Best Tires for the Skoda Fabia 1.4

They are tires for everyday normal use in everyday cars and not for fast or improved ones. And for the roads here, no tire is good...they are miserable.

Had them on the car for 15 months now. Bought them becouse of the good performance grades they recived online. And becouse they were the cheapest tire in this dimension for an mk1 Skoda Fabia 1.4 8v. At first the dry grip seemed about 1/4 better than the previous tires i got rid of. The Uniroyal rain experts in 175/65 14s. Wet grip was about equal :P Then i found some rough tarmac and gave them a good grating to remove any of the residual wax they came with when they were taken out of the moulds. My two cents at least o.O After that grip in the dry and in the wet improved about 1/4 for the better. Wich now makes them quite usable for lightly spirited driving in most but not all scenarios. The biggest suprise was in the winter in the dry during sub zero temperatures. Where the Uniroyals became hardened giant plastic bath plugs the tomkets kept there grip both during cornering and braking. As for snow there actualy what you would expect from a summer tire. There better than driving on rims :D So my best results with them were after getting a bit of heat into them with five or six emergency stops. That should give you about an equal gain in terms of wet and dry braking and cornering grip. Handling in the dry can be decent as long as you use the brakes to transfer the weight of your vehicle around. Wet handling is not very good unless you are on relatively new ish tarmac. So in conclusion i would give them a mid range grade for dinamics and would recomend them for someone who needs a solid summer set that won't wear fast and won't brake the bank ;D Just be careful on OLD and WORN SMOOTH tarmac. Now when is that slalom race .....

The tires are hazardous in the wet conditions, specially if it's moist. they block really fast. I have never driven a tire that would be better in snow than on the moist road. If you already own this tires keep your safety distance...you will need it. Otherwise it performs ok, but braking capabilites and distance is really something you need to watch out for......when completing the performance test on all season tires, they should complete them with one year old tires, because after this particular tire has been exposed to one mild winter it is useless. If you're thinking of all season tires and you're not in a snowy area, invest in some good summer tires like good year or continental or even nexen or falken.
And if you live in a colder snowy area and you're looking for an allseason tire just buy a good low wear winter tire and drive it all year round with low highway speeds. For a city car, just go with winter tires.

When the tires were fitted, I was shocked becouse of the dry grip (small roundabout with 25 mph easily). I've never experienced this kind of grip. The brake distance, the handling, the road feadback is excellent! Everything is perfect; everything except the WET GRIP. When I first drove in rain shower, I was also shocked! Aquaplaning, terrible grip and brake distance... I'm really sad, bacouse I love these tires, but on a rainy day these are NOT safe tires. Let's try Yokohama Advan Flevas...

Very good on snow, in corners. No drifting, no problems. I can really reccomend for snow and ice driving.

Can I just make a note for the review below about them splitting? they have done that on mine and all my friends who use them too, and we contacted federal, its perfectly normal, its the way they are moulded, and they are perfectly safe, you will see if you keep using them, its just a moulding line, and you wear through it shortly. perfectly normal, perfectly safe.

The Ecowing KH27 is a truly awful tire possibly the worst you can buy.



Doesn't grip in the wet or the dry.



Yes they are quiet but when they spin in the dry they make the highest pitch scream I've ever heard from a tire.



I've driven on bold tires in the wet that hold better then these.



1/10
TERRIBLE TYRE!.

Car came with these when I got it. They last extremely well, but I suspect this has something to do with the fact there's very little grip. In the wet it's so easy to end up going sideways. Won't ever be getting them again. I think these personify the meaning of the term "ditch finders".

These tires are an experiment which so far has been very successful. The OEM firestone F590s were OK in dry and warm, and acceptable wet and warm but as soon as temperatures dropped the grip dropped markedly, and in winter conditions the car was almost not driveable with any degree of confidence.
Thus the experiment to fir central European winter tires and run them all year as the mileage is low, and the car is low powered and driven quite gently by the regular driver.

The comment by that driver, who has never had experience of winter tires before, is that the vehicle has been transformed in the 2009/2010 winter and they no longer dread the journey to/from work.

My comments as I have been using winter tires for many years is that these relatively inexpensive tires have performed beyond all expectations, and on a cost/benefit measurement are even more outstanding.

Typical of winter tires, for the first couple of hundred miles on clear tarmac especially warm and damp then the grip is very low. Once the tires have been bedded in then the grip is in all ways amazing. On cold dry 0C tarmac the grip is such that I know my more expensive Michelins would have let go earlier. Even more so on cold wet tarmac.

On the snow, the tires are still good, perhaps not quite as good as a dedicated ice and snow tire but still good enough to drive about, go, stop and corner on snow, rutted ice, slush. Smooth ice results in much reduced grip as with any studless tire, but even so the car remanined very driveable on roads which were not gritted for weeks and with polished ice on the corners. The OEM Firestones even if they had got to the icy corners would certainly not got round it at anyting over 1 or 2 mph.

The tires are still on the car after the summer. The fronts have worn very little by measurement, and the rears there is no measurable wear. The edges of the block s still seem sharp and it will be interesting to see a second winter season and how they cope.

Good tires for a low performance runabout, fully recommended.