I find the term 'budget tyre' itself leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and the fact there are people out there actively looking for them deeply troubling. The only contact your car has with the road is 4 small patches of rubber, so personally i would never buy cheap tyres apart from 2 instances. 1, it is a good quality tyre on special offer. Or 2, my choice was based on the results of a tyre test. Which is something you find on a semi regular basis in some motoring magazines, autoexpress for one, and i think evo. The tyres get put through a rigorous series of manoeuvres in wet and dry condition.

But in my opinion, someone who chooses a tyre based solely on its price is extremely irresponsible. Some do this based on the delusion that their own ability as a driver means that they can avoid situations where they need to brake suddenly, swerve suddenly or a combination of both. You may well be able to minimise the risk of this, but there is no way you can ever foresee or account for everything.

And having read a few of these tyre tests over the years, the difference in performance between a good quality tyre and a poor quality tyre, espacially in wet or slippery conditions could very well be the deciding factor between you having an accident or not.

So my advice would be if you can't afford to get decent quality 225/45 17's, get a car with smaller tyres.

My adored Velocity tires are reaching the finish of their lives, and they were the best tires Ive at any point had. Issue is, Yokohama dont make them any longer

I would never describe Yokohama tyres as "budget". I have used them on and off since 1989 (on track and on the road) and they have never been anything but excellent in respect of grip and reliability. At one time they were virtually the control tyre simply because if you used any other tyre you were uncompetitive.

My advice to you would be to look for good mid range tyres and not "budget". Since my beloved Yoko's are no longer road legal in post 2016 manufacture due to a change in the law I have had to change brand and bought a set of Uniroyal Rain Experts. Have to say I am very impressed. Much cheaper than brands such as Michelin, Goodyear etc and in tests the grip (especially wet) is every bit as good. Made by Continental in germany so not Chinese ditchfinders.

In your size it would be the Uniroyal Rainsport 3 which is £62 approx on line. Probably a better tyre than the one I bought but not available in my size. Several friends use them and are more than happy especially for the price.

The size is very common, so plenty of choice, once you get to loadings and speed ratings the choices reduce.

At £50-£65 there are Vredestein, Hankook, Uniroyal, Toyo, Avon, Kumho available at Camskill.

I would be happy with any of those.

Of course, if you change cars like socks....

Once every year? ;-)

Use Kumho as suggested by my local independent tyre dealer on my Suzuki. Excellent all round, did 50k on the front pair before changing.

Another vote for Uniroyal Rainsport (Rain Expert in higher aspect ratios), they grip superbly one of the very best wet grip tyres you can buy, but don't expect high mileage out of them you won't get it.

Agree about Yokohama, the set i fitted to my car just before the winter have proved themselves.

I noted the same for the Uniroyals - good performance, shorter life. I also found, along with the Toyo Proxies, both are popular with younger people (especially men) with modded cars and hot hatches for their performance qualities.

One thing I found when researching what to replace the (IMO) horrible factory-fitted Bridgestone ER30s on my mk1 Mazda3, I noted large discrepancies between what on the surface were similar tyres (from a budget and market perspective), and as such, sometimes a cheaper tyre (or at least a 'mid-range' one) can be perfectly fine, in some cases better than the 'premium' one.

Very useful websites such as tyrereviews.co.uk give many magazine reviews, both UK and continental European ones for a wide range of tyre sizes and types, often comparing different tyre types such as summer and all-season in both winter and summer conditions (as well as in the wet and dry), even one recent one showed what the difference was (not wholy scientific, but a reasonable representation in my view) between tyres at full tread, half worn and down to 2mm.

The user reviews also give (as they do for cars on this website) a useful insight into actual usage experiences across many different cars, usage patterns and driving styles, which can often make a huge difference to how a tyre performs in different weather conditions and timescales. I was warned to be wary of just going by 'headline' review scores, but to delve into each user review to find as many which matched your own car (or similar) and other parameters, especially driving style, handling and comfort needs.

If you do your homework right, this can make the difference between a great choice you're happy with and a terrible one costing a lot of money, not because you've spend £££ on tyres no better than a cheaper set, but because they don't suit your needs, often are not comfortable (or even feel safe) to drive with and result in having to replace them with a different set at great cost.

One thing that I never understand is how people pay £££ for performance cars, then spend piddling amounts on cheap (but flashy looking) ditchfinders. An ex-colleague did this with his Jags. I suppose its similar to those who don't spend enough money keeping a 'premium' car well maintained.

The Tyre Reviews website has a list of what they believe to be premium, mid-range and budget tyres, though bear in mind (even though its based in the UK), much of the reviews are continental European based, so some tyres/brands may not be available in the UK.

Twice now i've experimented and tried to give far eastern (not Japanese) brands the benefit of the doubt both times i've had to remove them for unacceptable (to me) levels of wet grip, in both cases removed in year 2 still on 7mm, but whilst in their first year on 8mm or so they were quite acceptable, this has never been the case with the 'mostly' european (Vredestein, Nokian, Avon, Toyo) tyres which have maintained good grip albeit with increasing noise as they wore

I'd plenty of good experience with mid price Barum Bravuris, made by Continental and at a good price from National Tyres.

Uniglory are meant to be one of the better budget chinese brands, thats what the local taxi driver reckons.

Look at the tyre reviews website. It has all the tyre tests from various motoring magazines and you'll be able to identify lower cost tyres which perform well.

Remember, as with all things, cheap does not automatically mean inferior, nor does expensive mean better.

Nankang noblesport NS-20 are passable summer tyres and will cost under £50 a rim in that size, but upping the budget slightly to £60 a rim will secure the Kumho Ecsta HS51 - a tyre that genuinely performs at premium tyre levels, no compromises, no excuses - a decent tyre at a keen price.