Michelin XAS in the US...

[Chasm61]

I've located a supplier in the US who has the reissued Michelin XAS in stock for both 165R13 and 165R14 sizes. They are more than twice the cost of comparably sized Vredensteins though, and you also need to buy the tube for them. You can find the Michelins at http://store.coker.com/. Just do a search on XAS at their site. FYI: the Vredensteins are available at http://universaltire.com/.

Chas

[Sam Danenberger IV]

Hi Chas-

I had the Vredesteins on a Fulvia Coupe I had several year ago, and liked them very much.
I must have bought the last four 145/14 Michelins Coker had.
While these were on the car it was at is best!!
They negelcted to tell me they were going out of production!!!
Anyway, one was faulty, and I am left with 3 - Moral: ALWAYS BUY5 !
I am not sure the 165/14 Michelins are worth DOUBLE the cost of the Vredeseins, but if you can afford it
please try them and tell the rest of us poor souls if we should save up for them!
Currently I have Toyo on the Campagnolos 13x 5.5 and though it looks good,
it is not as good(road feel) as the skinny original equip tires are/were.
Ciao!
Sam

[Ed Levin]

145-13 Michelin XAS came as standard equipment on my '74 Fiat X1/9, and they were absolutely incredible tires. And, if you don't want to go by my personal experience, consider the fact that Fulvia Fanalones came standard with Michelin XAS.

Michelin has reissued 13" XAS in 155, 165, and 185--but not the 175-13 that my Fanalone needs. I wrote to the factory and received the reply that they had no plans to issue 175s (the letter began "Je suis desole," and the only sentence in English was "No hope at all").

I currently run Toyo Spectrums; pretty mediocre tires, but the only blackwall 175-13s available in the US, and 1/5 the price of 165-13 or 185-13 XAS. But if 175-13 XAS were available, I'd buy them in a heartbeat--even at 5 times what I paid for the Toyos. It's not that I love spending money, but at the annual mileage I do, I'll be living with any set of tires for several years. In other words, the difference in cost seems like a lot up front, but it's really very little over the life of the tires. As far as I'm concerned, it'd be worth scraping together the extra money to enjoy every mile that much more. Unfortunately, for my Fanalone with its 175-13s, "no hope at all."

[Stephan Protzen]

I run 175/70 13 Michelin (blackwall) on my Fulvia. They were about US$80.00 each but Discount Tire had a buy 3 get one free. Not an extreme performance tire, but very predictable and I like the look and feel. I believe the model is called "energy" but I'm not at home right now to check. I also have experience with the XAS but I liked the Pirelli cn36 even better. In the late eighties I worked with a suspension guru in the Bay Area, his opinion was that most older cars were "over tired by enthusiasts" as the suspension were never designed for such large rubber. He also felt the older cars needed the round shoulders that the older tires had. My personal experience with another car, with 155 Michelins , is a very nice steering feel and plenty of grip even for spirited driving. I've never driven another Fulvia but I believe the steering feel would be much nicer with a narrower tire.

[Ed Levin]

Stephan

I think your 'suspension guru' was completely right about running tires with similar characteristics to the original tires the suspension was engineered for. I wouldn't argue against Pirelli CN36s which, like Michelin XAS, have round shoulders. CN36s were great tires; they were 70-series if I recall correctly. Also IIRC they were standard equipment on the Stratos. I only wish that Pirelli would reissue that historic design, as Michelin has with the XAS.

[jogo48]

I'm beginning to believe this stuff. I'll admit that I was really skeptical about this when I first read similar words by Huib. I was of the school that wider & fatter must be better..........after all it was the way to go with every Porsche 911/930 that I know of, since they have been built. The 1st very-old-911, a Jan 1966, that I owned, if only for a few months, was absolutely 99.99% perfect / excellent (only driver side head rest) in every sense, but I was scared driving it, even at low (autobahn) speeds, because the 165x14 tires / front-lift aerodynamics were terrifying (the road tests I had read were lying)...so I switched to 185x15 & it was a 3/4 different car. Less terrifying, but still scary at over 130kph.
Porsche knew it & made major mods by 1967, but kept the very heavy lead weights in the front valance in an attempt to keep the front end down. Down force wasn't a very exact science in the late 60's. One of the mods was wider front & rear wheels & tires, the rears being wider.

It wasn't in this 911, but I remember 1 undesired 180 degree turn, on a slightly sandy (wind blowing) surface at less than 20 kph, approaching a stop sign in a 911 on skinny tires. No one was looking & (by pure luck, not skill) the front end knew I wanted to turn right. I stopped a bit sideways, correctly slightly to the left & motored on.

Based on these experiances & my own backround + what everybody (in the 911 world) was telling everybody, wider was always better. Therefore all the Fulvia & Tires comments I'd read seemed to be blasphemy. I am beginning to understand, although I have somewhat wider/lower/more modern tires on my Fulvia than a purist would approve of. I like it as it is, but it is still the only Fulvai I've ever driven.
I look forward (someday/somewhere) to driving a Fulvia with the standard rubber, for a comparison.Ed Levin wrote:
>
> Stephan
>
> I think your 'suspension guru' was completely right about
> running tires with similar characteristics to the original
> tires the suspension was engineered for. I wouldn't argue
> against Pirelli CN36s which, like Michelin XAS, have round
> shoulders. CN36s were great tires; they were 70-series if I
> recall correctly. Also IIRC they were standard equipment on
> the Stratos. I only wish that Pirelli would reissue that
> historic design, as Michelin has with the XAS.

[Huib]

Well, John, I understand you will be in my area one of these days. You are welcome to test drive Tina, my 1967 coupe with original steel wheels and 145R14 tires and feel the difference between driving a car and driving tires.

[jogo48]

ha ha ! what if I like my "ride" better ? would I cheat ? am I partial ? I look forward to even riding up & down a driveway in someone else's Fulvia.

[Ed Levin]

Jogo,

Keep in mind that early 911s are very different in their handling characteristics than Fulvias (as though that wasn't obvious). My advice for an early 911 would be very different: forget originallity--fit the widest tires possible (and even wider rears than fronts).

[John Simister]

Another point about modern low-profile tyres on Fulvias. I have seen several cars whose tyres have a considerably smaller circumference than standard, thanks to the lower profile, which makes an already short-geared car even more frantic on the motorways/autostrade/freeways etc, plus the speedometer over-reads. And to reach the correct circumference with a profile lower than 80 means using such a wide tread that the steering feel is ruined. Some tyre manufacturers' websites have dimensional data showing circumferences, rolling radii or rotations per mile/km.

For a roadgoing S2 HF the standard 175/80 R14 gives as much grip as you could reasonably want. In Autocar's original road test, the HF was credited with developing the highest lateral g the magazine had ever measured in a road car, so even by modern standards, and using modern rubber, it should be entirely adequate. I am currently using Continental EcoContact CPs, which have an appropriate-looking tread pattern, a rounded shoulder and seem to work very well. High-profile tyres also give a better ride.