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-   -   VW Polo : Tyre & wheel upgrade thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-alloy-wheel-section/92635-vw-polo-tyre-wheel-upgrade-thread-9.html)

Hi,

I am now on the verge of saying goodbye to my stock tires.
Have a 3.5 yr old Polo 1.6, done 27,000 kms. Am still running the stock 185/60/R15. However, they seem to be done with, maybe at max another 2-3k kms. My daily run is 60% open roads in Bangalore.

Over the past 4-5 yrs, I influenced most of my family members to upgrade to Yokohamas and we have been very happy with them.
However, now i think the choice is quite a bit and am a little flustered.

My priorities are as below, looking out for some suggestions.
1. Better grip at high speeds
I am not a fan of how the stock tires behave after 100-120. Would definitely want more grip and confidence.
2. Little mileage drop, as I do about 45kms office run everyday
3. Fair Life - Im cool with 30-35k. Am not a very docile driver, so i do tend to run my tires out pretty fast.
4. Tire noise i'm not very concerned about as long as I can hear the engine note over it
5. I don't mind a heavier steering at all
6. I will stick to the original Alloys so R15 only
7. Good looks would be nice, but not at the cost of grip or tire life

Ideally I would like to go for something like a 205/55 R15, and preferred brands would be Yokohama, Michelin.
However, open to suggestions.

Hi Ronk, some thoughts and hopefully it will help you decide on the final choice.
If you dont want to change the exisitng R15 alloys, then your choices are
1. Yokohama 205/55 R15 - S Drives. These are good performance tyres. It will make your steering a little heavy and there will be noise (not as much as the stock ones though). These look good as well and tyre life will be around the same benchmark you have mentioned unless your driving sytle / conditions impact it. I have them on my Polo at the moment.
2. Michelin 195/65 R15 - Primacy 3 ST. These are much quieter as compared to the S drives and provides grip for all weather conditions. 205 are not available in 15"
3. Continental Premium Contact 2: I havent used them, however have heard good feedback as well. you will be able to get it for the stock alloys

If 205/55 is your choice, you can switch to s drives, you will love it.

I would suggest Hankook Ventus RS 8 or Maxxis MA Z1. Both are excellent tyres with great grip.
I think 195/65 R 15 is wrong size for Polo. 195/55 and 195/60 are the correct sizes.

Thanks for your input anb. Some of my colleagues and friends have the primacy 3st and they havent reported any issues with that

The story of my tyre upgrade

Background

I had been contemplating a change to alloys for the last two years now, primarily for aesthetic reasons. The stock 14 inch steel rims with the plastic covers look a bit plebian and the entire wheel seemed a little puny for the wheel-well. As a side effect cleaning would be easier (those stock rims with covers were hard to clean). In the course of this I made numerous enquiries and gazed at hundreds of Ventos and Polos on the road in an attempt to find the "ideal" alloy. The difficulty I faced was twofold. Firstly - cost; VW initially priced OEM alloys at a ridiculous 17k each (later reduced to about 6k each), even aftermarket alloys were not less than 7-9k each. Secondly, design; I did not care for most of the alloy designs, especially ones with multiple spokes and ridges.

Finally in May this year I heard from a friend that someone in Delhi was selling his 15 inch Polo alloys (he was upsizing to 17 inch). I liked the photos, we settled on a price and my friend in Delhi brought them back to his house. I love the five-spoke design - its seems very classy and clean!!

Transportation of the alloys to Kolkata was a headache. All the packers and movers I contacted were either not interested or quoted astronomical rates (8-10k!). At one stage I even contemplated going to Delhi by Poorva Express and bringing them back on Rajdhani the same evening. Then at the Kolkata TeamBHP meet on June 28 Crankshaft gave me the idea that Minku Agarwal of Indo Radial Club (a well known Kolkata tyre showroom) would be able to suggest a transporter which he did. Those people (Jagruti Air Cargo) brought it by rail to Kolkata in a Parcel train in four days with a slight catch that I had to go to Kashipur Rail yard and pick up the stuff myself. Here is a photo of the rail yard; the approach road was 1 km of waterlogged swamp and proved quite an mini-offroading experience in my Maruti 800. The transporters were very courteous and very friendly.



Choice of Tyre

With the Alloys in my boot the next question was to finalise on the size of the tyre. I considered three options seriously:

195/60 R15
195/55 R15
205/55 R15

The 195/60 was initially dropped due to fear that it would hit the wheel well. 205/55 was actively considered but later dropped as it seemed too wide a tyre and with potential for lot of FE loss. 195/55 was my preferred option but the low profile was a bit worrying, nobody seemed to have installed it and Minku himself recommended against it in favour of 195/60.

My brand choice was originally Michelin XM2; Minku (he stocks both brands) recommended the Yokohama Earth 1. I deferred to his view and also liked the more recent development of the latter. (Price of both was the same, Rs 5,100).

I left the alloys with Minku a day in advance so that the fitting could be done at leisure and drove down yesterday to have the new wheels installed. (This is a link to my post and photos of the Earth 1 during installation).

Below are photos of the Polo with stock 14 inch Apollo Acceleres (175/70 R14) and with the alloys after the change. In hindsight the 205/55 would have looked a bit large for the car and I am happy at not selecting that size.





I am not writing any observations on the new tyres and wheels but will post an update after some sustained driving (am driving to Burdwan and then Hooghly this weekend so that should be a good test).

Here a calculation on how tyre size upgrading works. Making sure that the upsized tyre is within 3% margin is optimal as this will have minimal compromise on tyre performance parameters. There is an arguement that this can also be between 3% and 4%

R15 185/60
Wheel Diameter = (15*2.54)
Sidewall = (((185/10)*(60/100))*2)
Total = 60.3 cm

If this is considered for R15 205/55 upgrade
Wheel Diameter = (15*2.54)
Sidewall = (((205/10)*(55/100)*2)
Total = 61.50 cm

Difference = (61.50-60.3)/61.50 = 0.58%

if you see the difference % for changing to 205/55 is 0.58% which overall is very close to stock performance. Using 195/60 will yield a 1.95% difference. These will have some impact in the speedometer (i.e. what is displayed vs. actual speed)

Hi anb, was reading my reply and just realised I had indeed made a typo in the original post. I meant 195/60. The michelin's come in that size. Apologies if my other reply sounds strange. Just realised it

Hancook's are great too. Recently one of our friends switched to hancook's and he is very happy with it

Thanks a ton chiro and anb. Nice suggestions and thanks a ton for the calculation. Helpful. I'll check out both s drives and hankook in 205/55.

You are welcome. Let us know what happened finally and your experience with the new set of tyres

friends...

Looking for some advise. Booked my Polo 1.5 GT TDI and waiting for a call from the dealer for the delivery.

It seems to be that almost everyone who has a polo has upsized to 205/55/15. How bad are the stocks? Is an upsize really necessary ?

Cheers!

A visit to a VW service station will reveal that statement to be untrue - almost every car you'll see there has the stock Apollo Acelere's / Alnac's.

I happened to retain the stock Apollo Acelere's on my Vento TDI and found them to be surprisingly good. They have good grip, good handling characteristics and good braking distance, and importantly, inspire confidence. My only issue with the tyres is the noise level increased after about 25,000-30,000km: to put the level of noise in perspective for you, if I have a podcast on, I don't notice it. The tyres will last about 40-50,000 km, if you take care of them.

Don't take my word for it, visit the Apollo Acelere thread here on t-bhp. Also, I was having a chat with Anoop of Code6 for a remap, and I asked for a recommendation for my tyre replacement, and he said that if you don't want to spend too much, the Acelere's / Alnac's are a competent tyre.


So, in short, you don't NEED to upgrade. However, you may WANT to upgrade for:
- silence: If like me, you don't listen to music when you're driving, and you're a fast driver (higher noise at higher speeds) AND, you're finicky about tyre noise, then you should upgrade to something more silent & comfort oriented like the Michelin P3ST.

- greater grip / control / feel: More is better, especially if you're the sort who will redline the moment you get in the car, and throw the car into corners at insane speeds. Which performance tyre? I'm still searching. However, understand this will come with a drop in fuel economy by at least 1-2km/liter.

About upgrading to 205 from the stock 185, you will get a very marginal improvement in grip, and that too, at the expense of fuel economy - for this much increase in width, most of the grip advantage people report usually comes from the pattern / compound of the new tyre. Read the posts of our resident tyre expert, nikhil, and he says the same thing in quite a few of his posts. Of course, the wider tyres will look better on your car, so it's really all about your priorities.

All the best for your new car! Cheers, :thumbs up

P.S.: the above post assumes you get Apollos in your car (Acelere / Alnac are basically the same tyre). Also, in my opinion, it is fair to assume that VW won't give you a tyre that you 'need' to upgrade. So the basic logic of the above post stands.

Dear Bosporus, thanks for taking the time for a detailed explanation. I will go to see the vehicle in the yard today. I am inclined towards retaining the stock tires for the first couple of years. I do drive spiritedly, but dont do insane stuff, and corner at low speeds, so stocks should serve me well i guess.

Thanks again!

Hello bigvishnu, as bosporus mentioned, upgrading is not a necessity, its more of a choice based on your needs. The noise quotient as it has been pointed out is noticeable. It may be my perception, but the grip does feel better (probably due to the tread pattern / compound) with the new tyres

Another option is to tweak the VCDS settings to get better handling / braking. Search for VCDS thread within t-bhp for more information

Congrats on the beast! and have fun and drive safe

Link for VCDS thread

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...on-thread.html

Of late VW has added Goodyear Duraplus and MRF to their trye suppliers and most of the cars coming out are on these tyres. No offense, but these are strictly mediocre tyres, and more oriented towards fuel economy and mileage, hence would offer lower rolling resistance and be harder (cabbies love these tyres)

Going for softer tyres will give more grip and will be safer with shorter stopping distances (there is a big difference here)

Hence I would suggest to go for better tyres even in stock size.

If the question were, are there better performing tyres to be had, be it in the area of grip / braking / handling or noise / comfort, then the answer is yes.

However, the OP's question was, "is an upgrade necessary", and I would reiterate, unequivocally, no!

Tyre technology has progressed to a level where it's difficult to make a bad tyre, and any tyre used as OEM goes through rigorous tests, where it has to deliver to the manufacturer specifications. So you will definitely get a certain minimum level of performance, and with manufacturers like VW, you can rest assured with any tyre they give you with be competent.

Which is basically what I said earlier too. However, competent means acceptable, not 'the best to be had'.

So, again, you can choose a better tyre in an area of preference where you want an upgrade, but it is not needed.

Also, another point that I did not mention earlier, but I'd like to point out is, know the upgrade you want, and then get that upgrade. Take the whole XM1 obsession at t-bhp - an XM1 is no PS3; it's a basic, entry level Michelin, and in all likelihood, not much of an upgrade, over what your car came with.

There's no such thing as a good tyre for all, and every tyre comes with different priorities. For example, if I wanted long life, the DuraPlus would actually be a very good upgrade, even though you don't consider it one.

If I had to upgrade, I would list down what I want, and know that a lot of those goals are mutually incompatible. So, silence, comfort, long life & grip can NOT be had in the same tyre. So, figure out what is priority for you, research first, and not just on price, and then get an upgrade in that category.

Also, a side note, but MRF does have tyre models that now come with soft rubbers and they are said to perform well.