The 'E' Type Forum

Hi,

When my car was laid up 10 years ago it had a brand new set of the P4000s which annoyingly have flat spots so all four need replacing.

I do like how it drives on them, other than the vibration :? so I'd like to put the same on the car.

Does anyone know if these tyres (205s) are available anywhere?

Cheers

I believe they have been discontinued. Give Dougal at Longstone Tyres a call because if there are any available he will find them for you. On the other hand it might be a good opportunity to dump them (they were designed for small cars and vans after all) and fit something that will give you a lot more pleasure. 185's are the obvious and best choice but you could fit the ones designed for the S3's. Pirelli Cinurato's are good, Michelin even better and Dunlop SP's do look the part (a 185 tyre that looks like the car has something really wide on it) but do not have the overall dynamics of the other two. Lomgstone do mail order.

Unless they've remade them in the last month or do, the P 4000's are long gone/discontinued. I liked them a lot, and for the price they couldn't be beat.

I just bought a set of Michelin XVS from Longstone. If you can stomach the price, they handle well and they certainly look right on the car (S1 4.2).

Heuer wrote:...(they were designed for small cars and vans after all)...

Ah, but they must've been designed for 150+ mph vans in that case. The set I bought were "Z" rated.

They were a 'family' of tyres with various speed ratings and the Z rated versions were standard on the XJ6 I believe. The high performance version was the P6000 and I had a set on my car for a while. Worked well in all weathers but the tread design was visually more suited to modern cars. Long gone though and fitted examples will be nearing the end of their 'use by' date.

Not correct information I'm afraid in respect of the P4000.

Pirelli P4000 Super Touring 205 70 ZR 15 tyres were being made by Pirelli in 2011, so my tyres are certainly not nearing the end of their "use by" date.

The UK national chain of tyre fitters, Kwik Fit, had a promotion on these tyres in January 2011 and as my car gets laid up for the winter with the wheels and tyres off, we took all four wheels over to our local Portsmouth branch to have a set fitted on the 15th February 2011 at ?120 each, fully fitted and balanced. Incidentally, Kwik Fit did a good job balancing these tyres on our 6.5 inch wire wheels. All four tyres are all dated stamped 0311, therefore manufactured in the third week of 2011.

They are Z rated and we are completely satisfied with them, having used them on our long continental trips to Monaco and Italy in May 2011 and Switzerland in 2012. They are marked as manufactured in Romania, so I assume that Pirelli opened a manufacturing line there and certainly produced them up to March 2011 when Kwik Fit were still running their on-line price, (albeit risen to ?137.08 per tyre).

They are not listed now by Kwik Fit, but that is not to say there could be some still out there somewhere. I bought a brand new one from Ebay in 2012, but it was not one of the Romanian batch, but still well within date and kept as a spare for touring. I did notice that the 2011 batch have the "Pirelli" name in much bigger font on the sidewall on one side than the earlier ones - as David stated in keeping with more "modern" trends - but the tyre tread is identical on both versions of the P4000 tyres.

regards,

I'm sorry, but this has to stop. You turn up here with verifiable facts and dates - prices and vendor names even. You have a wealth of relevant personal experience and write a lucid but polite response to a dodgy post. Imagine if everyone did the same as you? It would be the death of car forums as we know them!

Admin, can we have this man black-balled please for conduct unbecoming? Either that or put in charge...? :-) :-)

44DHR wrote:...we took all four wheels over to our local Portsmouth branch to have a set fitted on the 15th February 2011 at ?120 each, fully fitted and balanced.

Wow, who's making all that extra profit over there? Those same "Z" rated tires were about $103 each over here (cash & carry, though).

38E wrote:Wow, who's making all that extra profit over there? Those same "Z" rated tires were about $103 each over here (cash & carry, though).

Add new valves, fitting and balance at a tire place instead of buying tires only at a cash and carry and they'd presumably be comparable numbers dollars/gbp. Many things follow the approximate ?/$ numerical equivalence rule (including E-types as you've discovered). No particular profiteering, just economies of scale in two immensely different sized markets.

Pete