Tires, revisited

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01-04-08 | 03:59 AM

#16

19psi

Lexus Champion

Joined: Feb 2007

Posts: 2,489

Likes: 3

From: Lou-Evil KY

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu

Thanks for the

review. I really want to believe you because they are about half the price of Michelin Primacy ... but for everyone like you who says they are awesome, I have found someone who say they are total ****. I don't get it.

I was wondering, where you get that Khumos balance better than Michelins ?
How do you know, I doubt you are a tire installer driving a Lexus.

I will likely get Bridgestone's Turanza or Serenity, or Yokohamas ... but the Solus keeps popping up but I dont want to join the half that claim it's the worst tire they ever had, lol

well.... i'm a factory certified lexus, jaguar, audi, and nissan tech. i've mounted and blanced solus's on every one of those vehicles more times than i can count.

i honestly can't think of a reason anyonewould say they are the worst tires they owned;unless they are going from a high performance tire to the solus which is a touring tire. kumho in general makes excellent tires across their linup. i've installed their high performance tires on many different sports cars and the owners have always been absolutely amazed that a cheap tire handles and wears better than tires costing 2x as much. their off road mud tires are unstoppable too; a good friend of mine with a grand cherokee bought some on my recommendation and absolutely loves them. i've had my share of kumhos also and have never been disappointed.
i don't work for kumho or anything, i just think it's dumb for people to spend more money on tires than they have to.

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01-04-08 | 12:45 PM

#17

werewolf

Lexus Test Driver

Joined: Oct 2007

Posts: 975

Likes: 5

From: CA

My 2 cents

Quote:

Originally Posted by twister

Sorry guys, this topic has been revisited so many time. But, I still can't find a definitive answer and hope to hear your opinion. I got stock runflat Dunlops on my AWD which at 14.5k miles is starting to loose their grip and I will be looking for replacement really soon before the winter. Here in NJ we get severe weather with snow and ice, so my choices right now are either Michelin Pilot Sport A/S ($181) or Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position ($149). Those are quoted TR prices. I was also looking at ContiExtreme Contact which everyone raves about, BUT they do NOT come in 225/50-17 size for our cars. Makes me wonder how others got it on theirs, unless if they went with 225/45-17 which is not recommended for our cars?

Anyway, Potenza tires rated #1 and cheaper versus Pilot #4 and more expensive and worse snow/ice performance @ TR. But, Pilot is rated based on 10x more miles versus Potenza so it has a longer term review. I think both are rated at about 40k miles which is normal for moderate driving on ultra high-performance A/S tires. Basically, I can't make up my mind about either of those. My driving style is 100 highway miles a day, not very aggressive, and also through some typical pothole Jersey areas.

Can you help me with comments and suggestions which one to choose?

In my experience, Michelin tires are priced at a significant premium to other tire makes. I have run MX4 energys on my other car (x5) and have been very impressed with treadlife and road noise. I am not very impressed with traction in snow/light snow. Pilots are generally considered expensive for the class of tire they compete against.

If potholes are an issue, then you need to keep the bigger sidewall to the tire (225/50 not 225/45) to help protect your rims. Also highway driving is more about treadlife and road noise then handling 95% of the time. A bigger sidewall will help absorb some of the road uneven-ness.

I have run the stock OEM Dunlops and think they are garbage tires. I have also run Kumho ASXs on another car and been reasonably impressed.

Hope that helps

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