With winter tyres the blocks move around giving the car an unstable feeling. Not what you want on your 100hp. The grip levels are poor when the temperature rises, and leads to longer braking distances, more lock ups and wheel spin. I run them on my old 180hp Leon Cupra in the winter with Kumho Ecsta Sports in summer.
Next up, all season tyres. These are actually a pretty good compromise imo.
I have Goodyear 4 seasons on our Alfa 159. Sure they aren't as good as a dedicated summer tyre, but they do actually reduce stopping distances in the winter, and perform well in the wet, so are a compromise I'm happy with on the bit family barge, which is never going to be driven in anger anyway.
And, summer tyres. This category maybe needs split into a few groups as there are sports tyres, budget tyres, crap tyres (those Avon ZV3...), and of course different cars run better or worse on different tyres.
I run Yokohama AD08Rs on my Elise. The tread pattern looks, well, odd, but they are a damn good tyre for dry grip grip and more grip, making them perfect for the application.
So, the Panda. What I'd want is something with very good dry performance, acceptable wet performance, decent pricing and that last a sensible distance (20k is sensible to me..)
The 100hp doesn't need an equivalent to the AD08R, nor does it want for all seasons, but it does see some hard run outs on some of the best A roads around, so deserves a good tyre for that purpose.
I had been thinking the GF1 was the perfect solution
Now, currently, I have some going hard and probably original GF1s on the rear (2007 car with 20k miles) and a pair of absolutely terrible Avon ZV3 on the front which are poor in the dry and don't even bare thinking about on the first wet day when roads are greasy.
So, what are the BEST choices of tyre CURRENTLY available for a 100hp?
