Austone tyres

[Forumadmin]

Anyone any experience with Austone tyres?
Trever Spero has them fitted to his Javelin and says they are great.

[ian Howell]

My son James, who works for a specialist tyre supply company, says these are generally considered to be a budget tyre - but that is for modern, i.e. high speed, cars.

He says for Javelin, and road use Jupite,r they should be fine.

[Forumadmin]

What would James suggest for the Jav or Jup both for road and competitive use?

[jowettgeoff]

Hi Keith,

I've just fitted a set of Austone Taxi (175x16) on the Jup. Sadly, the Kingpins we were given in 1988 (remember?) had reached the end of their life! The Austones seem pretty good, if not quite as grippy as the Kingpins. Pretty heavy (of course), and I seem to have a slight imbalance issue at the front. But by and large - not too bad at £250 a set. I think they're manufactured in China (as are many premium brands these days) and I understand Austone is owned by Cooper Tyres, who also own Avon.I noticed at the ex-employees' meeting that Craig Ainge has some nice looking Mechelin X fitted. These are marked as 550x16. Can't quite understand why a radial tyre has a crossply size though. Anyway, these are sold by Longstone Tyres, for around £150 each (ouch). For performance, I suppose you might consider 600x16 Avon Turbospeeds or Dunlop RS5s. (again from Longstone and, again, expensive).


G McA

[ian Howell]

Apologies for the delayed reply - back in Wales again!

James reckons that with the limited range of manufacturers of suitable size tyres, the best bet would be Dunlop or Avon for anything serious - radials for preference of course.

This reply somewhat pre-empted by Geoff's reply, but seems to tally.

This was the main reason I had to give up my Javelin back in '86 when a new set of five tyres would have set me back over £300 which I didn't have!

Now I have a similar problem with the Long Four - £90 a throw and again I will have to have 5! HOWEVER, 2 of the tyres on the car have never been used - moulding 'pips' still on the tread faces and no cracking of the side walls. Still, at least 46 years old?!?!

[jowettgeoff]

I think Richard Gane is using some fancy Avons on his racing Jup (possibly 15"), so he might have an opinion. Way back when, I raced the Jup on Avon Wide Safety Ovals (intended for oval racing). They were glorious. Lots of feel and made the most of the Jup's chassis dynamics. The best tyres I've ever had for enjoyment. Ian's comments about (lack of) cracked sidewalls brings to mind the cracked appearance sometimes encountered on the Kingpins. I spoke to the manufacturer about this, and was assured that the cracking was only on the thin sheeet of rubber vulcanised onto the side of the tyre, which has the sole purpose of carrying the tyre size and associated data. Nothing wrong with the tyre. But try telling that to the MOT tester! (Sorry I've gone a bit off topic now).

[Tony Fearn]

HOWEVER, 2 of the tyres on the car have never been used - moulding 'pips' still on the tread faces and no cracking of the side walls. Still, at least 46 years old?!?!

Hello again Ian.

Did you manage the Scenic run?

Back to tyres, and I'm not surprised you've ended the sentence with ?!?! There was the MG on old tyres that 'kissed' the central motorway armco at speed when one went pop. Then there was a well known Yorkshireman with a Flying Fox (no, not me, he's from the wrong side of the Pennines) who went to the Crieff Rally and popped an old tyre on the scenic run. Of course he used the spare which was even older, and this got him over the weekend, but that too went pop early on the way home. Fortunately he was with other pre-wars but if he'd been on his own he might have struggled.

You're just going to have to bite the bullet. A new set should last 10 years or so,

Best wishes,

Tony.

[Chris Spencer]

I spent the early part of my career within the automotive / garage trade - one of the companies that I worked for had a vehicle recovery business that operated alongside the classic car restoration workshop where I was employed. Additional money was earnt by being on call to the recovery business on evenings & weekends. Over a couple of years I attended many incidents - some were just plain stupid driver error -some left us questioning the laws of gravity when you came across where the vehicle had ended up as as result of the accident (I even had to pull a cortina out of the tree that it had manged to climb up by 3 metres). Unfortunatly I also had to attend several fatal / multi fatal incidents - due to the nature of the work you built up working relationships with the emergancy services especially the chaps in the police accident research division - who would come to the recovery yard / workshops and strip apart the vehicles involved to investigate the mitigating causes.

Outside of driver error the largest single contributing factor of the accidents were tyres - and I learnt an awful lot from the investigators - I also raced very fast (8 litre - V8) short ovel race cars for fifteen years where tyres played a huge part in getting to the end of the race in one peice yet alone winning. Hence today I apply such experience gained over a sustained period to tyre choice and how I look after them - One rule that all tyre companies apply is that the lifespan of a tyre is 10 years from date of production - not on how long it has been on the vehicle - there are various websites that have all the information on dating tryes / tyre wall information.

There is no way that I would run any of my vehicles with tyres that are over this dateline - I value my time on this planet far above the cost of a bit of rubber compound - let alone the time effort and money that has gone into the vehicle that they are attached to.

[jowettgeoff]

Thanks for those words of wisdom Chris. I've got about 40 'spare' tyres which are well over 10 years old. I now have a good excuse to dispose of them! Plant them with flowers? Wife says 'no'.

G McA

[Chris Spencer]

I've got about 40 'spare' tyres which are well over 10 years old. I now have a good excuse to dispose of them! Plant them with flowers? Wife says 'no'.

Well Geoff if you wait a couple of months you could have have a huge bonfire on November 5th - just remember to make sure that local environmental officer is on holiday that week though - them again I do know of a very good barrister.

[Jack]

Thanks for those words of wisdom Chris. I've got about 40 'spare' tyres which are well over 10 years old. I now have a good excuse to dispose of them! Plant them with flowers? Wife says 'no'.

G McA

I believe the correct use for them is to throw one over an unplanned emergency stop device (speed camera), fill up the bottom with diesel, and with 40 tyres you could probably just about cover the ones within 5 miles of home.

More sensibly you could stack them and plant potatoes - when the harvest comes you just take the top one off the stack and pull them out of the ground, as and when required you just take the next ones until you aren't hitting spuds any more.

Jack.

[jowettgeoff]

Thankyou gentlemen for your underwhelmingly sage advice.
Perhaps this subject could become a new topic of utmost importance to the continuance of Jowetts in general; and flowers, tyres, speed cameras and potatoes in particular. Wonder if Forumadmin agrees?

[Chris Spencer]

Ho - Forumadmin will have an opnion indeed 'Keep everything - never throw it away it will come in handy one day' and whatever you do never listen to anything that Chris Spencer tells you

[Tony Fearn]

'Keep everything - never throw it away it will come in handy one day'

I'm surprised that you don't subscribe to this way of thinking Chris.

Take it from me, those things you bought for the garage years ago at a car boot sale, 'just in case' will be difficult to source today if you need them, and you probably will, and you'll have to pay postage on them if you can find them on the internet!

Tony.

[Keith Clements]

No comment
except to say the KingPins are coping with some very rough roads.....