Federal Super Steel 657

Horrible in the wet!! Never again

Perfectly good tyre in wet and dry conditions. A bit suspect in the snow and these are certainly not winter tyres by any stretch of the imagination.

The stand out quality of this tyre is the wear. Changed the fronts after 36000+ and the backs will still be legal for another 5000-10000. All in all they are super value for money on the average family car.

I am a little surprised by these tyres. I bought them because they were well priced. They have an M+S marking on the side wall. They don’t look much like a winter tyre but they have performed better than expected. I have them on a Mazda Bongo 4 X 4.
I was about to buy a mid range winter but will now not have to. The last two weeks I have travelled through the sort of conditions that have give them a good test. Soft snow above my axle’s they still pulled through. No use on ice but you would need studs for that. They don’t have an snowflake symbol so the compound must be all season rather than full winter spec. I will now sell my snow chains because I will never bring the Mazda through anything as challenging again.
They seem to be long lasting as well.

Bought these as I'd had federal on my Mondeo 2.2 TDCI which were fine. These to be fair have lasted a massively long time, just over 35k on the fronts. I do mainly motorway driving and there's not my power in a Lacetti so no rip roaring starts.

However they are really, really bad in the snow and wet, they give very little grip in the wet and have skidded often on braking and when pulling away, and as I said 1.6 Lacetti wont pull the skin of a rice pudding!

In the snow I almost demolished a garden wall, slight hill, foot on brake at about 10mph, the tyres let go and I slid 20m - 30m down the incline, in a straight line, down a curved road and then over the pavement, it's only because the off side wheel caught the curb that I went round the corner and on to the flat and stopped. It's lucky that no one was on the path or I'd have taken them out at about 20mph.

Won't be getting them again.

N.B. Mondeo same hill, same speed (probably faster), same conditions, Kumo 205/50/17 tyres no problem at all.