Best Tires for the Mercedes Benz E280 Sport

Good Budget Tires.Tested them at 260 km/h on motorway no problems even in rain.

this is the third set of these that I have bought. The last 2 were on a Subaru outback 2.5 and provided great grip, wet or dry, were reasonably quiet and comfortable and wore very well. last set had covered 15000 when I sold the car and shoed hardly any wear. this time bought to replace budget rubbish that were downright dangerous in the wet/damp and have instantly transformed the car. Cannot recommend highly enough.

I had these on the rear of merc 280cdi and they are horrendous. At the first sign of any dampness or wet, they completely fail to grip. after 20,000 miles no signs of any wear - obviously ridiculously hard compound. now replaced with Avon zz5 and handling is transformed. Be warned do not buy these tires unless you live somewhere were it never rains.

2 out of 4 tires was "more oval than round". Visible to the naked eye for anyone, including a couple of mechanics at two different workshops. Nokian on the other hand claimed they were perfect and wouldn't replace them under warranty. Seller replaced them without Nokian's backing.

The tires are rock hard, noisy, creates a bumpy and uncomfortable ride. Even in a Mercedes E-class with new suspension and wheels the tires causes lots of vibration both in low and higher speeds, and makes the car jump around with small constant jumps unless the tarmac is completely perfect.
A Nokian representative uses some fancy measuring devices and concluded the tires was perfect so this type of behavior from the tires was how things was supposed to be.

I've had more noisy tires before, like the Toyo T1 model. But nothing as uncomfortable and horrible to drive as these Nokian Hakka Black.

Very good tire all round, have got 23000 mls so far and will change after another 2000mls.

Size: 265/35/R18 97Y (Rear) / 245/40/R18 93Y (Front)

I found the tires wore evenly front to rear, even though the car is rear wheel drive.

From new I liked the tires very much. Due to circumstances, we let the tires wear right down when a rear tire blew out, fortunately at only 30 mph. Lucky we weren't on the Autobahn. We are talking a 2 inch rip here (5cm for those metrics amongst us). The scary part was that the rip formed a small part of a split extending around the entire circumference of the tire near (but not at) the point where the tread meets the side wall. This was invisible from the outside as it was on the inner wall of the tire. I have pictures.

I decided to check the others immediately.

Every single remaining tire on the car had the same problem.

I have made a formal complaint to Mercedes Benz. The tire guy at my local Mercedes Benz garage mistook my concerns for a request for compensation. While this would be nice, I urge you to go outside right now with a powerful torch and check out the inner walls of your tires immediately, particularly if they are high mileage. Look for open cracks where the tire flexes, as described above.

The tire man said he had seen this before many times but never all four tires on one car. He also commented that the Sport Contact 3's were OK. Great.

The tires are being returned to Continental and I am expecting a weasel (FX: Ooops! strike that out, I meant analysis) letter in the next couple of weeks. Yes, the tires were very worn. Yes, there was some usage damage. However this does not excuse the catastrophic failure of the carcasses on a car that is barely 16 months old.

Did I like the tires when they were working? Yes. Would I ever by Continental again? It would be better to ask if I love my family.


Paul.