conti's followed by the Bridgestones. There is one near Chandni Chowk on the Kothrud side. Do you want me to check for prices there?

Oh please do. Anyway most of the tire shops (including Lokmanya) seem to be on Diwali vacation mode today too. We went around the city yesterday, but found most if not all shops closed.

Today suddenly I have got the urge to validate MRF ZLOs. Going through the reviews for the same. Do get a quote for this too if you are trying.

I have the Turanza ER300 and it serves us well. Though the better ride quality might have something to do with upsizing. I havent had any issues other than when a scissor gunning, moronic trigger happy puncture fellow got to lay his hands on one of them.
Please verify the best option based on alloy size & PCD, the options would vary based on what you have.

Thanks. Turanzas are the backup no-nonsense option if everything else fails.

[Swanand Inamdar]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

I recommend the Conti's followed by the Bridgestones. There is one near Chandni Chowk on the Kothrud side. Do you want me to check for prices there?

I have the Turanza ER300 and it serves us well.

That would be great, if you could.
IIRC, he stocks Bridgestones, mainly. Could you please check if he stocks MY01 or MY02?
The detailed name for these are: Bridgestone Tourer MY01/MY02, or something like that.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by mikon

...

Originally Posted by F150

There is always an option to choose something better.

Originally Posted by selfdrive

I recommend the Conti's followed by the Bridgestones.

So the Continentials were finalized. You can't really screw up with something that is working perfectly fine, can you. Gautam's Mamba had done 47k on the CPC2 without any issues, and with Mr. Ashish Kulkarni's (Lokmanya Tyres owner) extremely positive feedback on the Contis, kind of sealed the deal.

Will put up a detailed post later with feedback on the dealer experience plus other details, as of now here's a snapshot (copying shamelessly from Gautam's post)

Tires : Continental CPC2 195/60 R15.
Dealer : Lokmanya Tyres, Off-Karve Road, Pune.
Cost : 21,500 INR (5300 INR per tire + 300 INR for alignment)

Alternatives considered (stock available):

1. Bridgestone Turanza ER60 : 5100 INR per tire
2. MRF ZLO : 4900 INR per tire
3. Yokohama S drives : 6300 INR per tire (ok, I didn't consider these, @mikon did )
4. Yokohama db 550 : <Didn't ask for price>

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

That would be great, if you could.
IIRC, he stocks Bridgestones, mainly. Could you please check if he stocks MY01 or MY02?
The detailed name for these are: Bridgestone Tourer MY01/MY02, or something like that.

Yes, he did have these in stock. I forgot the quoted price, I'll be calling him later to receive the car; will check up and revert on the same.

P.s. Anybody know of options where we can sell off/dispose the old tires?

[Swanand Inamdar]

Gautam just IM'd me on the update.
Good to see that the car has got new shoes.

Like you said, you cant really scre up something thats been nice and that has proved its worthiness over a certain period of time.

Pics of new shoes?

Also, do remember to ask him the price for MY01/02, please.

[F150]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Tires : Continental CPC2 195/60 R15.
Dealer : Lokmanya Tyres, Off-Karve Road, Pune.
Cost : 21,500 INR (5300 INR per tire + 300 INR for alignment)


P.s. Anybody know of options where we can sell off/dispose the old tires?

Good choice. So are you only buying 4 tyres ? what about the spare ?

Old tyres can be sold to lokmanya tyres at peanuts. Rs 100/200 per tyre may be.

Could you check if they have 195/60/R14 in CPC2, if you could. No real hurry though.

[ninjatalli]

So after a lot of phone/chat/sms discussions, we stick to the choice of Continentals, but we decided to take a final call at the shop itself based on price quotations & availability. So I called up Mr. Kulkarni in advance and "booked" a slot for 11 a.m. This was more of a habitual aspect, however in retrospect it proved quite useful. When we landed up at his store, it was choked up! A Jaguar, M800, Accord, and a few more were already waiting for their respective jobs. Thankfully Mr. Kulkarni stuck to his word and immediately assigned his people on our cars.

Gautam was quite clear on the CPC2 from the start however when he was shown the 205/55/R15 S drives, big question marks clearly started appearing on forehead. And of course, I wasn't helping, egging him to go for the wider tires over the Contis Finally sense (read: Contis were far cheaper) prevailed and he decided to go ahead with the Contis.

We were also shown (Bridgestone) Turanzas, (MRF) ZLOs and (Yokohama) db 550s but Mr. Kulkarni advised the Contis over the rest, and Gautam's previous experience kinda sealed the deal. When it came to the $$s well nothing helped. He was resolute on the price even stating we could very well try anywhere else but we wouldn't get a better deal.

Either he was a good seller or we were horrible negotiators, in the end we went ahead with the original price quoted (5300 per tire). Work was immediately started on Gautam's car while mine wdould be done later and delivered at my office in the 2nd half. Also he declined any options to buy the old tires so we had to lug them away with us.

Overall a satisfying experience - the work was done without much delays and Mr. Kulkarni was always available for any queries.

Minor Points

• I had left my accessories and stuff in the glove box. They reminded me to check the same at the time of delivery. Nice of them to have this check
• Two of my tires have the date as 2212 (22nd week of 2012), while the other two are 2512 (25th week) & 3212 (32nd week). Should I be worried that the tires are 3-5 months old?
• Attaching the alignment/balancing report (I hope it's view-able). Would really appreciate if experts could help me in understanding the same

P.s. Attaching the exact location of Lokmanya tires

Originally Posted by F150

Could you check if they have 195/60/R14 in CPC2, if you could. No real hurry though.

Sorry boss,
Didn't see this earlier. But anyway call them up, they quote pretty much the final price on the phone to prospective customers. During the time we were there, every call for stock they got was first checked in the system for availability and then only stated to the person on call.

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Pics of new shoes?

Ironically two SLR dorks didn't think this in advance and get their cameras so we have no pictures. Will probably do this later and post snaps of the tires.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Also, do remember to ask him the price for MY01/02, please.

SI, I tried yesterday but as you know all places are shut. So will try again later this week.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Ironically two SLR dorks didn't think this in advance and get their cameras so we have no pictures. Will probably do this later and post snaps of the tires.

Looks like you forgot that your phones have cameras too?

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

SI, I tried yesterday but as you know all places are shut. So will try again later this week.

Do remember to mention he's looking for R15 tires. I got him quotations for R16 tires which come on few of the higher variants I guess.

Looks like you forgot that your phones have cameras too?

lol. Well, we all have such days I guess.

[ninjatalli]

<Live update at 4.30 a.m> I am somewhere in rural Karnataka, on an empty state highway, with fields on either side, and with a completely dark sky lit up with stars, and Pink Floyd running in the background!

I was supposed to reach my destination a good 3 hours ago, but I'm not going anywhere for now :-)

Life is good!

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

<Live update at 4.30 a.m> I am somewhere in rural Karnataka, on an empty state highway, with fields on either side, and with a completely dark sky lit up with stars, and Pink Floyd running in the background!

I was supposed to reach my destination a good 3 hours ago, but I'm not going anywhere for now :-)

Life is good!

Wow. What sweet nothings you have whispered to your boss that he has let you take time off again . Enjoy your trip to the fullest.

I believe you have upgraded to the CPC2 just before this trip. How do you find them coupled with the Vento TDI if you know what I mean? Unfortunately my tire change time seems to have been preponed thanks to 5-8 tiny punctures in the front left and the rear right ones . I have no idea how they got so bad. Sure my Vento did some rural and broken roads but that was only once in a while and I was any way baby sitting the car through these non-roads. I recently did a short weekend trip and I have been noticing loss of tire pressure since the past 2/3 weeks on these two tires. A quick visit to the tire shop confirmed it. The other two seemed to be holding up well. I expected the Apollos to last longer and was hoping to upsize when I hit 30K at least (I have run 21K till now).

Since you considered the BS Potenzas I too am thinking on those lines as there is not a single dealer who sell Contis here. Which BS Potenza did you have in mind, the G3 or the RE88?

EDIT: Just saw that you had Turanzas in your short list. Any reason you didn't consider the Potenzas? I guess I will go over to the tire section now to seek expert advice.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Wow. What sweet nothings you have whispered to your boss that he has let you take time off again . Enjoy your trip to the fullest.

Well this was a full and out weekend trip, so the boss wasn't troubled

I believe you have upgraded to the CPC2 just before this trip. How do you find them coupled with the Vento TDI if you know what I mean?

Extremely good. Was planning to put up a detailed post with pictures, but the opportunity (to take pics) never comes up.

Well in a nutshell, I'm left wondering why didn't I do the upgrade the day I car was delivered. Absolutely fantastic tires. Already tested them on two highway drives (Bombay - Pune) and the Karnataka trip. Currently can't take my eyes off the F1 race, so will reply to you tomorrow with a detailed feedback

Unfortunately my tire change time seems to have been preponed thanks to 5-8 tiny punctures in the front left and the rear right ones . I have no idea how they got so bad. Sure my Vento did some rural and broken roads but that was only once in a while and I was any way baby sitting the car through these non-roads. I recently did a short weekend trip and I have been noticing loss of tire pressure since the past 2/3 weeks on these two tires. A quick visit to the tire shop confirmed it. The other two seemed to be holding up well. I expected the Apollos to last longer and was hoping to upsize when I hit 30K at least (I have run 21K till now).

Join the club. Two of my Apollos are in pretty decent condition but still had to do the upgrade because of the punctures on the others.

EDIT: Just saw that you had Turanzas in your short list. Any reason you didn't consider the Potenzas? I guess I will go over to the tire section now to seek expert advice.

Wanted a tried and tested option (by Vento owners). CPC2 was vouched by @mikon, and the Turanzas by Sourav and a few more I believe.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

I'm left wondering why didn't I do the upgrade the day I car was delivered.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Join the club. Two of my Apollos are in pretty decent condition but still had to do the upgrade because of the punctures on the others.

Absolutely. But to be fair when I was following the Vento ownership reviews I really didn't come across ownership experiences which talked about upgrading the tires at purchase. It seems most of us stuck to the Apollos to start with which turned out to be baptism by fire. I wonder if the Apollos start showing their weaknesses past 20K. The punctures are spread all over in each of the two tires and these are really small micro mini ones. I am stupefied what could have caused this. Not one tire has any visible sidewall damage or even a cut though I have driven some unbelievable terrain in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Turanzas by Sourav and a few more I believe.

I thought Bala had the Turanzas. How do they compare with the Potenzas? Sourav's Vento is now a mini tire showroom given the different brands he endorses .

[bala80]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

I thought Bala had the Turanzas. How do they compare with the Potenzas? Sourav's Vento is now a mini tire showroom given the different brands he endorses .

Hello Samarjitdhar , how are you doing? I'm glad you guys still remember me. I logged in after a long time and this thread was on the top of my subscription list and was pleasantly surprised to see the mention of my name. Yeah, I was a big advocate of the turanzas, infant my respect for them has only increased when my friend called and reported there isn't a single puncture on it yet after 15k odd kms. Potenzas are sporty tires and are aimed at a different set of customers, tire noise, harsh ride to mention some of the cons. Turanza is my recommendation all the way.

By the way taking this opportunity to say hello to ninja, souravc, nilesh, joslicx and all other friends on the forum. My regards to you all.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

I wonder if the Apollos start showing their weaknesses past 20K.

That was my underlying basis based on which I decided to change the tires.

Btw @mikon had upgraded the tires right from the delivery date. But yes, most of the other Vento owners have stuck with the stock tires.

I thought Bala had the Turanzas. How do they compare with the Potenzas? Sourav's Vento is now a mini tire showroom given the different brands he endorses .

Ah! I distinctly remembered seeing someone vouch for the Turanzas on Sourav's threads/discussions, but had forgotten it was Bala.

Originally Posted by bala80

By the way taking this opportunity to say hello to ninja, souravc, nilesh, joslicx and all other friends on the forum. My regards to you all.

Welcome back Bala! Keep popping in, once in a while. The Vento threads have gone a lil silent nowadays, now that you, Sourav and the other "Vento 1st generation" owners are busy with your own lives

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by bala80

Hello Samarjitdhar , how are you doing? I'm glad you guys still remember me. I logged in after a long time and this thread was on the top of my subscription list and was pleasantly surprised to see the mention of my name. Yeah, I was a big advocate of the turanzas, infant my respect for them has only increased when my friend called and reported there isn't a single puncture on it yet after 15k odd kms. Potenzas are sporty tires and are aimed at a different set of customers, tire noise, harsh ride to mention some of the cons. Turanza is my recommendation all the way.

By the way taking this opportunity to say hello to ninja, souravc, nilesh, joslicx and all other friends on the forum. My regards to you all.

So good to see you Bala. Drop by out here on the Vento threads when your schedule permits. A lot of us here have benefited immensely from your analysis and insight into the car. 15K without a puncture on the Turanzas seem to speak very well about the tires. Given the horrid roads I tend to drive here I must have tires which can take a beating compromising on higher noise or lesser comfort. The Apollos seemed to be doing their job but seems I was mistaken. I will include the Turanzas also in the short list.