DANdeMAN

Was that the Kumho MX? A reviewer talk about soft sidewall. http://www.tiretrends.com/tire_info.php3?tireID=381

DANdeMAN

Anyone as the KUMHO Ecsta Supra 712

http://www.tiretrends.com/catalog2.php3?tireID=314

DANdeMAN

And finaly Hankook Ventus K104, nice look, any users?
http://www.tiretrends.com/catalog2.php3?tireID=360

RicerSchnitzzle

I've had the sumi's for about 6 months now and love them. I drive fairly aggressively as the streets are empty at 5am when I go to work. Great in the rain as well. tread wear seems okay. They handle very well pushed hard into the turns. Very quit at 70mph. I have 295x17" in the rear and 235x17" front. I do find I need to keep them high on the pressure side to get results. 38psi front and 40psi rear.

I also came off Hancook Ventus tires at 225x16" all around, so anything would feel much better.

DANdeMAN

Craps, isn't that low? I'm running 48psi and still feel unstable. When I picked the car from the tire shop, the were at 40psi, I can't imaging at that low a psi being better that high psi !? Then again I'm no tire expert but I seem to remember the tire were to "skweechy" at 40psi.

Also today I gave my car the "push sideways with the hand on top of the door" test and it does move quite a bit compared with the potenza's I had before.

FRporscheman

I've had BFG g-force tires on my 968 for about 18 months (they came with the car). They have excellent treadwear, but they aren't grippy or sticky. These tires are basically for the normal, average driver, looking for a bit of an upgrade or sportier feel. No way they're a "performance" tire. They break traction fairly easily, and give little auditory warning when they get close to losing traction. You have to have the windows open and music off, and listen carefully for the quiet hum...

On the other hand, wet traction is fair, road noise is NONE, and they have lasted well. Based on this, and considering they're a fairly mild type of tire, I think I like BFG. I want to try the g-force sport or g-force T/A. No experience with those though.


From other people, I have heard Yokohama ES100 is a love/hate tire, meaning some people would never buy it again, and it works great for others. Also I've been told Falken Azenis 615 is supposedly great, but again no experience with it (but a couple friends have the Falken 452 tires and love them). Note that Falken is a subsidiary of Sumitomo. Not trying to bash Sumi, just sharing my experience with them.

Also note Fuzion is a subsidiary of Bridgestone, and Bridgestone is regarded as awesome (Porsche OEM). That's what made me choose Fuzion over Falken and Yokohama in the end, when looking for new tires for the 993.

Good luck picking the best tire for you.

insite

the KDW II's are really good

MGW-Fla

All of the Kumho's I've used have been the Ecsta models, but the AST & ASX. Those two are all season high performance & ultra high performance tires. Most of the reviews that I've read on these two seem mostly positive. So far, with 4 different sets on 3 different brand of cars, I've been very happy with them. I don't think I've ever used any that were just summer tires like the Ecsta MX, but its possible. Maybe the 1st set on the Roush.

Think the all season tires typically have a higher tread wear rating than the summer tires. The 1st set on the Roush only had a tread wear rating of 140, whereas the current set is 340. The set on the BMW Z4 & the Sport Edition rims I bought last fall for my 928, both are the same model Kumho tire & have a tread wear of 400.

With as many tire sets I've had to purchase in the past 18 months, I want as high of tread wear rating as I can get. I do have a front & rear label from each set of tires stuck to the front of one of my tool cabinets at the house, to make it easy to know what I have & the sizes when its time to reorder. Now I'll have to look to see if any are MXs, but I don't think any of the current 3 sets are. Thanks for the info though.

MGW-Fla

I know the owner of an independent tire shop here in town for over 10 yrs. He's good about putting the best product for the best price, not caring about what the brand name is. He always put brands like Kelly Springfield or General tires on my cars like a Camry, or Jeep Cherokee & FourRunner SUVs. I always had good luck with them. Thats what he put on his personal cars. He told me that there are actually only a hand full of true tire manufacturers & that there is no reason to pay for the more expensive brand name tires when some of the lesser known ones are made at the same manufacturing plant & have the same specs. That people buy a brand name because its well known & that the lesser known tire may be just as good of quality, but just a different market. That may not always apply in a high performance tire maybe, I do not know.

A few years ago, someone from the Tire Rack told me that they at the TR like the Kumhos because of several reasons. He said Kumho's story is that they were previously marketed strictly for racing. But decided in recent years to cross over to the consumer market. Therefore, they decided to be very aggressive on their pricing/marketing to help jump start that effort. He had nothing but positive comments about thier opinion of the Kumhos up to that point.

Courtshark

48 psi is overinflated unless you're running 35 profile or less, and even then that's way too high. It will lead to funky tire wear and twitchy driving conditions.

I use Sumitomo HTR+'s and have for years. I do very much enjoy them. They do not roll over on the shoulders or any of that silliness I read about above. They just need to be properly inflated (like any tire). Try 36 - 40 psi. I have these on the front of my shark right now (225/40/18) and I run them on my 9-5 Aero (same size, all 4). Expect ~30k miles out of them, depending on your driving style, your alignment, and the tire pressure you prefer.

checkmate1996

I had the yoko aves100s all the way around. I really like them in the rain, performance, etc except but your lucky to get 8000K out of them. The tire tread wear seems unreasonably quick even with a 280 rating...of which I found is a very subjective manufacture rating anyway...

My car was just aligned last year two using a hunter so I don't think it was an alignment issue. But I realized that 32-35psi seemed to be a better sweetspot for tire pressure.

DANdeMAN

The funny thing is that whent I picked the car from the tire shop a couple weeks ago, they felt mushy compared to the SO2-SO3 that was on there before. I checked them and they were 40psi, so I inflated them to 46psi then 48psi; not better, mabe worst, hard to tell. Today I have dropped them to 40psi front and rear, I will report back in a few days....

DANdeMAN

Ha ha, I didn't have to test drive very long...I don't know how you guys can enjoy your Shark with those on; unless you have billard table flat like roads AND no crosswind of any magnitude!

I used to drive with one hand in regular driving mode, but know, its two hands all of the time...ridiculous.

checkmate1996

Even though the survey sites on tirerack were very impressive, even a couple of 928 reviews, I'm not liking the sound of this thread.

I am going to buy some new rear yoko's avs100s...

Courtshark

What size tire/rim are you on? Have you checked the condition of your steering rack bushings lately? I'm running my Sumi HTR+s, 225/40/18s, at 38 psi. And that's on Baltimore's pothole ridden streets and highways. My experience does not compare to your whatsoever. Note that I'm also on eibachs & bilsteins, with fresh solid steering rack mounts.