doubleurx

Not that great. I did have to drive through some snow yesterday morning - white knuckle experience to say the least, but I made it to my destination. In the dry though, they are remarkable.

Kevinmacd

The only good comparision against the Hankooks are the Kumho Ecsta SPT. They Both have the same load rating and are within $20 some odd dollars within each other. Keep in mind the Hankooks and Khumo's are summer high performance tires. Not recommended for snow!

doubleurx

The XS are far superior to the SPT - of course they cost more also. I have winter tires for snow.

Sneaky Pete

Get some new shoes Larry...........I'm sure you don't want another insurance upgrade.

larry47us

Yes, Pete. Point well taken. I have ordered a new set of shoes - Sumitomo HTRZIII. NTB matched the price of On Line Tires, so I'm getting them for $643.60 + $45 shipping + $85 mounting Plus tax and tire disposal fee. This price is so much below what NTB normally sells them for, that we did all of the add-on's and it came out to $795 out the door for the 4 tires, mounted and balanced. Not bad!!

They were supposed to arrive on Friday, but they didn't make it yet. So, it'll be sometime next week, and then it's off to Perfect Power for an alignment. No corner balance - just an alignment. Then I'm set for safe, fun driving.

larry

Sneaky Pete

Good deal Larry. Sure beats paying the high dollar price for tires.

larry47us

Geez - you would think that I was ordering a custom made pair of shoes.

I ordered the Sumitomo HTRZIII from NTB, and a week later they came in, well - almost. The fronts arrived properly, but the rears were in the wrong size. I don't know if they ordered them wrong, or they shipped them wrong, but the tires that arrived were 285/30ZR-18. So I had them ship them back and order the right ones.

10 days later, I got a call. The correct tires arrived. OK, one more thing to check, and that's the manufacturer's date code. The front tires were manufactured 5110, which is the second last week in December, 2010. So the tires are just about 5 months old. That's fine. The rear tires were manufactured 4209, mid-October, 2009. That makes those tires 1 year and 7 months old. Too old for my blood. Now, those tires are probably OK for most purposes, but why not get tires that are fresh? Especially if you're paying $800 per set (including mounting and balance.)

I had them check at the warehouse to see if they had any tires that were newer. They had 7 other tires on the shelf. They were all the same date-code.

So, I cancelled the two rear tires, and ordered them from Tire Rack. Damon said that he would have them pull the freshest tires that they had on the shelf. I guess that I'll know in the next day or two what that means.

This has become a bit more convoluted and time consuming than I had expected. I guess that comes from ordering something, and expecting to get it. Why should that be so unusual?

larry

Renn 951

NTB does not = Tire Rack. So, if they've had 9 tires in that size sitting on the shelf for a year and a half, they aren't going to go off and buy a bunch more inventory just to have "fresher" tires. And 1.5 year old tires are not "bad" by any means, but most "regular" people will put enough miles on them each year that the tread will wear out before they truly get too old. Depending on how much mileage you accrue each year the age of the tire may or may not be a factor.

In that size range, Tire Rack probably turns over more inventory than NTB does. Here's hoping you get what you are looking for!

larry47us

Renn - Considering that I am probably going to put 10 - 12K miles annually, I don't know that even the 18 month old NTB tires are going to go stale on me. But, if I am going looking for the best tires for the money, I would think that I'm better off with the fresher tires. Right? This may be one of those things that doesn't matter a whole lot, considering. I hope that I'm not being picky and causing trouble for no reason.

larry

Renn 951

Larry - I understand where you are coming from, but in the end I'd look at the relative prices between NTB and Tire Rack. If the 18 month old tires aren't going to go stale on you, then I don't see any reason why you would be better off with "fresher" tires - especially if the NTB tires are priced better. But if Tire Rack beats or equals the NTB price and also has fresher tires, then that's what I'd recommend you go with.

larry47us

The twist is a bit different. NTB was willing to match Tire Rack's numbers. We loaded in the shipping cost, the mounting and balancing costs. There ended up to be just a few dollars different between the two sources. Probably the biggest difference was service. TR shipped same day, and has never shipped the wrong tires - I've bought from them a number of times. NTB is always slow with their deliveries. I end up getting the tires a week later than they had planned.

This is likely going to be the best deal all around - Tire Rack. I made it a lot more complex than it needed to be, buying fronts from NTB and rears from TR. Oh well, lessons learned.

larry

Kevinmacd

Why do you guys go with these Sumitiomo, when they don't meet the load rating as set by Porsche?
Hankook is giving an additonal $60 off when you buy 4. Even tire Rack rates them very close to Michelins.
I for one try and keep as close to the Porsche N spec as possible.

larry47us

Kevin,

It was kind of a tossup between the Sumitomo, Hankook and the Kumho. My indie spoke very highly of the Sumis. When talking to Damon at Tire Rack, he never brought up the load ratings as an issue. Based on the various comments regarding the three brands, it seemed to me that the Sumi's were the better value. I guess that I'll find out through experience.

Larry

doubleurx

FWIW, the front Sumitomos actually have a higher load rating than the PS2. However the rears are lower. All the others listed here meet or exceed the load ratings of the "n" spec tires.

larry47us

The rear Sumitomos came in from Tire Rack. They are dated 3210, which means they were manufactured in August of 2010. So, they are 9 months old. Just fine. I'll get them installed this week, get an alignment at Perfect Power, and I'm set for another year.

larry