I have worked with all brands of tyres for about 32 years now and for a cheap tyre Radar are good vs other cheap makes . My wife has a set of the all seasons Radar on her old 13 plate astra been on about a year and holding up ok .Having said that if you like to drive your car with a bit of sprit then i would never go with a budget tyre. there are many factors involved in tyres i could write many pages of info here but would take forever . After so many years working with tyres and most of the tyre brands out there have so much info cramed in my head lol. But if anyone wants more info on tyre stuff just ask i will try and help when i have free time
Brilliant review! So glad to see the Dimax Sport handled the snowy conditions so well. Cheers for putting them to the test, and we can’t wait to see your future trips on these tyres!
Reminds me of when my 155 and needed new front discs. There was a huge difference between Alfa ones and the next best. My Alfa mechanic who sadly died at 62 due to the NHS, said ‘you might stop a car length quicker’. I said, ‘but if it fails it’s next MOT badly they’d be the shiniest things in a breaker’s yard and I’d be £150 worse off’
Caution..... Once I brought 2 mid price tyres for the front. The circumference wasb slightly smaller than the Bridge stones on the back. Caused all sorts of problems. 😢
I'm personally not a fan of cheaper tyres. They can be good at one condition, but they inevitably compromise other conditions. So it's quite possible that these Radar tyres are good in snow, but they might compromise wet or dry performance to do so. What you get with a premium tyre is consistently high performance across all conditions. Where i live in central norway that is important at this time of year because our roads are currently a mix of snow, ice and completely dry sections. And temperatures can vary from -20C to 0C on a drive. You can really tell the difference between a cheap tyre and a premium tyre.
I would note that subjective testing like this is just that - subjective testing. Put these back to back with michelin or contis and actually measure braking distances and aquaplaning speeds and i guarantee they will be inferior overall. Testing with an EV is also tricky due to the extremely good traction control that they have. That can easily mask performance deficiencies in subjective testing. Interestingly i note that in the german ADAC winter tyre test last year, the Radar Dimax Winter tyres came 21st out of 31 tyres tested. They had specific weaknesses in the wet and
Most tyres are fine day to day, but heaven forbid you find yourself emergency braking or in deep water etc, you’ll wish you didn’t cheap out. You won’t notice a lot of difference until it really counts. I think for general day to day stuff around town it’s ok but other than that’s it’s a no from me.
Google has mostly user reviews about these tires and even those are mixed. Not trashing them, I've used budget and these have a decent wet and noise rating, but they haven't been really tested and compared to high, medium and budget end to really know where they'd stand performance wise.
Why I bought my 15 years old Giulietta? First, she had one previous owner and a full service history. Second, I found 4 matching hardly worn Michelin Cross Climate tyres on her. Etc.
We went from Pirelli P-Zero to Giti Sport2 on our Audi Q7 ... 2/3 the price, much quieter (69db as opposed to 72db) and for road use no problem at all. Went down to Leicester a few days ago in torrential rain on the M1 and there was no drama.
Had a set of Maxxis all season tyres on the van. Fine in the snow but once the ambient temperature warmed up they wore out on the corners like they were under inflated / bad tracking. Soft rubber compound definitely not all season.
I`m suprised they are good in the snow looking at the tread pattern .I always have a set of snow/winter tyres and put them on in December.
I found the budget tyre for the wet (for me) is the THREE A P606, they transformed driving on flooded motorways. Great video
My son had Kenda on his Fiesta, in my opinion dangerous in the wet even though the tread depth was good and the tyres not old. Changed for Uniroyal, chalk and cheese. Much more stable with massively improved grip.
Interesting, I'll give these Radars a try, I think the thread pattern is perfect for my use case for my BMW. I was shocked after my friend put on Tracmax x-privilo on my Jag. Shocked how good they were. Super quiet, very good grip, very good comfort. A bit floating on a Jag- ok I'll criticise that. BUT I put the same tyre model on my son's Lancia Delta and my BMW Z4 e89 about 400hp, with lower profile no more floating, they are doing amazing job on Swiss mountain passes, I even had these Tracmax on the track where I could feel they were losing grip when really heated up on a 35 degree hot day, but for all other things the grip was phenomenal as was the progressiveness of losing traction. I got caught in the wet on bumps where they snapped but that was during very hard acceleration and car had no limited slip diff - stability control brought it back and in hindsight I should chill out a bit in these conditions. For about 55 euro per corner this is shocking value. I compare them to Uniroyals which behave very similarly. Despite the hype I was never happy with goodyears or pirellis - too hard, the bridgestones were the worst tyres ever on my cars along with barum, dunlops became "hard
What you've done well, Neil, is chosen a specialised path. You've made a career out of learning about the stuff others avoid: Quirkiness.
Most so-called professionals hate on quirkiness, whereas you embrace and celebrate it. I'm talking about Italian engineering. You identify the problems without emotion. Well done, sir.
I'm curious to see how they hold up when they are, lets say a couple of years on the car and how they do when they've got a little wear on them. Love this channel.
Cheers from the Netherlands.
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I would note that subjective testing like this is just that - subjective testing. Put these back to back with michelin or contis and actually measure braking distances and aquaplaning speeds and i guarantee they will be inferior overall. Testing with an EV is also tricky due to the extremely good traction control that they have. That can easily mask performance deficiencies in subjective testing. Interestingly i note that in the german ADAC winter tyre test last year, the Radar Dimax Winter tyres came 21st out of 31 tyres tested. They had specific weaknesses in the wet and
I found the budget tyre for the wet (for me) is the THREE A P606, they transformed driving on flooded motorways. Great video
Most so-called professionals hate on quirkiness, whereas you embrace and celebrate it. I'm talking about Italian engineering. You identify the problems without emotion. Well done, sir.
Cheers from the Netherlands.