Volkswagen Beetle 1200 Tires

Fitted to an original 1956 beetle that is lightly used and garaged. After 12 years the inside of the sidewall is cracking on all tires yet the outside and tread blocks are still like new. Vredestein were contacted. They asked for photos then said that due to age blah blah blah couldn't do anything. For low speed tires looked after it is very odd that the protected inside sidewall is cracking, as reported by other drivers. This suggests a material/manufacturing fault. Old tires crack on the outside and around the tread blocks. In use these tires were very good all round, though not as good as a set of Michelin XZX I bought in 1981 that lasted 23 years without cracking.

As good as the factory continual I had on in tearms of grip but find them loud 50 km, s up , great price great grip but loud , cannot fault grip in wet and dry.

I got 2 front Pirelli P6000 on Thursday, I feel already it has made a big difference when driving, I had Continental Conti-sport ones before but I prefer these, better to steer, really comfortable and looking forward to test them out on a long distance journey.

OK this might not be the ideal car to test such tires on but bare with me on this one. Because the Beetle is an old and - by today's standards - quite unusual vehicle, small changes like a tire change make a huge difference on the car.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with these Contis. I had them for almost 3 years and their wear is slow and even.
In terms of comfort and refinement they are well above average, on par with the Brdigestone Turanzas I had before.
Handling-wise they are very progressive and offer decent responsiveness and grip for a tire of this type.
More importantly though their Bionic design (which increases the tire's contact with the road by ~10% under hard braking/acceleration) was very much appreciated on a couple of emergency brakings, something best avoided with an old Beetle! But nevertheless they performed impeccably in these conditions as well as in a couple of high speed manoeuvres on wet roads.
I was also happy to notice a considerable decrease in fuel consumption especially during motorway cruising.

I would definitely recommend them and I'm more than likely to replace them with the same ones.