bellwilliam

I have SPT on my family car, liked them for their ride and noise, handling is definetely not bad.

All tires get noisy after they wore. 2 tire designers told me running unidirectional is the main reason for the noise. when rotating tires, I should swap them left to right, to even out the wear (to reduce noise), even if they are directional tires. Since it doesn't rain much here in socal, I usually run all my tires directional just before raining season, swap them when summer comes.

btw, in autocross world, Kumho IS the premium brand. model 710 IS the BEST, period.

BC

I have no experience with SPT. But the other "street" kumhos like t he 712 lack any sort of confidence inspiring grip or stability. They squeel, as mentioned, and after two runs on a 65 second ax course, they were really greasy.

ttrx

Just put on KUMHO ECSTA SPT tires, with Nitrogen. I took off Toyo Proxes with 9k and Bald. I have had Pirelli Pzero rosso bald at 7k. Just 3 days on the Kuhmo my 86 runs like a new car. For $350 including installation, wow. We will see in 18 months. I will keep you posted.

David

cdodkin

My experience with Kumho:



Despite what you see above, it's not all bad - the failure happened on the inside of the rear drivers side tire on my wife's Boxster.

Caused complete deflation, and I was able to get my fingers through the holes in the inside tire shoulder!

However - she drove home 15 miles at normal road speeds on this - and neither lost control or damaged the rim.... So that's major points to Kumho

She heard something flapping - and being in the cabriolet she thought it was 'a helicopter overhead'.

Then the noise stopped, so she continued driving home!

I was called out to look when she got in the drive, as 'the tire was a little flat'

Go figure - I guess loosing 70% of the shoulder of a tire will make it go a little soft... and get it red hot as well.

She's a luck lady!

Chris.

Blacksport350

NICE! The damage in that photo looks to have been from running flat, not the initial cause of the flat. I am willing to bet that something else caused the original flat.

Either way, the Kumho 712 was not that impressive on a performance car. The dealer that I purchased an M Roadster from put some on and I couldn't wait to get them off! They were good daily street tires but when you pushed their limits, they just didn't have the traction.

porschedog

Thanks for the great input - I just went from the "not on my car" camp, to the "Something to consider" side.

bellwilliam

I don't think Kumho 712 has been considered to be their performance offering for the last 5 years. 712 was an old tire from 10 years ago.

CosmosC4S

I believe Kumho makes good tires, and they are working hard to make a name up there among the leaders. Right now, they make good tires, but without a "brand" name, it's hard to win over people's minds, and their loyalty to their regular brands. A few more years from now, I can see Kumho becoming a premium brand competing with the leaders, but with a price advantage of course.

Just like Samsung...they were junk years ago, today they are on the top with the leaders.
Hyundai is another example...give them a few more years and Toyota or Honda will have something to respect for competition.

Often times, it's all about brand and marketing. If you do a blind test...take some Michelins and hide all brand traces, put on a fake new name. Sponsor them to racers on the track, they will tell you "hmmm...yeah, it's not bad, but...I prefer the Michelins". That is IF they will even agree to try them out in the first place!

SoonerE39

I tried Kuhmos at the recommendation of a frined with an R32 that did some SCCA autocrossing. The first Auto-X I went to was sponsored by the PCA. One of the local PCA instructors commented about what a good experience he's had with the SPT's on his Boxster S.
I've continued to buy Kuhmos upon replacement and also bought a couple for my son's Mitsu 3000GT

pchak

I've had extremely good luck with them. I've never DE'd with them, though. They are noiseier, but I prefer them to Pirelli any day. Well-wearing tire for the price, and good with wet auto-X