Dunlop Sportmaxx Tyres

[Hurdy]

Got these from new on my GTI and after doing only 15k in 2 1/2 years I guess I'm keeping them until they wear out. 18" rims and after about 500 miles they became very noisy, but I ain't heavy on my tyres (never have been) and they do the job, so I ain't throwing away good tread for the sake of more grip and (probably) more wear

Cass

You're not driving that thing hard enough Cass

[Saint Steve]

Got these from new on my GTI and after doing only 15k in 2 1/2 years I guess I'm keeping them until they wear out. 18" rims and after about 500 miles they became very noisy, but I ain't heavy on my tyres (never have been) and they do the job, so I ain't throwing away good tread for the sake of more grip and (probably) more wear

Cass

You're not driving that thing hard enough Cass

exactly, depends on the type or agressive your driver style is, i know hurdy and Illyan are both fanatical shall we say behind the wheel 

[Smoothcall]

Always have Dunlop sportmax's on 2 of my 3 Mk5's , other having bridgestones which were sh!te!.

Ive bought dunlops for the simple reason, they are not always as bad as some people make them out to be, the are fit for purpose, ok may suffer a touch of road noise, but dont wear out as fast as others which is good considering the type of car it is. Never had uneven tread issues as some people are saying, and recent tests put Dunlops 4th overall in performance testing,and seem imo the best to get bargain price's on them. (in my experiance anyway)
You either buy better softer more expensive rubber for some extra grip/quieter on the road, on the down side they also tend to wear out faster.
F1 Asymmetrics seem to get the most praise, but if you do change make of rubber insure you change as an axel pair and but the new boots to the rear first.

If your an out and out racer/track day or find those dunlops too noisey then yes change brand, but if you tend to use the car in a sort of normal mode, i find them fine.

Phil
Can you explain this theory to me....

To be honest I want the best tyres where they are going to be of most benefit to me. On a GTI that means the tyres that have to put down the power, do the steering and do most of the braking.

The only thing I can think of would be handling balance if you are worried about a lack of grip inducing oversteer. But that's not really something the GTI is know for.

[Dogbucket]

You are right most tyre places had a change of policy in recent years and fit new rubber on the rear now to avoid inducing oversteer on the average punters car.

I tend to swap mine F>R R>F when the fronts are 2 thirds gone to even it all out. Then all 4 tyres get replaced at the same time.

[Cass]

Got these from new on my GTI and after doing only 15k in 2 1/2 years I guess I'm keeping them until they wear out. 18" rims and after about 500 miles they became very noisy, but I ain't heavy on my tyres (never have been) and they do the job, so I ain't throwing away good tread for the sake of more grip and (probably) more wear

Cass

You're not driving that thing hard enough Cass

Yep, need to get out more

Cass

[Hurdy]

Always have Dunlop sportmax's on 2 of my 3 Mk5's , other having bridgestones which were sh!te!.

Ive bought dunlops for the simple reason, they are not always as bad as some people make them out to be, the are fit for purpose, ok may suffer a touch of road noise, but dont wear out as fast as others which is good considering the type of car it is. Never had uneven tread issues as some people are saying, and recent tests put Dunlops 4th overall in performance testing,and seem imo the best to get bargain price's on them. (in my experiance anyway)
You either buy better softer more expensive rubber for some extra grip/quieter on the road, on the down side they also tend to wear out faster.
F1 Asymmetrics seem to get the most praise, but if you do change make of rubber insure you change as an axel pair and but the new boots to the rear first.

If your an out and out racer/track day or find those dunlops too noisey then yes change brand, but if you tend to use the car in a sort of normal mode, i find them fine.

Phil
Can you explain this theory to me....

To be honest I want the best tyres where they are going to be of most benefit to me. On a GTI that means the tyres that have to put down the power, do the steering and do most of the braking.

The only thing I can think of would be handling balance if you are worried about a lack of grip inducing oversteer. But that's not really something the GTI is know for.

With FWD car it is generally recognised that the wheels with the most grip should go to the rear. This is simply because the nature of a FWD is to understeer and putting the better grip to the rear will keep this effect and so the driver will still know what to expect at the limit ie understeer. If the grip is predominantly to the front of the car then the car will grip more on the front, but is more liable to snap oversteer which can be really hard to come back from. Lift-off oversteer will also happen more readily with the better tyres on the front.

HTH

[illyun]

illyun, don't sit on the fence mate! 

So, seriously, in my position would you bin 4 part worn Dunlops (that seem to have infinite life!) for 4 F1s, or PS2s or whatever tyre floats your boat and you're telling me that the next time I drive down a fine A road I'll notice the improvement in handling, grip etc etc.  Because if thats the case I'll happily do it, what I don't want to do is spend the cash to find that, in reality, as a normal driver I can't actually tell any difference between the Dunlops and anything else.

ATB

I certainly noticed the difference although given my finances, I would either keep the Dunlops until they wore out - like I am doing on my wife's R32 because she won't notice the difference the way she drives  - or replace them with some decent tyres Michelin PS2's and keep the Dunlops aside should I ever need them.  I wrote a summary of my experiences with various tyres in another thread which I have pasted below.

My 06 GTI came with Contis, my 07 Ed30 came with Dunlop ShyteMax, can't remember what the 56 plate R32 came with, my present Ed30 came with Michelin Pilot Exaltos and my wife's 08 R32 has Dunlop ShyteMax.   In order of preference...

1.  Contis - superb grip and the best tyre out of the lot, although they wear fast.  Mine lasted 13k miles on a standard GTI, while the Michelins lasted 28k miles on my present Ed30 
2.  Michelin Exaltos - excellent grip, but not as good as the Contis.  Last forever.
3.  Dunlop ShyteMax - why do they put this tyre on GTI/R32s?!   As the name suggests, its a seriously shyte tyre from my experience and I am sure a lot of you will agree.  It was so bad that when I got my first Ed30, it was under-steering like a pig and finding it hard to keep traction.  I thought it was the Ed30, but it was the Dunlops.  Even my wife's R32 loses a bit of traction going round corners when slightly pushes which is ridiculous.  Truly rubbish tyres.

I currently have Michelin Pilot Sports on my Ed30 and they are the dogs danglies     Way better than all the above.   Bye bye wheel spin...

[illyun]

exactly, depends on the type or agressive your driver style is, i know hurdy and Illyan are both fanatical shall we say behind the wheel 

You've never sat with me Phil... I fanatically adhere to the law and all speed limits      BTW I just found out that the Isle of Man has unrestricted roads with no speed limits - have to get myself there this summer 

[Saint Steve]

exactly, depends on the type or agressive your driver style is, i know hurdy and Illyan are both fanatical shall we say behind the wheel 

 You've never sat with me Phil... I fanatically adhere to the law and all speed limits      BTW I just found out that the Isle of Man has unrestricted roads with no speed limits - have to get myself there this summer 

Of course you do nadeem, how silly of me

[Teutonic_Tamer]

Hi all, Have just been reading the huge thread about the various new tyre options, and noticed that the Dunlop Sportmaxx tyres are acknowledged to be pants.  Interesting, as I have 4 of these bad boys on my GTI and I can't say I'm particularly impressed with how quickly they give up grip, especially away from the line, but this could of course be down to lack of driver talent and a heavy right foot so I'd be interested in others opinion on them.

That is just one of their problems!

They also have quite a harsh ride, but also suffer from static deformation too (which indicates weaknesses in the actual carcass).

It seems like the F1 Asymmetrics and the more expensive PS2's are universally applauded,

I personally disagree that PS2s are more expensive than the Goodyears.  OK, the 'advertised' prices for Michelins are usually £10-15 higher than their rivals, but with some hard haggling, then PS2s can be had for much cheaper prices than advertised.  And don't forget - Goodyears are made by the same company as Dunlops! 

my question is under normal spirited road driving would the average driver notice the difference between the Dunlops and the superior Asymmetrics or PS2s?

Absolutey.  Even under remotely hard cornering, the deficiencies of the ShyteMaxx are clearly shown compared to PS2s.  Same for traction and hard braking.  Try very hard braking on a dry road with the ShyteMaxx, and the ABS will be working overtime.  Do the same with PS2s, and you will have to press the brake pedal MUCH harder to activate the ABS.

There really is a huge difference in grip.  Which might explain why Porsche fit PS2s as standard, but refuse to supply any kind of Dunflop. 

Anybody made the change and care to comment?

Yup.  Gone from ShyteMaxx to PS2 (in axle pairs) on the GTI - where you can unequivically compare the differences.  And also gone from Pirelli P-Zero Rosso to PS2 on my RS4, and Continental SportContact2 to PS2 on my last S4.  And before that, gone from Yokohama AVS Sport to PS2 on a previous car.  On every occasion, the PS2s were a massive increase in performance over what they replaced.  And before the PS2 came out, I went from a truely dangerous Yokohama AVS S1Z (asymmetrics) to the original Mich Pilot Sport - again, a massive improvement.

The reason for the question is I've owned the car from 9000 miles, and its now done 13000 and, despite my best efforts, the tyres appear to have LOADS of tread left, hence I'm wondering if its worth the expense of replacing them early; if there's not much difference then I'll leave it, if changing the tyres makes a huge difference then I might as well do it now as these Dunlops appear indestructable and capable of lasting forever (or maybe I need to try harder...)

I think I wore the original ShyteMaxxes down on the front of the GTI in about 8k miles.  That was on a brand new car (with the first 1800miles running in), and also with sharing the driving with my SWMBO.  And to be honest, the PS2s last roughly the same - maybe 1k miles less - but the level of grip improvement (and therefore safety) from the PS2s is surely worth the loss of 1k miles. 

Maybe you ought to turn off your traction control, and just 'try harder' wearing them out if you are worried about sending them to landfill before they are due. 

EDIT:  just checked my records, and the PS2s lasted about 10k - so they lasted LONGER than the ShyteMaxx