Firstly the Falken 912 is not quite in the same league as the 452 or the Kumho mentioned here, it's a lower performance tyre, designed more for comfort.
I've heard some positive things about both, quite a bit of good stuff about the Kumho's, but I've been reading about tyres with regard to heavier rear wheel drive cars, and different tyres can suite different cars really, they might work with a 1,700kg 5 series, but an Elise weighing almost half that ...probably not so well.
Several observations have cropped up consistently for each tyre though, along with all the usual hype and bs you get of course, with regards to use on various BMW's.
The Falken seems to be fairly prone to tramlining and the wear rate isn't brilliant, although not terrible and road noise is relatively high on the Falken, the Kumho creates less road noise and has generally better wear rates (indeed suggesting it's a bit harder, although I would have expected this to mean more noise, but this is what I have read) but has been critisied for lacking 'feel'. Indeed both tyres seem to me to be a bit of a compromise in at least one area.
I am as yet undecided what tyres to buy myself, but I am leaning heavily towards a set of Vredestein Ultrac Sessantas, if I were to pick between the Falken and the Kumho ...well that's tough, but based on what I have read I think I would go with the Kumho for my car.
Problem is almost everyone has something different to say about these tyres, some are clearly basing their opinions on previous experience with Ling Long and think they are the most amazing things ever, others have no doubt used top of the line performance tyres from Goodyear and Bridestone etc and have a different view. It's hard to say for certain without trying them yourself really. I have noticed that some of the same observations come up time and again though as I said, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say, those are probably 'reasonably' accurate then.
One other tyre you could consider in the same sort of bracket as the Falken 452 and the Kumho KU31 is the Avon ZZ3, which offers good grip levels but are a little softer than either of the others and tend to wear quite quickly, ...so they might suite a lighter weight car better than the others. I have Avon ZZ3s on the back of my 540, I did not put them on, the previous owner did but the grip they offer even with only 3mm of tread left is quite good, I've no doubt they are much better when they are new, I've used Continental Sport Contact 2s with similarly low levels of tread remaining and they've been awful, really slick, although in fairness that was a different car so hard to compare directly.
