Tyres

The Cooper tyres on my VW Touareg are very noisy and they are wearing on the inside of all four wheels. The road noise is driving me crazy. VW say the alignment is to spec, Coopers say the tyres are very quiet. What do you think?

But I can't get my mind off New Zealand this weekend (16-17 April 2011) as it's going to be a whole new ball game.Even though we've raced in Hamilton the past two years, this will be like the first time because it's an all-soft tyre weekend. That's practice, qualifying and races on nothing but soft tyres. So all our set-ups from previous years are out the window and we have to start with a clean slate. That should help some teams and should it should hinder others.Luck will play some part, but it will also hinge on the hard work of the engineers who set the cars up in practice and qualifying.The Hamilton circuit is a tight track with a lot of bitumen surface changes so it will be interesting to see how that affects set-up and tyre wear. Hamilton is also notorious for track position. It's like the Winton track; if you have good position you can hold it. Therefore qualifying becomes all important. Start up the front and you have a good chance of holding your position.Passing is usually difficult there, but maybe the soft tyre will change that. The back chicane is a car killer. It's a much tighter chicane than it looks on TV, especially at speed. There is always a high percentage of cars that come through there with panel damage.My scorecard at Hamilton isn't too good. I've qualified in the mid-top 10 and the best race result is a fourth last year. We've had our share of bad luck there. Last year we had a brake caliper come loose and the year before I crashed into everything that I could. Jamie's had great results n Hamilton, but I haven't.This year I'm hoping to come away with some valuable points.

I was just wondering if it is at all possible for water to get into your tyres. The day after I drove my 1997 Magna through floodwater I pumped up my tyres and since then my whole car shakes as if the wheels are out of balance, especially on the freeway. Would I just get an alignment and a balance performed?

The rear tyres on my front-wheel drive Hyundai Tucson City are almost worn out even though it has only done 17,800 km and I expect that by the time the car has done 20,000 km they will be worn out. The car is driven by two oldies, has not been misused in any way, and only on normal roads. It seems to me that 20,000 km is excessive wear especially on the rear that does nothing but rolling with a bit of braking for good measure. I check tyre pressures regularly and the car had a 15,000 km service by the Hyundai dealer.

I have just brought a new Mazda 3 Neo and find the road noise on rough bitumen very loud and annoying. I fitted new Michelin Primacy tyres like I was told to, but have noticed little difference. Have you any suggestions to help the above problem?

Q: My 2007 Subaru Outback is almost due to have its tyres replaced. It is currently fitted with Yokohama Geolander 215/55R17 93H that have traveled 55,000 km. I was considering buying just three more new tyres the same as those currently fitted and using the spare as the fourth, which is still new and never used. But my spare is about four years old and I was told the rubber compound has since become harder with age and not to use it as it may affect the cars handling and performance. Is this true? I was also told that I might be better off to buy four new tyres of a different brand that would cost the same as three Yokohamas. If so which would be the ones best suited for my car?

During the recent rains in Victoria pot holes appeared in the Calder Highway that were big enough you could fish in. I hit one of them hard enough to pull over to see if there was any damage. There wasn't but there were four cars within 100 metres of me changing wheels. The common denominator was large wheels and low profile tyres, three of them had 18-inch mag wheels and the other had 18-inch steel chrome wheels and all had low profile tyres. I have standard issue 15-inch steel rims, which were not damaged. A few years back I was helping my son buy mag wheels for his car and the salesman did say at that time that 18-inch mag wheels were susceptible to damage. Are the larger wheels more prone to damage or is it the lack of give in the low profile tyres or both?

I need tyres for my front-wheel drive Ford Telstar and have been looking at Bob Jane All-Rounders and Firestones. What are they like? What is the difference between 195/60x15 and 195/65x15? Lastly, how long should tyres last, the Pirellis I am replacing have done 95,000 km?

Or the worst film of all time? Quentin Dupieux's new film, Rubber, is the story of an old tyre that goes on a serial killer rampage.  Sounds a bit like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes meets Shaun of the Dead, but the trailer is strangely compelling…

Hankook chief financial officer Hyun Bum Cho last year said he had held talks with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone about supplying tyres to the premier motorsport category.  However, the first major motorsport category to be running on Korean rubber will be the German touring car series, DTM.Hankook has previously focused on long-distance sports car events, last year finishing second at the Nurburgring 24-Hour race with a Ferrari F430 GT2 co-driven by Bathurst 1000 invitee Allan Simonsen.Now the company has announced an exclusive three-year contract with DTM, including Audi, Mercedes and the new BMW teams. The DTM series is based in Germany but also races in Austria, China, England, Netherlands and Spain.The seventh-biggest tyre manufacturer in the world plans to move into other major racing categories in the next few years.  Cho, who launched the South Korean company's motorsport program 10 years ago, said the company, which spends about 3 per cent of its sales revenue on marketing, needed to become involved in the "top categories" of world motorsports."Right now we have a little Le Mans team and some rally teams here and there," he said.  "The worldwide motorsport market is about two million (tyres) a year, which is quite profitable because motorsport tyres are quite expensive."So we need to be in WRC, F1 or the top end of Le Mans.  In future we need to be in those but it will cost a lot of money."Hankook Tyre Australia marketing assistant William Ng says DTM "will form the core of Hankook's motor sport activities".  "Other forms of motorsport may be entered into if they are in line with our strategic goals," he says.Their tyres have been used in the Bathurst 12-Hour race, but when asked if the V8 Supercar series is in their sights, he replied: "No comment at the moment."Hankook Tyre Australia managing director Paul Park says Hankook is well poised to be in premium motorsport categories because most of the bigger companies are either "old or disinterested" and the Japanese brands do not have the money to participate."So it is quite obvious that in the motorsport field we are emerging as a new rising star," he said.