Anyone have any comments or experience with this tire? Seems to be pretty soft/sticky by the treadwear specs, and its pretty cheap also.

I know Sumitomo is pretty new to the tire business in the US. But they are a huge industrial conglomerate with deep resources, so I have faith in their business and manufacturing acumen, but what about the tires?

 

HTRZ II

I have HTRZ II 18"s, 225 and 265

Cant compare them to anything else as they were on when I bought the car. Had the car for a year now.

No probs with the tyres. I am happy with the tread and the traction. Noise comfort is pretty reasonable. The tyres feel stable. Totally irrelevent but the tread looks really good.

I understand that they have joined up with Good Year???

<a href="http://www.tirerack.com/tires/sumitomo/su_htrz_2.jsp" target="_blank">TireRack Review</a>

Dont know what else you would like to know. <img src="graemlins/wave.gif" border="0" alt="[byebye]" />

 

Do you autocross/drivers ed/time trial? Do you get good grip out of them when pushing really hard? How is the wear since you've owned them?

 

The ZII doesn't come in my size. Here is what the Z looks like.


Not as attractive as the ZII.

 

Hi,
I havent tracked them at all.
The wear seems to be reasonable for normal street driving. I have had them a year, 6000M. Plenty left, although dont know how much. Ill take a look tommorow to see if I can tell.
I have to admit that I dont think that I have pushed the car real hard.
In terms of high speed driving and country roads, I was very confident with them, in terms of stability, noise and grip.
In terms of cornering fast, I can sometimes feel the back end go weak but I put that down to the nature of the beast. Rear Engine and RWD.
I doubt that they compare to ultimate performance tyres but for me they do fine.

Regards

 

Here's the tires I want:

Yokohama A032RS - Stickier and slicker version of the A032R



Yokohama A038R - unfortunately only sold by Lotus for the Elise



Yokohama A039



Bridgestone RE540S - really popular tire in Australia, NZ and the Targa Tasmania



Unfortunately, none of these are available in the U.S., so I'll just stick with my A032Rs I guess...

 

Chris, Hopefully the tyres should last me around 10000 more miles.


Danno, Those A039s look cool

 

cheers Bins


Danno,

You're running the A032R right? Are they daily driven or track only? What kind of wear do you get out of them?

 

The A032Rs are on a second set of BBS Race wheels I have, so they're for track-use only. I can get about 5 really hard track days out of them. Perhaps 8 if I take it easy, and on the street, they're good for about 6-9K miles

 

I had them on my 18" wheels. I used 285/35/18 for the rear and 225/40/18 for the front. I used 1 DE/auto-x, nice grip on dry and wet.

 

[quote]Originally posted by RT7:
<strong>I had them on my 18" wheels. I used 285/35/18 for the rear and 225/40/18 for the front. I used 1 DE/auto-x, nice grip on dry and wet.</strong><hr></blockquote>

The Sumitomos or the Yokohamas?

 

I'm not sure which he meant....

But the Yokes, BTW, are the only R-compound tires you can use in the rain. That's because they actually have some measureable tread-depth. So you can drive to the track and back and not have to worry about hitting rain there on the way.

 

Danno. A guy on the local SCCA site has a set of 15" Fuchs with Yokohama 509's for $600.00. I tried to find these tires on Tirerack, but couldn't. Are you familiar with them?

 

I used to have a set of A509s. I believe they were discontinued (maybe replaced with the A520?). I used them for street/autocross/drivers ed and got about 15k miles out of them. They were a good compromise between grip and price. Good multi-purpose tires, but not something you want to use for a dedicated track tire. One step below the AVS in terms of grip and price.

That said, I preferred the set of BFG Comp T/As that I had on prior. The grip was about the same, but the Yoks had a stiffer, more perpendicular, sidewall and I liked the way the sidewalls would roll over more gradually on the more rounded profile of the BFGs. But that is a personal preference. It was not not as extreme as the roll in a biased-ply like the Hoosiers, but a very subtle and perceptible difference.

 

Chris; Thanks for the info. I've got a post asking about AVS Intermediates on this forum too. TireRack has the 215/60 15's for $62.00, but getting an extra set of Fuchs would be worth several hundred dollars too,,,,,decisions, decisions....