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I need 2 new rear tyres for my Jag XF and have been doing some research on the options. Maxxis seem to get reasonably good reviews and I wondered if anybody on here has experience of them.
If you do, what are they like to live with (noise, handling, etc)?
If anybody has other recommendations suitable for my car I'd be happy to hear them.
Cheers
Ian
Get the same tyres that are currently on your Jag, they have been developed to give best optimum performance in a variety of conditions.
Would you buy a premium camera and then use non premium lens's on it?.
There may be an aspects that could be better but there will be offsets somewhere else.
Thanks Steve. It's a good theory, however it doesn't always apply. The car already has non-original Continentals on the back and has been handling very well even though they are low. The difference in price is £100 a corner between Maxxis and the original Eagle F1, yet I can find nothing to suggest there is £100 difference in quality, performance, etc.
In other words I don't want to spend an extra £200 if I am going to see no benefit.
Oh and by the way I do have a premium camera and have some very nice results from non-premium lenses. 
New regulations have just kicked in that make answering this question a lot easier than before for non-experts. Read all about it.
They provide good grip, predictable slide around corners and seem to last for about 4 years Ian, well, the ones on my mountain bike anyway... should be alright for a Jag. 
Thanks Mike, isn't that about using tyres not to the same spec as opposed to having to use the exact brand?
Paul - I'm not a 19 year old kid. The whole reason for doing the research and asking the question here is to avoid putting hedge finders on the back. Like I said, if Eagle F1 are the best I'll go for them but if anybody on here has been using Maxxis on a similar car they may be worth considering.
Samuel, thanks for that link, very useful. I'll do some digging.
lol @ John
I'll just have to try driving on 2 wheels! 
Yes the new labeling should make choosing easier. With a fast car I'd go for best wet performance before wear etc. Similar questions are often asked on motorhome forums. OK motorhomes are not particularly fast but it's a lot of weight to stop. Continentals have a very good reputation in motothome circles perhaps followed by Michelin but from personal experience I never been impressed by Michelin's wet weather performance. I'd go for the best well known brand with good ratings I could afford especially for a high performance car.
Thanks.
Found a site which uses the new labelling system and it is pretty interesting. For my tyre size Eagle get the best wet handling score and a pretty bad fuel economy score, wonder if the 2 are linked? Hankook (which we used to have and love on Robbie's MX5) get the same wet handling score but a much better fuel economy and virtually the same noise level.
Anybody know how much difference there is between 70db and 71db (and don't say 1)?
I recently put maxxis on all corners of my mondeo (235/45 - 17 i think, cant remember exact size) but so ar they seem very good for grip, slightly noisier than previous tyres but tyre guy told me to expect that as they have stronger sidewalls than cheaper previous tyres. maxxis are a major name in off road tyres & from my short time with them i would reccomend them. hth.
Joe b
My logarithmic math is a bit like my car – rusty – but an increase of roughly 3 dB would represent twice the power.
But since our perception of sound isn’t anywhere near linear, no-one would call a power increase of 3 dB twice as loud. Conventionally it’s assumed you need an increase of 10 dB to make something sound twice as loud. The truth is more complicated: it depends on the power spectral density of the sound, the listener, and other things I can’t remember. But 10 dB is a good ballpark figure, as they’d say at Goodyear, for a doubling of perceived volume.
All of which suggests 1 dB is a fairly small increase in noise, albeit noticeable in a direct comparison.
On the issue of grip versus fuel economy, there is indeed a trade-off there. One of the two main sources of grip in a tyre is its deformation against a rough road surface as it rolls (the other is friction, i.e. molecular adhesion). The soft rubber deforms around tiny road protrusions, causing an energy loss (called hysteresis loss, if you want to Google it), but in the process generating much more grip than would arise from friction alone.
Put simply, if a tyre willingly moulds itself around the texture of the road it grips well but ‘wastes’ the energy needed to continuously deform it (as heat in the tyre, ultimately transmitted to the road surface and the surrounding air). If it doesn’t deform at all – imagine the steel wheel of a train – it gains no grip beyond friction, but has much lower rolling resistance.
By mixing different synthetic rubbers in the tyre (compounding), tyre manufacturers can sometimes gain traction without losing much efficiency, or even while gaining efficiency. But there are loads of other conflicting requirements that muddy comparisons: noise, ride comfort, wear life, durability (for safety), airtightness, rim retention in a blowout, run-flat performance, tread pattern (for evacuating water), and even appearance. Not to mention manufacturing costs.
The new EU labelling helps people realise why some tyres cost more than others, but it’s still (necessarily) grossly simplistic. Still better than hearsay, though.
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