Linglong Tyres

any photos ?

directional tires normally have say grooves on the out side than the inside to asisst with cornering, etc

comercial tractor tyress with the big chunky V patterns are directional so the mud doesnt cling ie self cleaning.

Hello tobugrynbak

Well you are driving a Mondeo so its understandable you won't notice too much difference in tyre quality. Not sure what you mean by that - Mondeo is so bad poor tyres couldn't make it worse, or good enough to hide shortcomings of poor ones . I haven't read a review for years, if ever, but I thought it had a pretty good reputation for ride, roadholding, handling etc. I find it OK to drive, but at my time of life I rarely do boy racer stuff.

The Linglong is a steel belted radial. On rotation, I was thinking there might be something in the tyre structure that determined it, but as still ere pointed out it's probably just the tread pattern.

Incidentally, I was in Oz (Sydney) most of December last year, hired a car but found other drivers very similar to UK. Just as in UK, plenty of them seemed unaware there is a left lane on dual carriageways!

Cheers and thanks for comments........Codey

The Mondeo is not a bad car, just a tad bland in the primary dynamics, but that's what common or garden variety models should be. Tame and mostly predictable. Not everybody drives like Tiff Needles or Jeremy Clarkson..

I've owned a variety of cars(trucks & bikes) over the years and some were fussier on tyres than others. Depending on the state of tune of the chassis, and what configuration they were(Front engine/rear drive, front engine/front drive, rear engine/rear drive).

Apologies if I seemed a bit sarcy, not in the best of humour at 4:30am.

My main concern was the mixing of tyre types certainly on the front, especially on the front drive Mondeo. Regulatory bodies here in Oz (and by extension as our regulations are based a lot on U.K. regulations for you as well) dislike mismatched tyres on any axel group. Insurance companies also see that as a possibility to disallow a claim in the event of an accident unless someone else is paying..

As a "get out of schtuck" spare your linglong (sounds like a phone company) should be ok. I personally wouldn't have it on the car longer than I had to.

A while back Oz was flooded with cheap Asian sourced tyres, few would have passed the local Oz standards. After a rash of tyre failures, they were stopped, now they have to meet and pass the regulatory standards although a few still slip through.

I only buy tyres from brands that are either local, or from manufacturers that have proper documented quality assurance. It may cost more initially but I save in the long run.

Private reviews, especially on tyres, can be very unreliable and the conflicting views can leave you none the wiser. At best, they can help you to identify the extremes, ie the tyres to avoid like the plague, and the best tyres. Don't believe anyone who says all budget tyres are rubbish, but tread carefully (pun intended).

This is what I found when I reshod my Renault Grand Espace last summer, and was horrified at the prospect of a bill of £750 or more. The main criteria for me was safety, cost and tyre life. Fortunately I found a very comprehensive independent test on the tyres I chose (Accelera Alpha), which indicated that they were every bit as good in all departments as the known brands, and better than some big names like Dunlop and Pirelli. Having put 15,000 miles on these tyres, I am very happy with them, and they should meet or exceed the 36,000 miles on the original Continentals, and they cost about £360 for the set of 4.

You might not be lucky enough to find an independent test featuring the Linglongs (I haven't seen any), but to a certain extent you have tested your tyre yourself and found that you can't tell the difference. It might be a good idea to give it a good test in wet braking, since this seems to be the weak point in some low-cost chinese tyres. If you are happy with this, why not keep it as a spare, although you should also consider that it is second-hand, and you have no way of knowing if it has incurred internal damage at some point through kerbing, etc.

Hello Holzfeller

I liked the pun!

I'll try the wet braking test next time it rains. See if the ABS works at the same time.

Trouble with keeping the Linglong as a spare is it's unidirectional so strictly speaking should only go on the right-hand side.

Ref Tobugrynbak's post - are you aware law in UK banning different makes of tyres (same type) on one axle? I know the "experts" would frown on it, but didn't think it was illegal.

Cheers......Codey

Hi Codey,

I've often wondered about this unidirectional business and how it affects spare tyres. It seems more and more tyres now are unidirectional (my new ones are, and they have arrows on the sidewall to indicate direction), but then more and more spares are now 'omnidirectional' (perhaps a more appropriate term than I first thought!) spacesavers, so perhaps it doesn't really matter.

I haven't heard of any legislation regarding mixed tyres/same axle although, as you say, it is generally frowned upon. I bought my car secondhand from a Renault main dealer and it had the original Continental front-left and a Pirelli front-right. I don't think they could have done this if it were illegal.

OK thanks Holzfeller

when it comes to omnidirectional, the tread is only one consideration

changing direction tends to make radials peel apart, with extended use

Bias ply more forgiving

I usually make the best tyre the spare when I get new one's & not use it too much.

using mixed on the same axle will effect handling in extreme conditions, still better than a mini spare

We have yearly "roadworthy" inspections here (at least in the bustedarse state of Oz) in order to renew our vehicle registration, and one of the fail points is mismatched tyres on an axle.

That's not to say people don't get away with it, however it is the insurance companies that will give you grief for it if, your in an at fault or single vehicle accident. It's on the assessors check list.

I can't presume for the U.K. except that that's where most of our regulations (for just about everything)are referenced from.

As for a car in a car yard with mis matched tyres, yeah I'd be a bit leary about that too. As it's an obvious indicator of poor maintenance habits of the previous owner.

Way back in the 1970s a swiss firm developed a tyre that was good for at least a million miles, they were made out of a synthetic material, I can remember seeing them at the factory I was visiting to repair their waste pumps, but somehow they never came on the market, I was told that a well known rubber tyre company bought up their patent, has anybody else heard of these?

Xanasax

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Tyres have a mixture of natural and various synthetic rubbers. I believe natural rubber gives good life at the expense of grip and vice versa. A million miles is such a leap over current tyres it semms a tad unlikely.

Be interesting to see what others think.

I have driven a few Mondeos over the years and was quite impressed with the road holding. A car magazine in Germany tested several cars, including a Mondeo and a Mercedes, all estate versions. The Mondeo had the best handling both unloaded and loaded.

The Merc was downright dangerous fully and correctly loaded, the Mondeo not!!!

Only someone with no personal knowledge other than "Pub Tales" would say that a Mondeo was a bad handling car.....

Chinese tyres are generally rubbish, throw it out, it simply is not worth taking any risks......

I would also like to draw your attention to something else though, did you just buy a steel wheel of the right size, or did you buy one FOR YOUR MODEL OF MONDEO? There is a possible difference....

What is vitally important, for both legal and insurance reasons is that the wheel also has the correct "Offset".

If you want to know what "Offset" is look here, just read down:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_sizing

Having the wrong offset can cause many problems, the least of which is modifying the under body shape every time you go over a bump! Good wheels have the value stamped into them somewhere....

You can cause early wheel bearing overheating and failure, loss of brakes due to wearing the brake line through, and and and......its not a good idea to just pick a wheel without careful measurement.....I trust you did just that?

Yes I've driven a couple of Mondeos, nice, competent but bland(which is why they didn't do well in Oz). But then I'm not fussed with BMW's either and I've driven a few of them too.

We get cars here that get local "tweaks" so it can be comparing apples and oranges sometimes.

If Codey bought a factory fitted steel rim for a Mondeo then that should be all good, a wheel/tyre combination would need to be right out of spec to cause the problems listed. The biggest faux par is to fit a rim from a rear drive car to a front drive car, the offset of the rim will cause all sorts of drivability issues. Certainly on the front.

Replying to this and Andy Germany #15 - the wheel/tyre came from a Mondeo of similar age in a scrapyard. I'm pretty sure it's fine, if there's anything wrong symptoms are a long time showing. It definitely doesn't foul any bodywork or brake fittings, and the car drives the same as with Michelins all round, as I said before.

Something else I noticed today - the Michelins have "outside" stamped on them, so though they're not unidirectional you can't (or shouldn't) change them round on the wheel. As one is slightly more worn on the outside I had intended to do just that, but looks like it's out.

Cheers.......Codey

Although I agree with the first part of your post completely, I have to say that you do not (as yet anyway!) give the impression of fully understanding "Offset" and its dangers when wrong......insurance may be voided for example.....at best!!

Here is the relevant paragraph, I have underlined some important parts:-

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Offset

The offset, measured in millimeters, can be negative or positive, and is the distance from the hub-mounting surface to the rim's true centerline. A positive offset means the hub-mounting surface is closer to the outside edge of the wheel, i.e. the wheel wraps around the hub and brake hardware more deeply; a negative offset means the hub-mounting surface is closer to the inside edge of the wheel and wheel sticks outwards more than inwards. When selecting aftermarket wheels, a wheel with too little positive offset will be closer to edge of the fender, and one with too much positive offset will tuck inside the fender and be closer to the suspension components. Wheel width, offset and tire size all determine the way a particular wheel/tire combination will work on a given car. Offset also affects the scrub radius of the steering and it is advisable to stay within the limits allowed by the vehicle manufacturer. Because wheel offset changes the lever-arm length between the center of the tire and the centerline of the steering knuckle, the way bumps, road imperfections and acceleration and braking forces are translated to steering torques (bump-steer, torque-steer, etc) will change depending on wheel offset. Likewise, the wheel bearings will see increased thrust loads if the wheel centerline is moved away from the bearing centerline.

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The "Offset" has nothing to do with front or rear wheel drive by the way......it has more to do with the placement of the bearings on the axle and the placing of the road wheels load to pass through the space between the bearings as well as how a car handles. The wiki article says it far better than I......

Most cars are fitted with the same rims all round......though not all!!! The ones with different front and rear rims are usually exotic cars or specially set up for some reason..........

Interesting what you say about hub diameter. First time I tried to get a wheel off the Mondeo it was such a good fit on the hub it wouldn't come off. I had to get behind it with a chisel and give it a right pounding. Lucky it wasn't because of a flat tyre in the middle of the night in the rain.

I had a go at the hole in the wheel with wire brush and emery paper, but it wasn't enough, the wheel studs were pulling it on to the hub. So I attacked it (and the others, naturally) with a half-round file, and been OK since.

So it seems they can be too good a fit!

Cheers.......Codey

I use a little bit of grease or "never seize" especially on alloy rims in the interface of the rim and the hub boss.

Once upon a time when people did regular maintenance at 5000km, the wheels used to come off a lot more often for brake adjustments (and de dusting "cough")and the seizing wasn't such a issue.

4 wheel disc brakes(rear "servo" self adjusting drum brakes) that only need replacing every other blue moon means the wheels rarely get touched. Leading to the situation you experienced.

Thanks. Of course, after filing I gave them a smear of grease befotre refitting.

Now you explained it well and correctly....thanks.

The previous post could have been missleading!!