We recently replaced our worn out, 1 year old OEM Toyo's with Kumho ECSTA ASX ($80 each). These tires are smooth and quiet and have a VERY good rating over at tirerack.com. I have high hopes for these tires as they "wear". I'll report back later...

 

Yeh! I replaced mine with the same. I have driven for three weeks and tires are great! I have GS300 AWD and wet and dry grips are great. I highly recommand the tire. It is way better than OEM tire runflat Dunlop..

 

Glad to read about the Kuhmo recommendations.

lexlovgs, what would you say are the most noticeable improvements over your Dunlop run-flats? I also have these and will need to replace them in a few months.

One of the things I dislike about the Dunlop tires is they ride like rocks. Do you think the Kumo tires give you a softer ride while still having decent handling?

 

I complained enough to Lexus about putting those loud a$$ yoko's on the car and they put 4 brand new Michelin Pilot HX MXM4's on for free! They are awsome tires for sure, not loud at all and a smooth ride. This is the ride you would expect from a 50K car...

C²

 

Kumho tires ride softer than OEM Dunlop but no noise what so ever and cuts the corner like Dunlop. I don't know the performance with RWD. I have AWD.
It is so quite at 70 MPH on highway, you feel like you are driving Lexus smooth and it also performs well when you want to ride fast.
It felld little bt softer when it start lean on the corner but it is not stiff walled runflat however it still grips the corner at 80 MPH!!!
I also drove on heavy rain and it also performed very well.
Hope this helps

 

I've been asked a few times about my tire situation from people who have read this thread, so I figured I would paste my response so everyone can read it...


I bought the car with 12k on it, I complained about it when I bought it and they said tough $h!t or we'll add 1k to the price. I came back a week later and talked to a guy because I was unhappy with my breaks... or what I thought was the breaks. This guy was very helpful, he checked it out and said breaks are fine. I told him then it's got to be the tires, he said that he was pretty sure that it was. He said 8 out of 10 who buy this car come back and complain about the tires. He told me bring it back in a week and he would have his "rep" (which I'm guessing was some sort of lexus corporate rep) to approve the tires. I brought it in, the rep said ok, and he ordered me 4 brand new michelin tires. It took 3 days but they gave me a free loaner, and they did an alignment while it was in there. They actually touched up the bottom of my bumper where I brushed a concrete dip, which was also free. I came out like a bandit on that situation!

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