DaveSpeed

I have Continentals ContisportII's, in between price of PS2's and Sumis.

I like the Continentals alot, but have not had any track days with them. Sumis will probably last longer.

EastBay

I had a thread earlier this year on tires. I bought the Sumi's, good tire, but next time I will try the kooks as people claim they are even quieter.

Ray S

Thta's a pretty bold statement. I think most would agree the Sumitomo HTR Z III represents a valus tradeoff vs. the Michelin Pilot Sport, but I've never heard anyone say that if money were no object that they actually select the Sumi's over the MPS. Additionally, on the Tire Rack web site the MPS has significantly higher user review ratings than the Sumi's.

Got any independent reviews you could publish that would back up your claim that the HRT will "give slightly better performance" than the Pilot Sports?

rpm's S2

^Agreed. If price were no concern I would put Michelins on every car I have.

Barn996

I had Michelins on an Audi TT, and they were the noisiest tires I ever had with less than 10k miles from new, and they were pricey then. I couldn't be happier with the Sumis I have now.

Ray S

That's strange. That's one big reason I keep coming back to the MPS, it's one of the quietest high performance tires I've ever used.

So far on my 986 and 996 I've used, PZero's, Continentals, Khumo's, and Michelin's and none of the others even come close to the all around performance I get from the Michelins.

I did experience the HTR Z's on a students Cayman. In my opinion they don't have quite the ultimate grip of the MPS, but they did not seem noisy (hard to tell with a helmet and full throttle engine noise). The Pirelli PZero is the worst in my experience when it comes to noise. They are ok for the first few thousand miles and then they get progressively noisier through the rest of their life (to the point where I had to get rid of them despite the fact they still have useful tread left).

tooloud10

If his car is the one pictured in his avatar, I'm thinking the sizes recommend above won't fit.

kristyhana

When I bought the car, the seller put new Hankook v12 evo's on. I've driven about 1200 miles on them and I think it's a great tire, and cheap! It's quiet, has good grip, great in wet/dry conditions, and half the cost. Seriously, no tire can have such a performance upgrade that would be worth that much extra money, imo.

TomF

I have the Sumis on my 996. They are very quiet and have a very good grip for the money. I had MPSs on my 95 993 and I absolutely loved them. They were excellent tires in the wet as well. Bridgestones, BFGs and many others I tried were really not good wet tires.

If money was no object, I would get the MPSs, otherwise the Sumis are a great tire for the price.

sparks259

have sumis now.
having done 3 de events with limited driving, and street driving for the balance off use, the rears wore out after 14k miles.
the fronts are still fine.
just ordered another set of rears today.
pretty quiet, fair at best grip.
no idea how they are in the wet.
after this set, i'll probably scour the tire rack website for a different brand.

Tanner2305

My rims are 17" so 18" I guess are out of the question. And yes, since my wife is my CFO the cost is of great concern. If it wasn't I would have had Pilot's on already.

It looks like the Sumiis are a good lower cost alternative. After all I only put 1200 km's on the car last summer. How bad could they be???

Thanks to all for the great info and advise.

Jim Griffin

What 235's are you running in the front?

mavthenav

Sumi's are the way to go, less than half the price and just as good.

sjfehr

Don't confuse cost with value or performance, there is not necessarily any correlation between the two. Here are Tirerack's test numbers for dry track performance in 2009 before they changed the test platform and invalidated all cross-test data:

8.67 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1
8.64 Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD07
8.64 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec
8.58 BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KD
8.39 Kumho Ecsta MX Extreme Performance Summer
8.30 Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric
8.26 Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R
8.24 Sumitomo HTR Z III
8.23 Michelin Pilot Sport PS2
8.20 Bridgestone Potenza RE050A Pole Position
8.15 Continental ContiSportContact 3
7.96 Yokohama ADVAN Sport
7.46 Hankook Ventus R-S2 Z212
7.23 BFGoodrich g-Force Sport

There seems to be a small margin of error to the numbers, given variations between the same tires in different tests. But they're clearly right up there with the top performers and by Tirerack's numbers are slightly better than the PS2. I don't know of anyone seriously competing on HTRZIIIs, but no way I'd spend the money on PS2s, not when there are so many excellent tires like Dunlop Star Spec and Hankook RS3 for so much cheaper. [If price was no object, I'd be sporting Hoosier A6s!] For strictly street use, you're never going to notice the difference in performance between HTRZIII any any of the others here, but you will notice the price difference.

Kevinmacd

I have Bridgestones 960's 18". Nice street tire, not for the track. They seem to last quit a while and provide quit a bit of grip. Great in the rain. Not rated to 180mph. But never got close to that anyway. I would recommend these, they are the quietest tire I have had on the car so far, I had Michelins, and Contis. My persepective the Michelins are overrated. Debating on trying new the Conti's DW good reviews.