[Wagonboy7662]

Originally Posted by ashis89

Our car is running on 165/65 profile. No scraping of wheel wells under any condition or load.

Hello,
Have you felt any performance drop by upgrading tyres from 155/65R14 to 165/65R14?

Originally Posted by suzuki san

Hi,

I have just fitted the Continental CC6 tyres Size : 165 x 70 x 14 on my 2016 WagonR Vxi AGS.
Fitted them on the original steel rim which I think is 4.5J size.
I am very happy with the upgrade. The ride is almost plush now and the acceleration feels faster - but I may be wrong on this. Ground clearance has also increased.
I also took this opportunity to fit a Sky Shop TPMS System which I bought from Amazon. Easy to fit the internal sensors and nice to have a readout on the dash. Works well. So far, so good.
Sold the old Apollo Amazer tyres 155 x 65 x 14 for Rs. 625 each. They were exactly 7 years old but not a single puncture.

Hello,
How is your experience with CC6? Please compare the differences with the stock Apollo Amazer 3G.
What all benefits you got by upgrading from 155/65R14 to 165/70R14? Have you felt any performance drop by this upgrade?

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by Wagonboy7662

Hello,
Have you felt any performance drop by upgrading tyres from 155/65R14 to 165/65R14?

Car feels slower with the wider wheels but also feels more stable. If I remember correctly, the FE took a slight hit too. Within a few days, I got used to the new place of the car.

Gains are better stability in the straight line and softer ride on bad stretches.

[suzuki san]

[QUOTE :What all benefits you got by upgrading from 155/65R14 to 165/70R14? Have you felt any performance drop by this upgrade?[/quote]

Hi Wagon Boy,

I am very happy with the upgrade. Definitely no performance drop. The comfort level has improved and the ground clearance has also increased marginally. The steering is slightly heavier but nothing to talk about.

All in all, 3 pros and 1 con, so, just go for it.

Regards,
SS

[Wagonboy7662]

Originally Posted by suzuki san

[QUOTE :What all benefits you got by upgrading from 155/65R14 to 165/70R14? Have you felt any performance drop by this upgrade?

Hi Wagon Boy,

I am very happy with the upgrade. Definitely no performance drop. The comfort level has improved and the ground clearance has also increased marginally. The steering is slightly heavier but nothing to talk about.

All in all, 3 pros and 1 con, so, just go for it.

Regards,
SS[/quote]
What's your experience with Continental? I'm confused between Continental and Bridgestone. Can you suggest the better one??

[shancz]

Background :

I had noticed an external sidewall cut possibly due to abrasion on front left and a small cut on the tread of rear left tyres.
Was thinking of getting it changed post the Dussehra celebrations as more options would be available but as luck would have it, had to do a highway trip(452kms 10-11 hrs one way with 4 occupants + luggage) at a very short notice on the day of Dussehra.
I had roughly 3 hours to find a dealer, select, replace, balance and align the tyres/wheels before the roads started closing.

Thanks to this thread since MRF ZLX was confirmed, found a MRF T&S (Om Sai Tyres, Bariatu) with good store management and skilled technicians. Got the three tyres side by side(155/65, 165/65 and 165/70 R14) and it became immediately obvious that the 165/70 was too big a size according to my likings. A soft tyre with that tall a sidewall would make the body-roll worse for my preferences especially considering the highway drives.
The 165/65, as rightly pointed out by ashis89 seemed like the optimal upgrade.

Quoted Prices :
- 155/65 R14 : 3600/tyre
- 165/65 R14 : 4800/tyre
- 165/70 R14 : 3800/tyre

The dealer mentioned that he had changed "at least 200 wagonRs" to 165/70 without any complaints while the one customer who changed to 165/65 wasn't very pleased which I am assuming to be a mix of the high-price and not very significant change in parameters. But since I don't know what tyre he was using before, won't be prudent to comment further.
In a deep fix and with the dealer very reasonably suggesting to either go with 155/65 or 165/70 I still asked for the 165/65 and found out that tyres were around 1.5 years old since its not a fast moving stock.
Since I had also come to realize that, in the coming 6-8 years the car will see a mix of long idle times, highway as well as city drives with rear occupants but totalling not more than 5000kms/year. Hence wasn't comfortable with either old tyres or oversized ones(165/70).
With time running out I decided to go with four MRF ZLX 155/65 R14 at 3600/tyre, manufactured in September 2023.

Observations :

1. The tyres inflated at 35psi felt so much softer to drive, you really have to drive it to share the feeling.
2. The tyres are eerily silent! I had that empty/vacuum-like feeling in my ears while taking the same road back since I had gotten used to hearing the tyre-noise which was now missing.
3. Since I did a 1000kms highway drive(Ranchi-Varanasi-Ranchi+) over smooth, bad, under construction highways/diversions with 4 occupants and weekend luggage I can unequivocally say that the tyres really helped in the ride comfort.
4. On the highways they will feel squishy so folks with a lot of highway usage can look at other options like Yokohama(see ashis89's posts) or Michelins but compared to Apollo 3G or even the MRF ZVTV I would pick the ZLX any day.

Let's see how they pan out over the years and if they can hold air better than the Apollos(3 weeks), it will be the cherry on top.

Result :

Originally Posted by ashis89

Our car is running on 165/65 profile. No scraping of wheel wells under any condition or load.

Took a pic on the highway with 2 medium weight rear and one medium weight front passenger with weekend luggage(not more than 30 kgs) and this is how the rear looks. I still have at least 100kgs more to add to it with me and some more luggage.
I am sure if I had gone with 165/70 the tyre would be scraping the rear fender(not the wheel well) even on minor bumps and significantly on the kind of roads I encountered. So 165/70 is definitely not for anyone who is carrying such payload let alone the sidewall height and body-roll issues.

Conclusion :

Thanks to the forum and members who shared their experience on this thread in particular (especially ashis89) I wouldn't have known about the MRF ZLX
I am very happy with my purchase and to anyone looking to upgrade, I would suggest to go through the posts earlier as they nail down every scenario I can think of.
Also, if you can get fresh stock, 165/65 R14 is the optimal upgrade and I think it won't be available for very long.



Has anyone else noticed a "kick" when accelerating hard with AC on in the 2500-3500rpm range ?
I haven't seen this with AC off so I was wondering if there is a system which reduces the compressor load during that time to enhance acceleration or is it something else ?
Seems too precise and well designed to be a flaw.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by shancz

Has anyone else noticed a "kick" when accelerating hard with AC on in the 2500-3500rpm range ?
I haven't seen this with AC off so I was wondering if there is a system which reduces the compressor load during that time to enhance acceleration or is it something else ?
Seems too precise and well designed to be a flaw.

The compressor is turned off when accelerating hard. I believe this is common occurrence on all Marutis

[shancz]

if they can hold air better than the Apollos(3 weeks), it will be the cherry on top.

The cherry on top has checked out as well
After 3 weeks, about 900kms of highway and 250kms city driving later it has lost 2-3 psi across. Apollos used to lose 6-7 psi in the same time without the highway driving.