Gareth wrote:

I got home from Lowestoft this evening, with car not feeling right, and pulling to the right. Guess what? another puncture ,in the front RH tyre.

The rain stopped for just long enough for me to change the wheel, but the tread is very low on the punctured tyre. I think the tyre repair company may not want to fix it, because the inside edge is down really low.

Car has done 28000 now, I expected more to be honest. The rears are not far behind.

I have been in dispute with the dealer, because they want to charge me 135 pounds to check the alignment of the wheels, I reckon they should check it for nowt.

The old tyre has 4mm at the outside edge, 3mm in the middle, and 1 mm at the inside edge. A new tyre has about 9mm. As the legal limit is 1.6 mm, I think a new tyre will be needed.

That is not a good mileage Gareth. Not that it helps, but I think the dealer should carry out the check under warranty and not charge.

Must say a journey from Chester to Lowestoft has to be one of the bum trips going

BN wrote:

Must say a journey from Chester to Lowestoft has to be one of the bum trips going

Its not pleasant Stockport to Lowestoft, the sat nav gave me two basic options, Quickest was shown as Stockport - Chesterfield - Newark - Kings Lynn - Norwich - Lowestoft. 175 miles, 5 1/2 hrs. Normal was 250 miles, Stockport - M6 - M6 Toll - A 14 - Bury St Edmunds A143 - then I cant remember the rest as it was soooo dull.

I took the normal route even though it is 70 miles further, it is far quicker than the bl**dy A17

Smarticus wrote:

Gareth, all 4 tyres on our Dico 3 are also in need of replacement (showing exactly the same wear pattern as yours at only 23k miles). But what to buy to replace them. Ours are 18" and I guess yours will be 19" so we may have different options. We live in a very rural area (deepest Northumberland) at the top of a hill and the roads don't get treated around here for snow and ice for several days. So we are looking for a set of tyres which can give a bit more grip than the Wranglers but not to the extent that dry road performance is significantly compromised.

Have you yet researched the options ? I recall you mentioned Synchro's a while back which are unknown to me - what have they got going for them and what else have you considered ?

Thanks

Coffeecup wrote:

Looked them up, and they do seem to be a good balance between road use (which I know you do more than enought Gareth) but go some way towards off road as well. Should be OK for this year's Photo Shoot in the Snow to add to your last year's Gallery.

http://www.michelin.co.uk/uk/auto/auto_produit_4x4_synchrone.jsp

"Bring it on" I can't wait to let you know if they are any good in the snow!

I had them on my D2, and they were good.

I currently have the 19" Goodyears, and they were great in the snow when they were new. They managed OK Wales last week, but I did get a lot of sideways slip on the slopes.

My main concern with the Goodyears is that they have gone very noisy in the last 5000 miles. There is a considerable angular step pattern worn into the edges of the tread, and this produces a droning sensation on smooth roads at low speeds.

Having had chance to inspect a tyre off the car yesterday, the tyre fitter (not Land Rover) and myself agreed that the uneven wear was not due to alignment faults, as there was very little scrubbing on the tyre. The uneven wear looks worse than it actually is. The fitter did point out that 255 is a very wide tyre, and a small difference in wear pattern looks a lot worse than it is. When you place the new spare next to the worn tyre it puts it into perspective. He also reckoned 28000 miles was not to bad for a heavy 4x4.