Bridgestone Supercat LVR

High Milage – Have 2003 hilux 2wd with 195/14 supercat light truck tyres have got 85000 km so far and tyres still have a good tread .Not a high speed wet weather tyre.

When I first got them - and a few thousand K later – My opinion on these has changed from the old heavier sidewall tyres, to getting these. Initially the Toyota Hi-Ace Ute - well it had on some identical standard light truck tyres, with heavier sidewalls, and being so light in the back end, it handled corners and weaving like a Go Cart - very crisp responses and no weaving. Since I ride bicycles - with high pressure tyres (80psi) and motorcycles, and cars, and am fairly rigid about the whole "feel of a vehicle" being sure footed as if it was glued to the road, when I changed to these tyres, I was REALLY unnerved, because the back end would slew out and weave as if the tyres were no longer tyres but soft inner tubes - with no sidewalls....

And some times, on long trips, partly for something to do and partly to exercise etc., on straight roads with no other traffic, one can weave ones motorbike between the spaced road lines, much like test drivers do along a strip of orange road cones.

In finding the tyres originally had a high degree of sidewall flex compared to my old (both literally and figuratively) and after finding the back end "really weavy" just in normal driving over the roughish country roads, I did a small amount of light weaving - and found the back end so "soft" like as if the tyres were peeling off the rims - it was totally unnerving.

It was like how the hard nylon wheels in skate boards, well when one is cornering on flat downhill road at a modest speed, the wheels do not break grip suddenly, they progressively alter in the ratio of going around the corner, to the amount of side sliding they are doing, until they progress to the point of not cornering at all and just slide out, sideways...

Well the tyres had that feel as if they were about to "weave out", or peel off the rims and the car was going to roll from the back end, even with very light weaving down the straight highway.

After a few thousand K's I think the tyres have stiffened up a bit, and or I have gotten used to the softish sidewalls, and motoring along in my private conveyance, I came across a rather large wheel breaking pothole - half a lane wide, deep and very long, and I had to swerve around it - suddenly.

And the back end, these tyres only gave a faint hint of the soft slewing weaviness in the back end....

I thought, "I have not noticed the back axle on beach balls" (instead of tyres) wallowing in a long time, and considering how sort of mildly drastic the maneuver was, the goo-ee feel in the back end was largely gone, compared to when the tyres were new.

So I am updating this review - to say I think these are now very good tyres that if factory fresh, are a little soft in the sidewalls and after a few thousand K's and 6 months, they are firming up to give a nice "go cart" kind of stability in weaving and cornering...

I actually really like them now.

Now lets see if I can get 10 years and 200,000 K out of them.

:)