unless you are talking about goodyear GSD F1, if not i wont recommend you to use any goodyear tyres, especially NCT series

if you dont want michelin and yokohama, you can consider about falken Ze912, not that expensive compare to michelin....

bad experience with NCT5, performance level is at the lowest, noise intrusion very strong, no grip for cornering....

if they involved in accident they will have to pay for the repair cost, you think they can take the risk? their income not that high although some are quite high.

and also in rain they drive slow, and they didnt involved in accident doesn't mean they are safe and the tyres are good, hydroplaning not only happen above 60 or 80km/h last time i drive in PLUS highway on the way to ipoh from KL, was heavy rain that time, even driving 60 still hydroplane, if i slow until 50km/h the lorry behind me can overtake me already.

you drive safe, doesn't mean other people driving safe, learn to drive aggressively, and passively

try to put your car with semi slick tyres then change to normal tyres, you will notice the difference, well, that is an obvious comparison from a different tier of tyres...

tyres with less thread will have less grip, so when you brake the wheels stop turning (wheel lock) and the car skid on it's on momentum.

if the tyres have good grip, it will "stick" to the road so the wheels wont lock up, it will still experience wheel lock, but you need faster speed for it to wheel lock

what i say might be confusing,, i'm not good in explanation

your car got ABS or not, it doesn't matter, the stopping distance will varies from tyres to tyres, and also your brake

if that's the case, why do car manufacturer produce tyres with thread? dont compare tyres from track cars and normal cars, semi slick and racing tyres are far different from normal car tyres

as you can see i take a picture from google to see the design of semi slick (left) and normal tyres, Falken Ze912 (right) the thread on semi slick is to disperse the water during rainy day or in wet condition, semi slick tyres need warm up while normal tyres dont need, it need warm up because the rubber compound will partly melt and cause the tyres to be sticky and "stick" to the ground, not to mention semi slick are built for performance, not for comfort and silent, unlike the normal tyres that we use, comfort and silent while sacrificing the performance. if you see the video below you will know how the semi slick tyres work and why it is so good and so expensive, the thread in our car tyres are for both water disperse and comfort, i heard if more tiny thread make the ride comfort, well, i'm not sure about this.


for example when you play football, you and your friend, you wear normal shoes or worn out shoes that doesn't have any thread design under the shoes, while your friend wearing a football shoes, so who will have better grip and stopping power, our car tyres is just same as our shoes...

that video is comparing a 2nd hand tyres/worn out tyres with a new one, so you can see the result on the tyres affect the braking distance, same goes to other tyres, and i have personally tested, last time when i was running on a NCT5 that is almost touch the safety marks, the braking is so bad, at first i thought is the brake problem, maybe need to refill the fluid or what, but found out it is ok, then after that i changed to the new Falken Ze912, the braking is much better...

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Added on May 8, 2009, 12:11 amyou can just compare like that, grip isn't just about the more surface of contact the better it is

i dont know which logic is best to explain, i feel hard to explain in here, all this come from my experience, after the chinese new year trip back to my hometown, i finally realize how much a tyres can contribute to a human life...

if you try to think out of the box, you can visualize, semi slick tyres gain grip with the heated/melting rubber, the rubber will become hot and soft so it can stick to the ground, thus improve handling and acceleration.

on the other hand, our car tyres are made of harder compound and it will not melt (unless you go over the tyre rating), so when the thread run out, the tyres will have no grip and will be prone to wheel lock (for car without ABS) because it doesn't stick to the ground like what semi-slick tyres did, the thread on the tyres not just for comfort and water disperse, it also help the tyres to "stick" on the road, the thread on the tyre if actually slip between the small rocks in the road surface (our road surface is not as smooth as silk, it is rough), and when you check your tyres, you will actually see there are some rat bite at the thread there, this is due to the constant friction on the ground.

that's just my opinion, correct me if i'm wrong.

This post has been edited by amduser: May 8 2009, 12:11 AM

if you want to talk about tyres, then dont take the driver behaviour in the calculation, assume everything is exactly the same, situation and all that, but with different tyres, sure there's a difference...

i always thought by compressing the front suspension will improve the grip, but not to the extend of wheel locking...

for me, the maximum point i apply my brake is about 80%, if suddenly there's a car in front of me suddenly pop out or stop, i will choose to avoid it by changing lane instead of stop there, i believe with the help of engine brake, it will improve the limit to wheel lock, but i dont know engine brake and wheel lock are related or not, yet to try it out.

weight shifting is really important on how the car deliver it's power to the wheels

driver who have a reaction time 10x better than normal human

just joking, it is true that not all of us are able to do that much job in a short time, the maximum i can do is step on the brake and hold it and rely on my judgement whether the car can stop in time or will bang, then i will slowly change to lower gear to do engine brake, and it help alot...

i do try to press and depress the brake pedal, it does improving braking distance, but you will have a shaky ride when doing so, and the passenger will start complaining

now i'm practicing to brake in a more comfort style to try to comfort my passenger, use a longer distance to slow down the car when not needed, when the car almost stop, at the point where the suspension started to bounce back to original position, the car will choke awhile, at that time, release the brake pedal abit and apply abit more, it will eventually do a smooth braking