Time for two new tires- it's what I can afford and the two rear ones are still in pretty good shape. I'm looking at the 175-65 R15 size for my '02 R50. That's the OEM size that came on the car, and I think they look good. IMHO, bigger tires look to donuty. Plus, I don't want different sizes on the car. Wheels are the holeys, so they stay.

I have found two brands of all season tires and one winter tire at my tire place, Discount Tire. One is the Continental ContiProContact, which I have purchased two of before and was very pleased with. They are much quieter and more grippy than the OEM tires, which were ContiTouringContact, AKA "those crappy OEM tires". The Continentals are $106 each.

The other all-season tires were the Bridgestone Ecopia, which seem to be a new tire. No reviews on the Discount Tire site, but a smattering of reviews across the web seem to indicate that they are kind of "soft"; one post on a tire discussion thread said that they are "not right for a Cooper". They are an enticing $11 less than the Continentals at $95 each.

Any ideas here? Should I stick with the known quantity for a few quid more or go with the cheaper tire that promises lower rolling resistance and increased gas mileage?

 

We had ContiTourings and then ContiPros on our 2000 Passat which we traded for a new Toyota Prius with Ecopias. If you thought the ContiPro was signicantly better than the ContiTouring, I would suggest avoiding the Ecopias which are passable in daily driving but limit a car's handling.

I would also suggest looking at the Yokohama Avid Envigor as a cost effective improvement over the aging ContiPro.

 

Ps. TireRack.com has lots of tire test results.

 

Here is our test involving the 2 tires you mentioned.

 

Link isn't working for me

 

Nope, link doesn't work...

 

So sorry, it's fixed now.

 

The Conti's seem to be universally loved around here, I'd stick with that.