175/55 R15 Tires

Like others on here I have a smart fortwo 450 which means you are somewhat limited in choice when it comes to replacement.

Once you are outside the realms of budget tires in the UK I'm essentially down to a choice of Sincera 110 ecoruns or a mixture of Continental ecocontact.

The Continentals carry a hefty premium over the Falkens - even with a 15% discount from my supplier I'm still paying £65 more for 4 tires than I would should I choose the none discounted Falkens. ( £345 v £410).

Not only that but I'd be having a mixture of ecocontact 3 and 6 which seemed odd that I would be paying a hefty premium for a tire that was essentially 3 generations old - research on this site showed me the ecocontact 3 was initially released in 2003!

But, more expensive equals better, right?

It would seem not.

The reviews on this website for the Continentals appear to be less than glowing, certainly compared to the ecoruns which I already have on the car.

I've been running the sinceras for a couple of years (since I bought the car)and about 15k miles. As it's a Smart car there is virtually no tread wear as the car is so light but the tires are starting to perish as they date back to 2015. Overall, looking at the MOT history and the tire dates I would guess they've done no more than 20k miles.

Ordinarily I would have replaced them earlier but as the car rarely goes above 20 mph in London I haven't really had to worry about high speed blowouts. However, I had to do a longer trip on the motorway last week where I made a promise to the tire gods that if I didn't die in a fireball I would replace them this week.

In the time I have had the car with the Sinceras I can say I've been impressed.

I run an slk 55 as a weekend / summer car and have Michelins on that.

I would imagine that people want different things from different tires and different cars. I don't expect the Sinceras to offer up the same level of grip as the Michelins but on the Smart my priorities are different - my prioritied are excellent wet weather grip - I don't want to be acquaplaning in a car with such a short wheelbase and noise and comfort rate high too.

In this respect the Sinceras score highly - I will caveat that with the fact that I am in the unusual situation whereby the tires have plenty of tread left but are no doubt a lot more brittle after being on for 10 years and exposed to UV light all that time with the concomitant degradation.

I would certainly expect brand new Sinceras to be even better.

In short, they are an excellent tire for your regular family type car where wet weather performance, noise and ride comfort are more important than outright on the limits grip - and they are certainly better than some tires that are more expensive

I bought these tires after reading a review on this website. As that gentleman said, a Smart ForTwo has odd tire sizes and therefore a limited choice of quality tires. The main choices available were Bridgestone Turanza T005, Continental ContiEcoContact 3 or these Falkens. Having had the Conti's on another car, they were rejected for their awful wet grip. The Bridgestone's were very expensive and I had these on a hire car and I was not that impressed as they seemed quite loud.
After fitting the Falkens, I was immediately impressed with their low noise, comfort and dry grip levels. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to their wet performance, however, they were way better than expected and I've grown to be confident in their abilities and they have tamed the Smart's tendency to understeer. It's too early to rate their wear, but as the Smart is so light, it tends not to be an such an issue. Massive improvement over the dreadful budget tires it came with. Overall, I'm really impressed, especially as all four tires were £280 fitted.

They were recently fitted to a 2017 mitsubishi space star 1.2 to replace the unacceptable Kumho Solus 4S HA32 noise problem that sounded like crawlers. And they didn't deny me. With a noise level of 66db it is one of the quietest tires regardless of size that you can fit. As the car is mainly used in the city I will come back soon with my personal assessment of the dry and wet handling in more representative conditions.

Purchased 4 of these SN110's to replace the tires on my Smart Fortwo. The existing fronts were 8 year old Bridgestone B100's (155/60/15), still with half tread left (after 37k!!!), but extremely noisy, uncomfortable and downright lethal in the wet etc. The existing rears were 5 year old Khumo ES01 (175/55/15), loads of tread but noisy and just unremarkable in every way. Anyone with a Smart Fortwo will tell you that tire choices are limited due to rather odd tire sizes, off the shelf options were realistically Bridgestone, Continental (rubbish) and the Falkens.... Local tire fitter suggested the Falkens as they are getting complaints about noise from the T005 Bridgestone's. To start with the Falkens are notably cheaper than Bridgestone/Continental offerings, but don't let that put you off because these tires are good, really good. They are super quiet (even on a Smart car), super comfy (even on a Smart car), super in the wet (even in a Smat car), and work well in the dry to (even in a Smart car)!!!! They as others have mentioned they are soft, so I don't expect them to last long, but to be honest I really don't care......especially at the price paid..... I am far happier having a cheap, reliable, grippy, comfy, quiet tire that I have to replace say every 5 years, than a noisy, crashy, uninspiring tire that lasts for 10 years (but costs half the price). Before someone else says it, my other car is a BMW that I happily shod with Michelin Primacy 4 run flats (that I also love), so I am not some idiot that 'likes cheap' without a thought about safety etc, i'm just not an idiot that 'likes expensive' because they are expensive.... Well done Falken.....the SN110 is a cracking tire for an everyday car.

My girlfriend needed new tires on her Smart Cabrio rear wheel drive.
As we live in Switzerland (ski region) i was looking for a set of good 4 season tires.
As the Kuhmo Winter Tires on the Smart were completly done. (2mm left)
A cousin of my drove from Holland to Norway in wintertime with his Saab 9-5 on The Vredestein Quatrac 5.
He is (was) a really wintertire fan in winterconditionsˋ as he was going every single year to Norway he was my perfect real experience person. He was so positive about these tires in Norway that i decided to by 4 of them for the realwheeldrive Smart Cabrio.

Of my personal experience i can say the following:

Dry: handling is okey; brake and corners are standard
Wet: very good felt really safe with heavy heavy rain
Snow: as long as you use your brain this tire is as food as a full winter tire, good traction and breaking is even better.
Comfort: i was so surprised how quite this tire really is, it felt almost as i was driving a different (newer) car.

Buy again ? absolutely!! The dutchies (Vredestein) are doing really well the last few years;
But only buy this tire if you have a normal car with not to much power. If you have a lot of power and drive over snow covered roads I would go for the Vredestein Wintrac Pro,

I have the latest version of these tires the YH18 but there is no category for these at the moment. Didn't know how to rate these tires on a 1-10 basis so left all categories as NA. I've had them fitted to the rear of my car for just over a year now and have had no problems with them. Don't know what else to say really they are just tires and keep the car rolling on the ground.

The Pirelli's came as original equipment under the winter tires option from Mini when we go our first Mini in 2014. We've used them on two Mini's now over three winters including three trips to the French Alps, an 1,800 mile round trip. We live in the Pennines in West Yorkshire up small country lanes that are never gritted or cleared. We've had a bit of snow over the last three winters and a bit of snow driving in the Alps. The tires have felt stable and secure at all times whether on dry, wet or snowy roads. On the way down to France this year, we were driving through heavy rain at the maximum allowed of 110 km/h and climbing snow covered motorways following the snow ploughs and the tires handled everything with ease. On the way back we hit snow in West Yorkshire around Holmfirth and while other cars were stuck, turning back or, in two cases, in the stone walls, we just carried on up hill, down dale and around the bends. The most reassuring thing about these tires in the snow is that when you hit the brakes, the car stops. The only other tires that I can compare them with are Goodyear Vector4Seasons which I had for a year on the car before the first Mini. They were a good performer on snow for a four season tire but I think the Pirelli's edge them on the snow. We've done almost 33,000 miles on them so they are wearing well. They are a bit more noisy than summer tires especially on slightly rough surfaces or concrete roads. This isn't much of a problem in France, however, as the motorways generally have very good surfaces.