The tale of my tyres!

Having had my Pirelli Zero N4 tyres on the car for the last 6-7 years they had at last reached the stage where replacements all round were required as the backs were on the wear marks and the fronts have 2.5mm they are showing signs on cracking in the treads. Easy I thought, on the old inter web and lets see what's available Michelins were what I was looking for, easy you might have thought! How wrong was I as having spent the best part of a over a week on the net and phone there's not a set of Michelins available in Europe except in Germany and they are new old stock at 5 years old. rears I could get no fronts, so with this in mind and rethinking that so long as I can get good mileage and N rated I will take what I could find and yes again easy you would think, not so. There appears to be a significant shortage of premium makes in my sizes and N rated to the point where I could find rears but no fronts or mixed N ratings at best, I have tried all the net based suppliers and in desperation (wait for it) even Kwik Fit for supply only and even they could not get anything. No supplier would give me a delivery date against an order for the ones I could not find. I even e mailed the manufacturers direct. So where do I go now you might ask, to OPC Cambridge who I was at on Saturday as they were removing an engine from a 924 as a demo for a project they are on. I approached their Senior Service Mgr Chris who began the search to find me some tyres and quickly came back with an answer of Bridgestone's, hooray you might say but wait in the space of time between looking and then ordering (10 mins) they had disappeared of stock so back to square 1! Leave it with me Chris said I will find you some and with great relief he came back on Monday PM with the offer of Pirelli Rosso N4 a full set with delivery to them 2-3 days but buy quick. Order now placed and hopefully the car will go to OPC Cambs next week to have them fitted. At least I might be able to claim £50 cashback on the tyres from Pirelli. Many thanks to Chris at OPC Cambs for his efforts it was no easy task.[ ]

Tried Black Circles? They usually have Pirelli P0, and had Bridgestones when I was looking as well last year, and Contis I recall. Stocks do vary, however! Michelin's, rare as rocking horse excrement.....

oponeo have conti N2 in stock now.

Try Camskills, or Mytyres.

Thanks for the help guys but tried all the suppliers Elites, Black Circles, Tyre supplier, Oponeo, Costco, Tyre Shopper, My Tyres, Event Tyres, Tyre Leader etc. etc. could get backs or some fronts but not 4 in matching sets with same N rating with the correct other requirements. A Pirelli retail supplier did come back to me late yesterday with some but the prices were sky high just for unfitted, but they could get them. Even my mate Cliff Wilkins (Tracy Wilkins, Boxster Reg husband) who is good at finding stuff on the net tried with me but could not succeed either. Still now resolved at a reasonable cost.

I bought 2 x 285/30/18 this afternoon from Black circles Michelin Pilot Sport 2 N3 Going to be fitted at Micheldever tyres Thursday morning £188 each

I put 2 PZero, Rosso's front on mine last weekend. Bought from black circles. £50 back from OPC was tempting but they wanted another £150 for the tyres in first place

Mine are Front 225/40R/18 88Y Rears 295/30R/18 98Y XL Got a good deal from OPC Cambs so cant complain and with £50 cashback from Pirelli. It was getting a complete set as all 4 need replacing, all the same "N" rating and with a recent manufacturing date. Did find a set in Germany but already 5 years old.