Just over a month ago, I had my first annual service on my Vitara, and everything went smoothly, except the dealership informed me they had put the spare tire on my car, eep! There was something lodged in the sidewall of my front right. Not what I needed; the first annual on a new vehicle isn’t cheap (unless it’s an EV and more on that another time).
I go shopping online for 1 x 215/55R17. I find a deal on a new tyre, I set up the installation, it came with delivery, it gets installed – excellent! Sorted.
Fast forward a month, a Fleetyr client wants to dive into their tyre data. So I start to gather all kinds of metadata about tyres—sizes and looking for price scraping information. But I had this newish tyre and want to know is a more expensive tyre better? I stumbled into what the European Union has been doing for a decade now.
Efficiency rating
The efficiency symbol is providing an indication of the rolling resistance of the wheel. The rolling resistance is calculated during testing as to the resistance the tyre has to roll. The lower resistance, the less energy/fuel the vehicle needs to use. Each grade is supposed to add up to 0.1 litres per 100 km driven.
Some quick math: A vehicle with grade B tyres will spend an additional 40 litres of fuel over a 40,000 km lifespan. C grade tyres would be 80 litres etc.
Wet Grip rating
The Wet Grip rating on a tyre is the ability of the tyre to stick to roads in wet conditions. This is important during an emergency situation where a few metres can make a difference. A vehicle with A grade tyres travelling at 80 km/h needs 42 metres to stop. Every grade lower adds 3-6 metres to that!
It’s interesting to note that between classes, fuel consumption increases by approximately 0.1 litre for every 100 km driven. Simply put, fuel-efficient tyres require less energy to roll.
Noise Emission rating
The Noise Emission rating is how loud the rolling noise of the tyre is. This is to help curb the amount of noise pollution in cities and neighbourhoods.
The rolling noise of the tyre is measured in decibels and the exact number is shown in the bottom part of the label.
The Europeans have moved onto the second system of tags which indicate whether the tyre is fit for snow or nordic conditions. The QR code in the top right will also provide you with a link to your tyre in the EU product database.
Seems like a good system and we at Fleetyr are matching up tyres purchased here with the model sold in Europe to match up the ratings.
When I purchased my replacement tyre last month, a Goodride SA-07), the reviews were pretty good showing 4 stars with over 160 reviews. Pretty good right? 164 customers can’t be wrong.
Turns out my tyre isn’t of high enough quality to be sold in Europe AT ALL!
Might be interesting to find out if the ANZ market is flooded with poor performing tyres….That might be another analysis for another day when I am in less of a grumpy mood.
Want to know how your fleets tyre rate? Talk to us at Fleetyr about getting some value out of your tyre data.
