Tyre Dilemma - Blockley vs. Pirelli. Advice Please?

[Dr-G]

Hello all,

After 15 years off the road, it's now or never for my '64 4.2 E-Type Coupe. My 15 year old son has never been in it, and he can barely fit in it now at over 6' tall (it has a Webasto type roof which reduces headroom).

In the last few years I've done some of the jobs I never got around to doing properly when I rebuilt it such as professionally re-furbed carbs, re-calibrated and rebuilt distributor, new rear brake pots and 3-point seatbelts. The only thing remaining are the tyres.

Currently Avon Turbospeed 205/70 R15 (virtually un-worn, but very, very old, hard, and un-insurable). They look great on the MWS 6" rims, but the steering is very heavy. I do need to check the caster angle, which may not be helping, but whatever, they are huge tyres with a large contact patch.

So the options seem to be:

Longstone Tyres:

185 VR15 PIRELLI CINTURATO CA67
£1344 + tape & tubes & fitting
Relatively expensive, look a bit skinny, but should improve the driving experience.

Blockley Tyres

185VR15
£744 + tape & tubes & fitting
Inexpensive, look a bit skinny, but should improve the driving experience.

205/70VR15W
£811.20 + tape & tubes & fitting
Relatively inexpensive, would look great, but a question mark over how the steering would feel.

Longstone
Seems relatively expensive compared with Blockleys, but fairly local and I guess they would fit & balance them.

Blockley
Much less expensive, postage costs, and I'd have to find somewhere who could fit and balance them.
Blockley say their 205/70VR15s give light steering, but I wouldn't know until I tried them.

Any thoughts, or real word experience good or bad, or advice on what to do? I'm inclined to go for the 185's, but which ones I don't know.

I asked a fellow e-Type owner, who said he'd recommend the Blockleys. I also posted elsewhere on a forum, and had pretty much decided on 185 Blockleys, but then someone linked to this:

https://www.cinturato.net/images/test-c ... s-0716.pdf

Which seems to be in turn from here:

https://www.cinturato.net/

Based on that, I'm now obviously having serious doubts about my choice! Then again, I'm not pushing the car to its limits, and the difference in cost is huge between Blockley and Pirelli. Still, it's a pretty damning article.

Thanks.

[Gfhug]

Do you have a name besides Dr G? It’s always nice to respond to a person not a call sign.
If you search on here you’ll find a report in which the Pirellis came first and the Blockleys fourth. Each have their proponents and without a direct back to back test it’s difficult to know which you’d prefer. The E Type was designed for 185 (crossply) tyres then went onto radial 185s for the straight six XK powered cars. The V12 S3 had power steering and was fitted with 205/70 tyres.
My preference, and it’s one among many, is to go for the Pirelli 185s. On the 6 inch wheels they will give a fatter look to the tyres to fill the wheel arches but still give you the original, light feeling. 205s give a heavier, tramline feeling from my experience of both.
A compromise on cost is the Vredestein 185 which get a good review, second compared with the Pirellis.

Geoff

[malcolm]

I had Vreds for a long time, always liked them. When they got too old, I changed them for Pirellis

[Dr-G]

Do you have a name besides Dr G? It’s always nice to respond to a person not a call sign.
If you search on here you’ll find a report in which the Pirellis came first and the Blockleys fourth. Each have their proponents and without a direct back to back test it’s difficult to know which you’d prefer. The E Type was designed for 185 (crossply) tyres then went onto radial 185s for the straight six XK powered cars. The V12 S3 had power steering and was fitted with 205/70 tyres.
My preference, and it’s one among many, is to go for the Pirelli 185s. On the 6 inch wheels they will give a fatter look to the tyres to fill the wheel arches but still give you the original, light feeling. 205s give a heavier, tramline feeling from my experience of both.
A compromise on cost is the Vredestein 185 which get a good review, second compared with the Pirellis.

Geoff

Thanks, presumably the test you mention is the one I linked to?

[caveman]

Plenty for you here;
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13955
I bought Cinturato’s last year and very pleased with them.

[abowie]

Personally I don't buy into the "classic" tyre debate.

Tyre design has progressed enormously since Pirelli et al produced rubber in the 1960's.

Your tyres hold the car you're driving to the road. If they fail, you die.

[Gfhug]

Andrew, I believe you use Nankang tyres? Can you get any of the correct 185/80 profile with a high enough speed rating? In the UK the classic tyres spoken about in the reviews are only ones, from what I can see, that have both the 185 15 with high enough speed ratings. Otherwise you end up with fatter 205/70 tyres which many of us don’t like.
It’d be interesting to hear what you can get and use for the E Type in Australia and any speed ratings required to satisfy the insurance companies.

Thanks

Geoff

[Herzeg]

I hadn't seen the report before and it made interesting (and worrying) reading

When I bought my car it had Vreds but 205/70, which seemd to handle well but made for very heavy steering. I bought some new dunlops but was persuaded to do a deal that gave me some wheels with low mileage Blockleys. I am not happy with the handling and did not put it down to the tyres but the reports of the test car breaking away suddenly mirror some hairy experiences I have had in recent years. I am always nervous in less than perfect conditions and have lost the back end twice negotiating roundabouts in the dry at normal speeds.

Price always has clout and the Blockleys are comparitively cheap. I however compare that to the cars value and my value. For the mileage we typically use these cars every year, tyres will age out rather than wear out, so go for the best you can. It's what I'm going to do now.

Anybody want to buy a set of part used Blockleys???

John

[mtnjag]

After much deliberation between 185 and 205 I bought Pirelli CN12s 205 70 15 tires for my 62. I have 6" wires.
I am very happy with them. Of course they look great but the steering is much better/easier than with my old Bridgestone RE92. Handling is also very good, predictable, with a good ride and noise factor.
Got them direct from Longstone via the website at a significant savings over buying from the US supplier, no tax, no duty, cheap cheap shipping, and it took 1 week from purchase to delivery by USPS.

[abowie]

Andrew, I believe you use Nankang tyres?

I've gone a bit cold on the Nankangs.

They do give a nice ride and lighten the steering, and they look good on the car.

Their grip in marginal situations though is not what I'd really like. I don't drive in the wet but on cold mornings with the road a bit slippery they have noticeably less grip than modern 205 65 15's.

For the exercise I swapped a set onto my Mk2, and driving on my little test track the grip was noticeably poorer when cornering hard in the heavier car. I usually have 205 65 15 Bridgestones on the Mk2.

I don't know whether this is simply the 60 year old design or reflects the quality of manufacture.

I'm honestly not sure whether there are stipulated minimum ratings for insurance here.

The Nankangs are rated 93H, so 1433lb per wheel and 130mph. This far exceeds anything I'd ever do in an E type. With my general safety concerns about crashing a 60 year old car, plus the government using concealed portable speed cameras for revenue raising I never exceed the speed limit.

When it comes time to replace the Nankangs I'm probably going back to a modern tyre.

[Gfhug]

Thanks Andrew for your thoughts. You don’t seem to be bothered by the 65 profile tyres giving a smaller rolling radius by the sounds of it or do they work ok for the MK2 but not an E?
Insurance companies often seem to expect the correct V speed rating in this country despite not going anywhere near the 149 mph that gives! Some will accept an H at 130 mph if noted and agreed. Only the vintage tyres seem to have either V or H, all the rest of the available modern 185/15 tyres at 80 profile are R rated 106 mph. Certainly fast enough for me, but it’d be interesting to hear what an insurance company would say to that.
I prefer to keep to the 185/15 as the 205/70 I find the steering heavy, but as noted others are happy with it. You pays your money….

And talking of prices, the vintage Vreds, even Pirellis compare quite well with the price of modern tyres on my Jaguar XF, so are they really expensive for the value of the car?

Regards

Geoff

[nichmoss]

I see you said that you wanted to check the caster. The first thing I'd do is go over the complete suspension and check all bearings, ball joints, bushes and so on. Then follow sections J and K (I think) of the manual to set up the suspension and finally, take the car for a four wheel full suspension set up check. Adjust/shim as necessary based on the results and then re-check. I did this some years ago and my car is not nervous and the steering with 205/70 tyres is not heavy.

I like Andrew's idea of a modern tyre but have never tried it. Something to investigate, I feel. Modern 65 series Dunlop tyres seem to be available at £500 a set but I'd be concerned about a harsh ride. I suppose there's only one way to find out.

Cheers, Chris

[abowie]

Thanks Andrew for your thoughts.

If I could get a modern 185 80 profile tyre I think that would be ideal, as presumably that's what the designers of the E type set it up for.

The only issue I have with the 60/65 profile tyres is the effect on the speedo :-)

I initially chose the Nankangs because of heavy steering on one of my cars, and because I considered the price of Vreds etc extortionate.

At the end of the day I've not found an ideal tyre choice available, and that's probably backed up by the myriad of "what's the best tyre" threads.

[caveman]

I prefer to keep to the 185/15

Searching around this forum will also indicate many others have had issues with bigger wheel/tyre combo and reverted to factory spec. Others do like them so personal choice and probably based around trying to fill the arches a little more.

[paydase]

An alternative to better fill the arches is to put wheels with slightly smaller offset, or wider rims (5.5" or 6"), still with 185-15, so as to push tyres on the outside and to be more flush with the fenders.
Have to be careful in the choice of offset however, not to rub on the fender and to still allow for wheel replacement on the road in case of a flat...

[chrisfell]

Another vote for Vredesteins. Mine are on a 5" rim. Good grip, excellent in the wet. They make a bit of noise on smooth surfaces, but they are cheaper than almost all the alternatives.

[rswaffie]

I originally had 5.5” rims with 205 tyres but reverted to new MWS 5” chromes with the new vred v rated 185/70 tyres. Much lighter steering at lower speeds than the 205’s I had before and at a very good price compared to the other makes.

[mtnjag]

I ran some Bridgestone RE 92 205 65 15s and the RPM effect is not much. They rode and steered hard.
I like my Pirelli 205 70 15 W rated much more. Better in all categories.
You can go to the Spicer RPM calculator on line and run all the scenarios with tire size, gear ratio, diff ratios that you want.
You need to calc your tire size: Here’s the calc fo inches exp- 205x2=410 x .7=287/25.4=11.3 inches +15=26.3 diameter or you can find a tire size calculator.
Keep in mind that in general the better/ higher the speed rating the better the handling as well for a variety of material and construction reasons.

I just typed in 205 70 15 H Speed rated and i stopped looking at the candidates at 6. So if your happy with modern H rated they are available.