[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

Congrats on your new Tyres Shankar! They will certainly give you much better comfort and reduced road noise over your previous Goodyears. If you drive around 90 on Highways, you will feel that the car feels a lot less Skittish (less side sway will be there) as the road grip is far superior with the Falkens. Also, the new tyres will need around 200km of driving to settle down for the Polymer protectant coating to wear away (this is a special coating on the tyres to protect them from Drying out when kept in storage) and only when this wears away, you get the proper grip of the tyres on the road and this will take around 200kms of driving (In my experience). After this the road grip and braking will improve.

One suggestion on the Rogerab coil Stiffeners - These are normally recommended only for Cars which have a soft suspension (e.g. Civic, Verna ) and also low ground clearance and putting this stiffens the suspension by adding resistance to the coil spring.
The Yeti already has a stiff suspension and also plently of GC (in fact with the new Tyres, it has also increased by 10mm more and instead of the stock 180mm, it would be 190mm now).
Putting these Rogerabs will only make the Ride quality stiffer than what it already is. Unless you have massive speed breakers in Bangalore where the Yeti was bottoming, I would not recommend usage of Coil stiffeners on the Yeti - if possible, please do return these to the store you bought them from as they are not required and will actually degrade the ride quality on the Yeti! (just my honest advice as an ex-automotive engineer!)

Appreciate your points Behemoth.
However, these rogerabs really seem to be working well for me.
In Bangalore for one thing we have these "home-made" speed breakers which have no science and camber to them. They just rise and fall rapidly in the middle of the road.
Then we have this strange local propensity of digging right across the road to lay drainage especially for new constructions, which I may add, are rife hereabouts.
They cut the tarmac right across causing a chasm which they sometimes fill with mud afterwards. All it takes is a light be-sprinkling of rain or the merest suggestion of a drizzle, to open these chasms wide again.
All these contribute to our lousy roads and these rogerabs help when one is forced to brake suddenly or just bump over these bumps.
I frankly don't mind a harder ride since most of the time the only occupant of the car is myself and I have the steering wheel to hold on to.
Saying that, these tyres are really good and they do make all the difference to the overall feel of the Yeti.
Thanks for suggesting them in the first place. And I must thank Paytm for enabling me to get them at such a ridiculously low price!

[Akshay1234]

Congrats Shankar, about time if I may say Good choice too. Am using them on my Yeti still, but to be honest I did prefer the Michelins though its tough to say if they were worth the higher premium paid.

As for the Rogerabs, I don't think they were needed. I've gone flying over all kinds of bumps in my Yeti (even with the stock suspension now at 66k kms done) and never once has the suspension bottomed out or caused anything to scrape. In fact the Yeti has a stiff enough suspension, so I don't think these will make any difference in terms of stiffness or ride. These are more suited to vehicles with very soft suspensions like the Honda Civic, etc.

I'd suggest you take em off and try it out. You've still got an increase in GC with the larger diameter tyres.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

Congrats Shankar, about time if I may say Good choice too. Am using them on my Yeti still, but to be honest I did prefer the Michelins though its tough to say if they were worth the higher premium paid.

As for the Rogerabs, I don't think they were needed. I've gone flying over all kinds of bumps in my Yeti (even with the stock suspension now at 66k kms done) and never once has the suspension bottomed out or caused anything to scrape. In fact the Yeti has a stiff enough suspension, so I don't think these will make any difference in terms of stiffness or ride. These are more suited to vehicles with very soft suspensions like the Honda Civic, etc.

I'd suggest you take em off and try it out. You've still got an increase in GC with the larger diameter tyres.

There are a couple of evil speed breakers here in HSR
And with a load of four passengers I do bottom out.
Then there is an evil manhole cover near ST Bed Koramangala where unless I go very carefully I bottom out.
When Im alone in the Yeti also, I ve bottomed out a couple of places in Bangalore.
So for now, I shall hang on to the Rogerabs!

[faraz]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

Be sure to retain one of your existing Goodyear's as spare as the older skinny spare will no longer be suitable for use due to huge size difference with the new tyres.

hi,
a quick question, if one retains the old tyre, does one also have to do a provision for the wheel rim ? does the old Goodyear fit the skinny spare rim ?

I may also go in for tyre replacement hence thought of seeking clarification.

Regards,
Faraz.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by faraz

hi,
a quick question, if one retains the old tyre, does one also have to do a provision for the wheel rim ? does the old Goodyear fit the skinny spare rim ?

I may also go in for tyre replacement hence thought of seeking clarification.

Regards,
Faraz.

The spare tyre in the Yeti's boot (OEM) is a Continental 195/60/16.
It is smaller than the stock tyres which are actually on the wheels of the car. These measure 215/60/16.
When you move one of the old stock tyres on to the spare rim, it will fit, because the rim size is 16.
Ive not done this yet though. Ive just kept the old stock tyre in the storage at home. And I have left the unused OEM spare exactly as is, in the boot.

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

The spare tyre in the Yeti's boot (OEM) is a Continental 195/60/16.
It is smaller than the stock tyres which are actually on the wheels of the car. These measure 215/60/16.
When you move one of the old stock tyres on to the spare rim, it will fit, because the rim size is 16.
Ive not done this yet though. Ive just kept the old stock tyre in the storage at home. And I have left the unused OEM spare exactly as is, in the boot.

The difference between the skinny spare and the 215/65 R16 tyres is 6.6% which is beyond the safe slippage factor for the Haldex clutch for prolonged usage. The safe limit is 3% for this as was told to me by the service engineer. Hence please don't use the skinny spare as the Haldex clutch will get damaged. The 215/60 R16 tyre also fit in the boot (only raises the cover a bit).

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

The difference between the skinny spare and the 215/65 R16 tyres is 6.6% which is beyond the safe slippage factor for the Haldex clutch for prolonged usage. The safe limit is 3% for this as was told to me by the service engineer. Hence please don't use the skinny spare as the Haldex clutch will get damaged. The 215/60 R16 tyre also fit in the boot (only raises the cover a bit).

Sure I will take this advice.
As of this moment, I have never ever used that spare. I have an air compressor which I have used two or three times in the event of a puncture. Invariably the punctures have taken place near the house and there is a proper Tyre service place also nearby so after pumping up the punctured tyre to 32 PSI, I ve just driven the 1.5 km to the tyre shop and got it fixed.
These punctures had started happening only over the last one year when the OEM tyres themselves were more than 3 years old and probably were getting weaker or harder. Plus there is a lot of construction in this area, which means the chances of sharp objects lying around on the roads are quite high.

[faraz]

Hi,

I came across this site which does not recommend upsizing the tyres unless the difference is < 2%. have attached the screenshot. According to the site the change from 215/60/16 to 215/65/16 will result in a 7.11% difference.

Experts please advise.

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by faraz

Hi,

I came across this site which does not recommend upsizing the tyres unless the difference is < 2%. have attached the screenshot. According to the site the change from 215/60/16 to 215/65/16 will result in a 7.11% difference.

Experts please advise.

Your tyre size comparator is incorrect. The correct difference in these tyres is 3.2% . See the attached comparison - this is the right one. Also there are quite a few of us who have been using 215/65 R16 for a long time now and facing no problems at all! You can read this same thread several pages back for our experiences.

[faraz]

Thanks Behemoth . Will take the plunge last week of March. Shankar thanks for sharing the Paytm deal, will go that route.

[harishpr]

Originally Posted by akshay1234

.

Dear akshay and shankar ... I see you as the veterans with Yeti. My decision to buy yeti was greatly influenced by your posts in past. So far, yeti has served me well. Ok, long story short. The stock tyres have run out of thread and the ride quality is getting worse with everyday. Last week, had 5 punctures with the rear tyres (4 punctures in one, and 5th on the other rear tyre). The puncture guy said the tyres still has some life left, but the braking has become a problem. Had a very narrow miss bumping to a brand new merc today. Lucky me, avoided. After spending time on net, realised that the good tyres can effectively increase the braking efficiency by 10 percent.
Need help in choosing right set of tyres for my yeti. It's already run about 30k kms in 2 years. I've ignored mrf and Goodyear. That leaves me with Jk tyres, Apollo, continental, BS, Falken, Kenda and Michelin. With 'braking' and 'ride comfort' being priority, which one would you suggest.
From the above lot, Kenda is the most affordable while Michelin is the priciest.
I kinda like Jk tyres since it served me well with my civic.
Please advise.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by harishpr

Dear akshay and shankar ... I see you as the veterans with Yeti. My decision to buy yeti was greatly influenced by your posts in past. So far, yeti has served me well. Ok, long story short. The stock tyres have run out of thread and the ride quality is getting worse with everyday. Last week, had 5 punctures with the rear tyres (4 punctures in one, and 5th on the other rear tyre). The puncture guy said the tyres still has some life left, but the braking has become a problem. Had a very narrow miss bumping to a brand new merc today. Lucky me, avoided. After spending time on net, realised that the good tyres can effectively increase the braking efficiency by 10 percent.
Need help in choosing right set of tyres for my yeti. It's already run about 30k kms in 2 years. I've ignored mrf and Goodyear. That leaves me with Jk tyres, Apollo, continental, BS, Falken, Kenda and Michelin. With 'braking' and 'ride comfort' being priority, which one would you suggest.
From the above lot, Kenda is the most affordable while Michelin is the priciest.
I kinda like Jk tyres since it served me well with my civic.
Please advise.

Falken Wildpeak HT01.215/65/16. Buy them on Paytm at approx 6500-7000 per tyre as per the present deals available. Get a cash back which make the deal sweet. Delivery in 8 days. Worth it.
This is the route I took and these tyres are good. Today I ve done more than 50Km and the handling over bumps and overall feel was very good compared to the stock OEM tyres.

[shankar.balan]

Behemoth or anyone else.

When typically would one need to change one's Shock Absorbers in the Yeti?
Mine is fine right now but I m just seeking some input.

And if one were to change, then which Shock Absorbers and what size would one need to buy? Im hearing about TRW Shocks. Are these good? If yes, are they available for the Yeti?

Any and all inputs on this would be much appreciated...

[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Behemoth or anyone else.

When typically would one need to change one's Shock Absorbers in the Yeti?
Mine is fine right now but I m just seeking some input.

And if one were to change, then which Shock Absorbers and what size would one need to buy? Im hearing about TRW Shocks. Are these good? If yes, are they available for the Yeti?

Any and all inputs on this would be much appreciated...

Shocks are something you will not need to change for a long time on the Yeti. Mine are still going strong at 66k with a fair bit of rough use. I've got friends who did more than 80k without touching the shocks.

TRW is a good brand, the issue is there are a lot of Chinese counterparts going around in India (true for most spare parts for our Euro vehicles). Best would be to use the Skoda OE shocks or something like Bilstein B4 if you like how it is stock. If you want better handling (with a stiffer low speed ride) then something like Bilstein B6 or Koni FSD (this is what I'm planning as and when I change).

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Behemoth or anyone else.

When typically would one need to change one's Shock Absorbers in the Yeti?
Mine is fine right now but I m just seeking some input.

And if one were to change, then which Shock Absorbers and what size would one need to buy? Im hearing about TRW Shocks. Are these good? If yes, are they available for the Yeti?

Any and all inputs on this would be much appreciated...

Mine are still fine after 91k kms covered and I guess should last another 30k kms. I would recommend staying with the OE shocks only as they are tuned well for the Yeti.