Club 80-90 Forums

Right then, the following post is full of factual information that I gleaned from the moment I left my house to go to Mammutpark to eight o'clock tonight when I arrived home from a 430 km round trip.

Normally, I run my Syncro on 225/70/15 Conti M&S road tyres on ProjektZwo 15x7 alloys and over the last month I have covered 4356 kms - not a lot but that has almost doubled the distance I have driven in the 2 years since I bought the van! On those tyres, over the last month I have averaged 30.1 mpg with the tent on the roof for most of it. The van has responsive handling (for a T3) and there is little roar off the tyres. The ride is comfy and does not get blown about too much in cross winds and I was able to cruise almost ( except for the long hills on the Autobahns) all day at 110 kms/hr as some of you can testify to.

Yesterday evening, I decided, wouldnt it be nice to go for a run to a car show over the other side of the country the following day. So we did but I changed the tyres and wheels over to the 215/75/15 BFG MT's on the Mefro rims.

My my, how things changed with those tyres. The noise was the first thing, followed by the instability on motorways when passed by a truck. Speed was reduced and 100 kms/hr was almost unobtainable and acceleration was numbed. The ride and handling were destroyed and the fuel consumption rose to 25.6 MPG. Just by changing the wheels and tyres.

I dont use my Syncro as a daily driver but have used it a lot over the last month so it was timely to do the comparison. Also, last week in Dartfield, I went everywhere on my Conti tyres that Paul went and he was on 'Muds' as he puts it.

To conclude, Merc steels with Continental M&S tyres (light and cheap) will do pretty well everything for almost everyone. Mefro rims and BFG MT tyres - are they that much better to warrant the cost? Certainly on the road they are rubbish and Im yet to be convinced about them off road even though I spent €1000 on a set of 6!

Has anyone else had the same experience and opportunity to extensively test tyres back to back in the same conditions?

I'm amazed at such a difference. Are you sure driving styles were the same (not trying to get there abit quicker for a oneday show). And are they the same rolling radius or have you been using GPS?
I've got three different tyres (BFG MT, BFG AT & Cheaper AT, forgot name, that look like aggressive M/S) on my three syncro's but never run them against each other. I know what rides the best but also which looks the best!! Not always the samething!!!

Out of interest Syncropaddy, what pressures were you running the BFG's at?

KarlT wrote:I'm amazed at such a difference. Are you sure driving styles were the same (not trying to get there a bit quicker for a one day show). And are they the same rolling radius or have you been using GPS?
I've got three different tyres (BFG MT, BFG AT & Cheaper AT, forgot name, that look like aggressive M/S) on my three syncro's but never run them against each other. I know what rides the best but also which looks the best!! Not always the same thing!!!

I always suspected that the MTs would not be that great on the road, after all, that's not what they are designed for but the difference was as described. Driving style is the same, the rolling radius is 4mm larger on the MTs and I used the same GPS unit. The MT on a Mefro weighs in at 27.3 kg s and the Contis on alloys weigh in at 17.1 kg s. That difference in unsprung weight is huge and goes quite a way to explaining the differences and I would reckon that the MT tread pattern helped screw up the fuel consumption.
The weather conditions were similar and the weight of the vehicle was also similar - excluding the wheels. All in all, the test conditions were good enough to get an idea of the differences

Tyre pressures are 2.5 bar front and 3.0 bar rear for both sets and its been said on other posts that I dont know if this is right or not but it suits me and is close to the formula that Aidan came up with. I've seen other members run 3.0 bar on the front and 3.5 bar on the back when using MTs. Again I dont know if this is right or wrong.

The Contis are the tyres I used while doing the trials in Mammutpark and Doug took a few nice pics of them

I went everywhere on my Conti tyres that Paul went and he was on 'Muds' as he puts it.

well nearly everywhere, but was very impressed that they went through the forest trails as some of it was very muddy really thought that i would have had to pull you out of some parts but you managed fine regards mpg mine is pretty bad best seems to be about 20-25 on 15" mefros bfg ats 215 75s but do have a heavy factory hightop

jebiga41 wrote: well nearly everywhere,

Except the place you got stuck !!!!

Exactly