[R129 SL] R129LIST Digest, Vol 39, Issue 3

[Peter S]

Hi ??,
I am Peter S from New Zealand. 'We' have discussed tyres on previous forum's but at the end of the day tyres are really a personal preference, how one drives and tyres are very dependent upon local conditions.  

Your Michelin tyres (like all others) can separate, but how old were the tyres?   Any tyres older than about 10 years on a car should be scrapped as they are potentially dangerous (they separate or blow out).  There was an incident in Auckland (our largest city) last year where a woman was killed as a result of a blowout and her tyres were some 16 years old!

I have used the Bridgestone Potenza's as well as Michelin, and EagleHawk's.  As an all round tyre, I have used the Bridgestone Potenza series for a number of years on my former Mitsubishi Galant GR4, Nissan Maxima, Honda Civic Levin and Honda CRX, all with excellent handling in New Zealand, even on the gravel (unsealed) roads.  The Bridgestone's on the SL 500  also perform well.

When the rims are 17 inch or larger, I have found that tyre performance on Gravel Roads is poor.  I have 18 inch mags on my 123 with Pirelli PZero's - these tyres are some $650 each in New Zealand.  They perform well on the Tarmac roads but are not too good on the gravel roads - they drift a bit!.  

I am about to buy two new sets of tyres ( set for the SL500 and a set for the W123 - 280E) and I talk to the specialist tyre people where I require good advice for my driving style, road adherence etc.  If you do not like the new tyres, many operators in NZ will change the tyres within the first 100 km if they are not right for the car. Ask your tyre dealer!?!

Regarding flat spots on tyres, my son had our older W123 out and a young kid on a bike U turned on a highway.  My son hit the brakes and burnt flat spots on the tyres.  New tyres, and had to throw them away.  You definitely get flat spots by leaving the tyres on the car and not using the car.  The old crossply tyres are shocking for this effect, the radials are more resilient but still are prone to this effect.  Like someone else indicated, jack up the car when not in use, or drive the car!  A few car museums have the 'usable' cars on blocks, the non used cars just have flat spots on the tyres!. 

Incidentally, on My Harley Davidson, I use Avon tyres - Vipers on the front and 'Stickers' on the rear.  Only get about 8,000 km out of a set but they tend to hold the road better than the HD specified tyres (Dunlop!). 

Good Luck, talk to your tyre dealer, and check the dates on the tyres to make sure the dealers are not selling you an old set of tyres!
Regards, Peter S. 


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: STDWATCH at aol.com 
  To: r129list at mbcoupes.com 
  Cc: STDWATCH at aol.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 7:00 AM
  Subject: Re: [R129 SL] R129LIST Digest, Vol 39, Issue 3


  My 1995 SL600 had a full set of new Michelin Sport AS tires on it when I bought the car in 2004. When the tires had about 15,000 miles on them one of them exploded on the Interstate at about 70 MPH. Literally both the inside and outside sidewalls disintegrated, all that was left was the tread and the two beads still attached to the rim. Michelin claimed that there wasn't a tire problem, even though a Michelin tire specialist told me he could feel slight tread separation on the remaining three tires. Michelin did offer to replace the tire as "customer goodwill". Sure enough, a few months later, at about 30 MPH, a second tire blew out. There were over two dozen failures on both the inside and outside sidewalls. Michelin again told me there could be no inherent tire problem and refused to do anything about what was obviously a defective set of tires.
  Needless to say, the remaining two tires from the original set quickly wound up getting scrapped as I put four new Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS on the car. We do not get snow and ice here in coastal Georgia, but in both dry and wet conditions the Bridgestone's handle at least as well as the Michelins and inspire a lot more confidence that they will hold together.





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