Re: Tyres

[Dave Eaton <dave.eaton@minedu.govt.nz>]

sounds like the audi a8 tested in the usa was a little different than the one
tested by the euro mags imho...

so c&d rated the a8 3rd?  perhaps you could explain how car magazine rated the
a8 ahead of the (revised) 7-series (hardly a 7 y.o. chassis, given the recent
revision)?  you pays your money, and takes your test results.  perhaps the c&d
test was better, fairer, more akin to your way of thinking.  fine.  but i don't
wear this "state of the union" stuff, based on one test.  you *do* have a point
in that the a8 tested could well be different from the euro version.  that has
a "sport" option pack, as well as the s8 car.  what is available in the usa? 
is the sport pack?  what spring/wheel/tyre options are there?

imho, the a8 is a fine machine.  albeit 4 years old now, and 2 years from a new
model.  it still looks good (the 7-series is too long and looks very dated
compared to the new 3/5 series), with a fine engine, and still has leading edge
technology as a differentiator.  would i buy one?  nope.  but others are with
sales increasing strongly last year.  the one comment which comes through in
all tests is that the ride quality is poot.  btw, wrt the lexus, i've just read
an aussi test which panned the lexus at speeds above 200 km/hr ("the ls400 is a
real handful at high speed...a disconcerting swaying motion above 220
km/hr..unpleasant enough to provoke sweaty palms and a dry mouth")

btw, this old list cremudgeon rode in an s8 with herr rohrl as pilot for
several hot laps of a circuit.  18" wheels with sp8000's (certainly tyres that
i rate).  car was surperb.  no unnecessary lurches, consistant times, very good
braking.  certainly not bad for a big luxo-sports barge (auto).  when i got out
of the car, 20 other people got their hot laps in.  at the end of it, i made a
point of checking out the car.  it was hot of course, but the brakes weren't
smoking, there were no fumes coming off it.  just as you'd expect from a
well-engineered performance machine.  at the end of the day, audi sold 2 s8's
to people who had been there...

there was no "limit", (construed as a tenuous link between the tarmac and the
scenery).  and herr rohrl was trying (helped by a little bet about my ur-q
being faster).  no torsen spider bite either though.  maybe we don't get those
sorts of spiders here in new zealand?

to you scott, 50:50 weight distribution is the ultimate.  well if it is, you're
driving the wrong type of car.  bmw is it.  not porsche, not audi, not anything
else.  maybe some ferrari as well.  so what's your point (other than you're
driving the wrong car?).  leave awd for the snow.  bye bye quattro, wrx, evo
iv.  they don't have 50:50 weight distribution.  they can't compete.  to me,
50:50 weight distribution is worth sweet fa.  give me a car that can respond to
my vagaries as a driver, to throttle lift mid corner, to wet roads, to late
corner entry, then you're talking my language.  the rest is car test fodder,
spec sheet bs...

btw, different cars, with different drive trains, require different things out
of their tyres.  reference the btcc and the different paths dunlop (a4 quattro)
and michelin (fwd) took in constructions and compounds.  very different.  so
tyres is not apples-to-apples, as you state, rather which tyres suit the car
for the manner it is intended to be used in.  it is an easy thing to do for the
manufacturer to ship a car with uprated tyres and wheels for a test which
majors on ciruit performance (i've just read a test of the new e46 328 where
the car was fitted with 18" optional wheels with sp9000's at 255/35, where
joe-blow is going to drive a machine with 16" 225/45's).  neeedless to say,
they loved it's handling.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q

>Hardly.  Coulda woulda shoulda, has no reference.  C&D easily handed the
>opinion that it was tires.  This old list cremudgeon just happened to drive a
>said A8 with 17in wheels shod with SP8000 on a track, and found the at limit
>handling to be still in the 'discombobulated' category (I blamed weight
>balance and the center diff, the latter for obvious reasons).  Given the
>apples to which the tires were compared, we can blame the tires, blame the
>chassis, blame audi for having the stupidity, or give credit due with a moment
>in time.  I argue blaming the tires is the easy route.  I also argue that as
>much as one on a q-list would like to blame the tires, no one wants to look at
>the other, just as plausable, causes for the subpar performance.  Bottom line,
>I can look at all the tires in this test, and easily say apples and apples, no
>oranges inserted.  No stellar tires.  I've driven my 44q with MXV4 tires and
>found nothing good to say about them, period.  I also can look at 2 tons worth
>of machines on 16in wheels and find statements of anyting resembling "comes
>alive, and vernier guage" handling, to mean a whole bunch of good things must
>be in that car to make those comments.  You get the body right, tires don't
>make or break the test.  If indeed the test results were that simple, I argue
>that audi has more stupidity than any other single issue here.  Especially
>when MXV4's are one of the cheaper tires to boot.  

[snip]