What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
Found a very good garage to service my Mazda. Family business, been established for 30 years. Gold standard service, very comprehensive and cost was a £260 and lots of miles left.

Will need to back tyres, any advice of types of tyres and good value ones.
Mazda 5 - Servicing - badbusdriver

I tend to go for all season tyres, which is a personal preference, and always a decent brand (go for something you've heard of!).

I tend to choose what I want based on tyre reviews, buy them off Ebay and have them fitted at a local garage. But other forum members use Black Circles and are happy with them.

Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
Thanks.
Mazda 5 - Tyres - garcon6
Any users know any good websites that review tyres. Also my alloys are looking a bit tired and worn out. Good idea to invest in some new alloys? I’m
Mazda 5 - Tyres - badbusdriver
Any users know any good websites that review tyres. Also my alloys are looking a bit tired and worn out. Good idea to invest in some new alloys? I’m

Unless the wheels are actually porous, how they look is purely cosmetic. You can have them refurbished, or indeed you could do it yourself if you are not looking for an immaculate job.

Tyre reviews?, well to be thorough, you really want to be looking at a few. But I was using this particular Auto Express test as it was specifically for all season tyres.

verdict-results-category

I went for the Goodyear most recently because of the combination of wet weather performance and price. But in the past I have had Michelin Cross Climate's and Nokian's. Happy with the Goodyears and I'll probably get them again, but the Michelin's were also good. The Nokian's were fine in terms of grip, but they seemed to wear quicker than I expected and were also noisier than expected. BTW, my van uses 195/65 x 15 tyres.

Mazda 5 - Tyres - garcon6
Thank you.

Will look into those brands. Michelin are a good brand. I’m not a high mileage user, but I want a good reliable tyre. Probably good to get the Alloys refurbished.
Mazda 5 - Tyres - FoxyJukebox

Have a surf around-you will see that most tyre choices are either budget, mid-range or super.Go for the mid -and choose a known name.Remember that people do not buy tyres just because of tread lasting a long time. The last three times i have had to buy new tyres was because of wall damage, a pothole and a tear from driving over a flint....grrrrrrr

Mazda 5 - Tyres - garcon6
Gone for Goodyear Efficient Grip 2, £106 per tire with Malvern Tires. £10 less than Bathwick tyres. Good reviews as well, only replacing two.
Mazda 5 - Tyres - Andrew-T
Good idea to invest in some new alloys?

Why not get them refurbed by the alloy specialists ? There will be one not too far away.

Mazda 5 - Tyres - garcon6
Think that’s a good idea.
Mazda 5 - Tyres - Engineer Andy
Think that’s a good idea.

One thing to note is that if you want to go ahead and change or refurb the alloys, then part of that cost will include refitting/balancing the existing tyres.

If you combine this with the same outfit fitting the new tyres, if they are ok doing this (they may not be due to having to dispose of the old tyres), then they may wriggle out of responsibility if the new fitment doesn't work properly, e.g. if the tyres leak or have a fault (which may or may not be their fault).

This would be the same if a tyre fitter did the same job, because they are either existing alloys (and I wouldn't be surprised if the guaranteed they won't cause a tyre leak around the sealing point of the rim) or if you're lucky enough to get them to fit the new alloys if you buy them separately and get them to fit them. They may even charge extra for doing so, especially if you want them to get rid of the old alloys.

My Mazda main dealer only charged the tyre fitting charge, probably because I bought new alloys through them - only the new tyres were bought saperately by me (mail order from BC), and as the dealership was my (long-standing) one for servicing/maintenance, they were unlikely to try and rip me off by doing a really bad job (or at least get away with it).

They did order (and fit) the wrong alloys, but I didn't mind as they were more expensive, and they (once I pointed it out) gave me a discount of £25 on the quoted price (which was for the cheaper ones).

I'd see if any outfit that refurbishes alloy wheels will 100% guarantee any tyres (new or old) that are fitted to them afterwards won't leak via the rim seal before going that route and changing any of the tyres. One new tyre on my previous set of tyres leaked in that way because of a corroding alloy/poor fitment by the tyre dealer (a new BC outfit that left them soon after) and I had to get it refitted at my local main dealer (for free) to get the leak fixed after two goes (not free) at the fitter.

If you go the replacement alloys route, check to see if they can fit your car as it's not always the case that the wheel diameter and width is just the only factors - many have an offset where the tyre's position is move in/outbound relative to the car and brakes, which may not be possible in all cases, even for ones from Mazda (newer alloys).

I was lucky because I wanted to change all tyres and alloys (the alloys were 12 years old) and I was able to change them down from 16in to 15in (fine in the handbook) using OEMs and save a small fortune on both alloys (nearly half the price of the 16in ones) and tyres (a third cheaper). As you're only replacing two tyres, that's not open to you, so the refurbishment route might be better.

Best of luck.

Mazda 5 - Tyres - garcon6
Thanks, valid points. No rush as need to boom MOT next.
Mazda 5 - Servicing - Engineer Andy
Found a very good garage to service my Mazda. Family business, been established for 30 years. Gold standard service, very comprehensive and cost was a £260 and lots of miles left. Will need to back tyres, any advice of types of tyres and good value ones.

I've used Blackcircles twice now - no porblems with them, although the first time the fitter (BC is just a tyre seller and they have a list of fitters they use) I used wasn't so good.

For the second time, I just bought the tyres (mail order) from BC and had them fitted at my local Mazda dealership, which actually charged a bit less than BC 'fitters' for the fitment, so the overall price was around the same when the postage (which wasn't that bad either, given the size/weight of 4 tyres).

Worth seeing if your garage will fit them (they should be able to) for a reasonable price (say between £10 and £15 each, including disposal of the old ones).

As you're changing just two tyres, keep to the same type (i.e. of the front tyres - directional or asymmetric) and have a look over on the Tyre Reviews website for user reviews for the size of tyre your car uses (you may be lucky that there are users of Mazda5's using that size combo to look at their reviews) as well as the 'professional' reviews of that tyre size or near to it.

www.tyrereviews.com/

Excellent website with a very knowledgeable person running it, Jonathan, who answers questions of almost everyone and does his own group test reviews.

Then visit BC or A N Other reputable tyre dealer's website to find what you think will be good for your car at the best price. Most will give the option of selling mail order as well as fitting at a nominated fitter on their list.

Most garages will put a hefty mark-up if you go direct to them to source the tyres - mine wanted (including fitting) £85 each, whereas I paid only about £55 (including postage) from BC and £10 each for fitting at the main dealership, saving me £80 overall.

Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
Thanks for the useful advice.
Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
Goodyear Efficient 2, good reviews.
Mazda 5 - Servicing - Engineer Andy
Goodyear Efficient 2, good reviews.

I'm presume it was the Efficient Grip Performance 2? What spec tyres are they, e.g. 205/55 R16V

It would be interesting to see the relative price difference, as often there is a large one for just a small difference in spec, e.g. newer (less popular at the moment) but very similar tyre size 205/60 R16V tyres (standard on the latest two versions of the mid-spec Mazda3) are about 20-25% more than the one I quoted above which are the OEM tyre size on older versions of the model.

That tyre does seem fine for summer tyres, getting good reviews. I got the Michelin CC+ because in 195/65 R15H form there was little difference in price (£5 - £7) between it and the best summer (standard non-high performance) tyres.

For 16in and above, the difference in price is more marked. The same applied for the more winter-biased (excellent) Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-2, though less so on the larger sizes than the Michelins.

All season tyres have come a LONG way over the last 5 years or so and, IMHO, easily match the summer performance of the previous generation (i.e. from 3-5 years ago) summer tyres, whilst being far better in colder conditions and obviously in proper wintry conditions. They often give a smoother ride and the overal improvement in tyres mean the small penalty in wear is barely noticeable.

Mine have worn practically the same as my previous set of Dunlop SPSport Fastresponse summer tyres, and grip practically the same in summer, but better in winter. Worth condiering for the next full set of tyre replacements (not if you're just replacing one or two - never mix and match tyre types, including directional and asymmetic [90% of all season tyres are directional, most summer tyres are asymmetric]).

Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
Thanks, I’m just getting my tyres done now.
Mazda 5 - Servicing - garcon6
205/50 R17 GYR PEFF 2 93W XL. Lovely tyres, grip is so much better and quiet tyres.