Anyone know about Hero Tyres?

[shinboner Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close shinboner]

Just wanting to hear any experience with Hero tyres, mine are due for a change and a mechanic suggested these - super cheap at $187 each fitted, I know they are a tightarse buy, but any ideas whether they are ok or not? How many K's I'm likely to get out of them?
Any input is appreciated.

[Offroader Member Find all posts View Profile Close Offroader]

Hero tyres seem to be manufactured by the Taiwanese company, Federal. They may be a reasonable buy given that Federal are a well known brand.
In my experience though, cheap tyres in general tend to wear quickly and don't offer the same performance or durability of tried and trusted brands. They may be ok if money is tight and all you need is a light duty tyre but if you are going to use the vehicle off-road in remote country, you are better off spending the extra money and buying a tyre that has been thoroughly tested and developed in those conditions, not just simulated in a CAD program.

[shinboner Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close shinboner]

Thanks mate, my 1st round of 4WD tyres and the prices I've heard about sounded pretty daunting...but like you say, I want maximum kms out of whatever I buy, any recommendations?

[Offroader Member Find all posts View Profile Close Offroader]

If you have a browse in the tyre section there are plenty of threads regarding different tyres and user experiences. Bear in mind that you'll never find agreement on any forum regarding what is the best 4WD tyre, so off the cuff, Bridgestone D694, Cooper, Mickey T's, BFG and others are all time-tested, reliable tyres with many satisfied customers. Be prepared to spend in the mid to high $300's for each though depending on model. On the positive side, you will get heaps of reliable kays out of them if you look after them.

[Guest Close Guest]

If you get a good 4WD tyre, you will get around 100,000km out of it. So $300 a corner doesn't sound so bad compared to $170 a corner for a passenger car tyre which lasts 50,000km. The $/km equation works out to be roughly the same. But if you bought the wrong tyre, like a mate did with his VW Toureg (kept chewing through the factory installed tyre). He then got Coopers and is now much happier with the mileage he gets out of the tyres.

[Schaffer Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schaffer]

Consider that the Grandtreks are around $330 each and are a faily ordinary off road tyre then the price you pay for a BFG AT or Cooper ST is marginal when you take in the additional wear factor just as AMTS said. Mind you I wouldn't assume you would get 50k out of a cheap tyre even if it is just bitumen you drive on.

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

a passenger car tyre which lasts 50,000km.

Where do I get some of these 50,000km passenger car tyres you speak of? We think we're lucky if we get over 20,000km these days. Bring back the MichelinX!

Michael

[Guest Close Guest]

Well, on my Tarago, it uses Bridgestone B390 and lasted nearly 50,000km. I think the 50,000km example was a best case scenario. Certainly depends on tyre compound, wheels being driven and driving style.

[groeschel Member Find all posts View Profile Close groeschel]

I can confirm that you can get more than 100000k out of brand tires.
On my old 90 series i replaced the Cooper St after 6 years and 120000 km but...
the reason I replaced them was not the thread ( I had still more than 5 mm left) but the handling!
The rubber became over time so hard that as soon as there was a bit of water on the road the steering didn't have much impact on the direction any more (ok I exaggerate )
In turns the car pushed straight ahead and braking was horrible as well.
So the question IMO is not the mileage but the age. If you do a lot of kilometers per year it makes sense to use tires which give you a lot of mileage but if you do less the tires are getting to old and hard.
The German TUV and also many car manuals recommend to replace spare tires after 5 years even if they are stored out of the sun and UV rays because they loose flexibility.
I didn't believe it either but now I can confirm.
Due to the fact that my average mileage per year is below 20k my strategy is to go for cheaper (still reputable brands) and replace them frequently in order to have some "fresher" rubber on the rims.