iJeremy

Hoping this review might help anyone else in a similar situation looking at new rubber for his or her Boxster... We have a 99' 986 in the stable that really only sees nice-weather weekends, the occasional date night and (gasp!) our 14 year old is learning to drive a manual on (with very close adult supervision). With all of that in mind it was time to replace the very worn out rear Sumitomo HTR ZIII's that were on the car when I purchased it about a year ago. With an island vacation less than a month away and mother's day on the horizon for my wife, and both of our moms I figured something budget friendly was the way to go. Worst case scenario I bite the bullet when we get back from vacation and replace them if they turned out to be awful.

I went to the trusty inter-webs and after a little searching discovered I could get a complete set, front and rears, Nankang Noble Sport NS-20's for $250 shipped! I read review after review, watched every YouTube video I could find on them and after much debate on both sides the jury still seemed to be out. Finding opinions from people who have actually run them was difficult, though just finding opinions was not! Even though my front HTR's were basically new, at $250 I was more curious than anything and figured it's a pretty small out-of-pocket cost to know if these are a viable option in the future so I ordered all four and mounted them up at a local Firestone at a cost of $16/corner for m&b.

So... what are they like? Great! I took the car a little outside of town and put it through it's paces, jumped on the highway, found some water from the rain we've had off and on and the NS-20's have felt planted, quiet and sticky the whole time. Obviously this is a 2.5 liter that struggled to break the old bald Sumi's lose even in the best of conditions but for the cost of these tires, I'm extremely pleased so far. I'll try to update after another 5k and then at 10k to see how they wear but out of the box they feel every bit as sure-footed as the HTR ZIII's for normal-ish duty. No they aren't Pilot Sports, but the runt in our litter rarely sees any track time so if you're on the fence or even slightly curious, these seem like a great low-cost option so far! Pictures below, and yes... I know the crests aren't facing the valve stems