Shark Attack

I have mis-matched tires on the car now and my fronts are pitted and the car handles like poop.

Well the divorce and being slow at the office has taken its toll and I cheaped out with new sumitomo htrz II tires all the way around. Back to the stock tire sizes also.

I cant find anything bad about them, but cant find anything good. They were only $550 for the whole set.

Anyone know anything about sumi's ??

Thanks
K~

Dennis C

I had a decent experience with a set of Sumitomo HTR Z III tires. I'm not sure about the II's...

nick49

Kyle, I ran 2 sets of the lls on my '99 Cab. They feel slick for the first couple of hundred miles, then feel terrific. I could push my Cab scary fast in the canyon twisties with them and they were great in the rain as well. The Sumi lls may be the best kept tire secret out there.

I needed tires over the winter as my Michelin PS2s were about gone and my busy season at work was a couple of months away so I cheapened out as well. I bought a set of the lls for my Turbo. I was literally blown away with the performance. They handle better than the Michelin PS2s on the street ever have since I've had the Turbo. To be fair the rears were at about 60% good and the fronts 80% when I bought the car a year ago. I've nothing good to say about the Turbos handling. It would step out abruptly without warning. I even spun out on the street once taking a 90 degree turn that I could have made no problem in the cC2 Cab. Now I know it was the Michelins, not the car. I have pushed the car really hard in slow turns, below 60 MPH and the Sumi lls stick like crazy and are very confidence inspiring. Its been a bit cold her and I've not tried them at much over 70 degrees, but so far I'm super impressed. We'll see how they do in the summer heat and into the triple digit speeds.

Pac996

I'll second that strange mushy tires till broken in. The extreme contact dry wets did that to me absorbing bumps a lot more and feeling mushy when turning then now they are stiffened up. Strange.....

As far as feeling like you got cheap tires they all pretty much burn out and taking the car to the limit unless on a track.....well.....just have fun with them.

Barn996

I also run Sumi III and think they are very good tires. Can't comment on the IIs. Did you bleed your clutch Kyle?

Shark Attack

Wow, not what I thought I would hear. Thanks a bunch, no Barn, havent had time yet.

chsu74

I had Sumi IIIs for years. Aside from flat spotting, which goes away in about 15 min of driving, they were fine.

dotframe

I am running the Sumi IIIs right now and don't have any complaints. They are great on the street and good so far with noob track driving.

fpena944

I have the IIs on my car right now and they've been on both the track and autocrossing. On the street they are quiet and handle the rain sufficiently.

On the track they are decent and start screaming for life before you hit the limit. Autocrossing I feel they haven't been the limiting factor.

So they're not as good as the IIIs but for this set I knew I was going to rack up a lot of street miles so I figured I'd go with the less expensive option and see how they work out.

No complaints so far and I'm having a set of IIIs installed later this week since my rears are now worn out.

rpm's S2

Big difference between IIs and IIIs...

The answer to your question is directly related to your expectations and your driving needs. With tires in general you do get what you pay for. Sumi IIs will get noisy relatively fast and will not provide the grip or feel that you get from better tires. But, truth be told, for the vast majority of owners this is not going to be a huge detriment.

Enjoy the car... and in a year or two (or around 10-12k for the backs, whichever comes first) you can decide if they were a good purchase and buy them again or upgrade.

Hyper911

have III's here and like them alot

Shark Attack

this is a good point. But in thinking... Last set of namebrands I bought were 2200.00 down the road...

I could put a new set on every season and still be ahead.
I do hate a noisy tire....

Shark Attack

Also... If anyone is kinda local... I ordered a set of the htrz III, first by mistake and they shipped... But they were 17" whoops! I needed 18's

So i ordered the II's if anyone wants the III's speak up, they were 480.00 for the set... Can you believe the II were 100$ more money?

Turbodan

yeah 18s are more money than 17s.

ryangambrill

+1