For buyers of replacement tyres who care about such things, the system will be quite useful. Trouble is, replacing tyres is very much on the 'distress purchase' list for many. Looking at another chart which details three of about 50 important characteristics of a standard tyre might be equally down the list against the key criterion of price.
But lower price usually comes at a cost, in braking ability, economy performance, or longevity among other things. And noise too. So with the labels, at least buyers will be able to make a somewhat more educated choice.
I spent time recently with Continental Tyres on the launch of their new ContiPremiumContact5 road tyre. They took some further effort to try and explain the upcoming label system, which is complicated by how the various elements are measured.
Things aren’t made easier by the fact that tyre manufacturers can’t reveal the actual ratings of their products until later this year. However, it’s safe to say that, even at the premium level, tyres with A ratings in both fuel efficiency and wet grip do not yet exist. And are not likely to for some time.
What can also be said, according to the information that Conti has given out, is that in safety terms the wet conditions stopping difference from 80km/h between a tyre with an A rating and one with the least effective F rating can be as much as 18 metres. That’s more than four car lengths. More to the point, the speed at which the F-tyred car is still going when the A-tyred car has stopped gives a strong indication of the kind of damage which could occur if the latter has come to a halt just short of an impact.
The fuel efficiency part of the new label is based on the rolling resistance of the tyre, which is affected by a number of factors in its structure, materials compound, and tread design. There is likely to be a trade-off here with the wet-grip rating. For the label itself, the grading between A and G is related to a car that does 36mpg on an A rating product, and each grade downwards can mean an increase in fuel consumption of about 0.5mpg. If you happen to be driving a BMW 3 Series ED with 63+mpg, how do you decide the best tyres on a cost-effective basis? Maybe with a degree in economics...
Noise performance is indicated by a little logo which has a loudspeaker coming out of a tyre, with up to three bands ’broadcasting’ from it. Three bands is the loudest as measured by a car travelling on a specific surface at a designated speed, at a certain distance from a standard microphone. Just now it relates to the maximum noise allowed under EU regulations, one which will actually disappear in 2016.
Each band less is significantly less noisy. They are measured in decibels, but what is fascinating is—and Conti demonstrated it to us simply and effectively—that tyres which sound louder than others can actually have exactly the same noise reference point. It’s all to do with Sound Pressure Levels as opposed to how we perceive sounds of different frequencies.
Is all that clear? No, I didn’t think it would be. And the new labels won’t actually provide definite information, they’ll just act as guides. All ratings are based on brand new tyres under specific conditions, and if there’s one thing absolutely sure it is that the conditions under which tyres actually work are anything but absolute.
And spare a thought for the tyre companies themselves, and their dealers. Continental, for instance, has to develop ratings under these regulations for some 4,500 individual products sold in the EU markets. Multiply that by the major and minor brands and there’s an information deluge of biblical proportions about to descend on tyre dealers across Europe.
For the consumers, the information won’t be printed on the tyre itself, but must be available at the retail point for every tyre in stock. In car showrooms, the tyre label detail on new cars will also have to be visible, along with the CO2 ratings already mandatory.
When the system is in place customers in both cases must also be given a copy of the product ratings along with their invoices, which is going to mean headaches for those managing the IT systems used in the retailers’ bookkeeping systems.
On the positive side, the scheme will mean that ’cheap and cheerless’ low quality brands will now have to show where they are on the three rated characteristics. This may influence buyers to spend more on something that is a bit more frugal, safe, and silent. And whatever about the problematics, it does give a kind of a baseline.
On the negative, all this regulatory stuff has to be paid for, and it could mean higher prices down the line. Also, there’s nothing to stop a tyre maker engineering its product to do well in the three areas, but at the cost of other aspects such as durability, aquaplaning, handling and steering precision which aren’t shown on the labels.
And there’s the matter that, as things are, the tyre makers are individually responsible for testing and providing their own results. There is no independent agency either available, or required, for policing the system.
Finally, the new regulations don’t apply to secondhands, retreads, non-road tyres, or those for vintage cars.
I think it’s probably a good thing. But I also think that it is in the nature of the EU beurocracy to which we have subscribed that it must keep on producing complex regulations to justify its existence.
There must be a much simpler way to get it right.
