New tyres this week for my 1999 Discovery. The last lot, General Grabbers, lasted 30,000 miles. Their Michelin predecessors (bought and fitted at Costco, 20 per cent off) did 37,000 miles. I doubt the new £88 Cooper Discoverers will achieve that but I’ll be disappointed if they don’t reach 30,000.
New tyres this week for my 1999 Discovery. The last lot, General Grabbers, lasted 30,000 miles. Their Michelin predecessors (bought and fitted at Costco, 20 per cent off) did 37,000 miles. I doubt the new £88 Cooper Discoverers will achieve that but I’ll be disappointed if they don’t reach 30,000.
I was speaking thus while admiring a neighbour’s newish Audi Q7. Admiring rather than envying, having discovered that his front tyres cost £400 each and lasted 6,000 miles. The dealership told him that some achieve only half that. He’s now had to replace the rears too and, having calculated that his high annual mileage means he’ll spend about £6,000 a year on tyres alone, he’ll replace the Audi next.
It’s the kind of figure they don’t volunteer when you’re buying a new car, and most of us don’t think to ask. It certainly didn’t occur to me to interrogate the new 2.5-tonne Bentley Mulsanne’s mammoth 265/45/ZR 20s (there’s a 21-inch option) at its Scottish launch last month. But if you’re paying £220,000 for the company flagship and need to know tyre life, you can’t afford it.
I worried about the Mulsanne before ever seeing it. It succeeds the Arnage, my favourite and the most traditional of modern Bentleys. I feared that they’d either abandon the upright, big-bonnet tradition in favour of a squashed fag-packet, like the new mini-Range Rover, or they’d be criticised for seeking only to replicate the past. Happily, I was wrong.
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