Looking At New Tyre Options For The Iq

[Gordon in Angus]

Hows things folks, I'm on the hunt for replacement tyres for the iQ & looking for some opinions.

The car is an iQ1. Its 2.5 years old and sitting just short of 37,500 miles on the clock. It still has the original Bridgestone Ecopia Ep25K tyres on it all round. The front pair are down to just over 4mm and starting to struggle in the wet. The back pair are about 5.5 mm. MPG on the car is averaging around 58mpg now. It was closer to 55Mpg when new but the car has loosened up a bit since the 20,000 Mile service.

Anyway, anyone tried anything different and getting better results out there. I need an all year round tyre really. I do have space to store winter wheels and tyres, but can't justify the cost, so would prefer one set for all year (if its really bad weather or snowy we just take the RAV-4 Anyway )

I had Vredstein Quatrack 2 tyres on two Fiat Panda 4x4s I had in the past and they were much better then the Bridgestone Dulers Fiat fitted as standard. Anyone tried them on an iQ? or what else have you had a go at.

Any opinions much appreciated.

Cheers

[Ben Davy]

As a starting point id at least swap the fronts to the back.

[Soeley]

Thicker tread depth to the rear. Good tyre shops should put new tyres on the rear and swap the rears to the front. Helps stop back end aquaplaning in the wet. Unless theirs isn't much difference in tread depth.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

The Ecopia's are a very low rolling resistance economy (for fuel economy) tyre. You could change to the all season Vredsteins but your mpg's will drip for sure and noise might increase. You will however, have much better grip in the snow and cold weather.

Depends on your driving circumstances.

[Gordon in Angus]

Hi folks, thanks for the comments.

I'm aware of the opinion that its safer to have more tread on the back than the front so wont be swapping round. I do watch my MPG carefully and suspect that fitting anything other than the low rolling resistance Ecopia EP25K's tyres will hit the MPG a bit. I was just wondering if anyone else has swapped to other makes and what sort of results they are getting.

37,000 miles out of a set of tyres on the iQ is great. I was getting about 30,000 miles on both the Bridgstone Dulers and the Vredstein Quatrack 2 so it didn't seem to matter to much what was on the Pandas.

I'm happy to put the EP25ks back on it if its the best tyre for the job overall, but open to suggestions from other owners on what they have found.

Cheers :)

[atkiman]

Running nexen eco blue on the front, no noticeable difference in mpg, and a third of the price of the bridgestones , iq3 have wretchedly expensive 175/60/16 .

[tarquin]

Had nexen's on my Peugeot 406. Lasted forever

David

[Sensha]

I am curious about one aspect of the iQ style that we have encountered here in the US of A, that being a limited availability of tires/tyres.

One of the purchase factors we considered with the car was the ready availability of replacement tires. Having previously owned a smart Passion coupe, we have had the experience of driving around in a spare-less vehicle before, and resolved that (with the smart's hard to replace tires) by installing a trailer hitch receiver and a spare tire mount. I would like to do the same with the iQ, but the rear end design would prevent a simple mount due to the low location of the number plate.

(A mount with the tire fixed to the top of a large D shaped arch (turned on its side) would work, but there are some substantial forces on the welding involved to make me hesitate to try something that, should it fail, would destroy the back hatch on the little car.)

My inquiries about replacement tire availability have returned "It's a special order situation; we can have it for you on Monday" replies from every source tested, including most of the dealerships. This inability to quickly replace a blow out has limited our long distance travel in the iQ, because we don't want to be stuck in the middle of Kansas on a Saturday afternoon, waiting for a new tire to be air freighted in.

Throwing a spare in the back isn't an option; it would eat up half of the storage space in the rear (remember, we're talking extended travel here, and we're both too tall to put a spare behind the seat.)

So, can you be confident that you can walk into a local tyre shop and buy (off the rack) a suitable new tyre in, say, Cornwall on a Saturday afternoon? Or, would you be condemned to spend the rest of the weekend chasing General Stanley's lovely daughters around the tomb while you waited?

[craggle]

That is one of the reasons I changed the wheels on my iQ3 to a different size. I went up to 7" wide by 17" diameter wheels so I could fit 205/45 17 tyres. This is the same size as fitted to a lot of Mini's so tyre availability is very good should I need a replacement in a hurry.

It also meant I could fit winter tyres to the original Toyota wheels for when the weather gets colder.

Only downside to the 205 wide tyres is an increase in rolling resistance and therefore, fuel consumption so not really an economical switch.

Craig.

[Soeley]

I did exactly the same as Craig. Not only is there a much, much wider choice of tyres by going up to 17" rims, but you can also buy tyres at the budget end for £50 as opposed to the £125 for the 16" originals.

[Andy Kay]

Running nexen eco blue on the front, no noticeable difference in mpg, and a third of the price of the bridgestones , iq3 have wretchedly expensive 175/60/16 .

People might be interested in the option of buying the tyre over the internet and getting a local fitter to put it on:

http://www.tyreleader.co.uk/car-tyres-175-60-16/?s=S

(You can also click on winter tyres to reveal four kinds starting at around £60)