Kumho rubber?

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The time has come to replace my fronts on my Mazda MPS after another 12k.

As standard, the car came with Bridgestone RE050A's, which I didnt really like. At the moment there are some Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta's on there, which are good but quite expensive!!

Looking around on Blackcircles, there is a Kumho 712 for £69 each fitted. This compares to approx £120 for a Goodyear Eagle F1, or £125 for the Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta.

I'm after 225/40/18. Has anyone got any good things to say about these Kumho 712's? It's hard to pass up on such a cheap price..
 
They are kind of cheap for a reason.. i.e. they don't perform as well in a lot of cases as the more expensive tyres.

The one brand I've experience of, the Falkens are probably the better of the cheaper brands.

My brother fitted a set of Falken 452's on his 290BHP Bus (Zafira), despite my protestations that they would be a step too far on what is a wayward over-powered heavy fwd car/van/bus/whatever..
He's done a fair few miles at maximum attack and they do seem to have surprised me in that they aren't half bad..

Definitely the grip levels are a little down to the usual expensive brands, and wear is a little more, but overall, despite every fibre of my body saying no, I have to say from experience they will probably do you OK (The Falken's, not the Kumho's as I don't have any experience of them)..

One minor point, when I go to buy a car, especially something as quick as an MPS, if I see cheap tyres, that really starts alarm bells, as it's a sign the owner is prepared to cut little corners to save money, but that may be just me!
 
Nah I don't mind paying the extra, I was just looking for opinions - looked at a couple of reviews on different sites and they seemed to be well recieved.

90% of my mileage is now on Motorway/Dual Carriageways if that makes any difference.
 
Kumhos are fine for everyday driving IMO. I've had them on the front since august with no issues including all through the snow.
 
I wouldn't even consider them.
Tyres are so important to your car's handling and safety charachteristics.
Buy the best tyres you can.
 
What did you not like about the bridgestone RE050A's out of interest? I use these and have absolutely no complaints at all, excellent life combined with grip levels beyond what i have ever dared to test.
 
Lashout_UK said:
Had Kuhmos on the Corvette, really impressed with them :)
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I have to admit, until my Brother bought a set, I had the same opinion as some have, i.e. don't skimp on the rubber, it's your life you are messing with..

But some of these Falken/Kumho's are actually pretty reasonable, and my brother did find some magazine tests that did show that they performed in the lab quite well, and are a million miles away from real ditchfinders..

I'm still a bit undecided, and have stuck to F1's with my own cars, but when it's £140 a corner Vs £70 for a few percent drop in performance, I'm kind of entertaining the idea a bit more..
 
Demon said:
I'm still a bit undecided, and have stuck to F1's with my own cars, but when it's £140 a corner Vs £70 for a few percent drop in performance, I'm kind of entertaining the idea a bit more..
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Exactly. I've always bought good rubber before, but I'm starting to wonder if saving 50% on the purchase price is worth the slight drop in performance. I'm hardly pushing the car to the limits!
 
Jez said:
What did you not like about the bridgestone RE050A's out of interest? I use these and have absolutely no complaints at all, excellent life combined with grip levels beyond what i have ever dared to test.
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They just felt very slippy - which is strange because I've driven some other cars with much lesser tyres on, and never felt such a lack of confidence in going into a corner with a bit of speed.

The final icing on the cake for them for me was the life span - I got approx 8.5k out of them - They are roughly £140 compared to the £120 odd for a Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta which have lasted approx 12k with a bit of life still in them, it's a no brainer.
 
Used Kumho on the last 3 pugs and the current corsa.
Cracking stuff for the money, wasn't until i sold a set of alloys with the tyres still on and chucked on a set of steelies with generic tyres on that i realised what a difference the Kumho rubber had made.

Obviously not dealing with masses of power but they've been good on every motor i've used them on.
 
Unlight said:
They just felt very slippy - which is strange because I've driven some other cars with much lesser tyres on, and never felt such a lack of confidence in going into a corner with a bit of speed.

The final icing on the cake for them for me was the life span - I got approx 8.5k out of them - They are roughly £140 compared to the £120 odd for a Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta which have lasted approx 12k with a bit of life still in them, it's a no brainer.
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Weird - mine felt as grippy as any other performance tyre ive ever used, and i got over 40k from the front, and over 30k from the rear! I'm not defending them out of any kind of brand loyalty or any of that nonsense, i genuinely found them great and will definitely purchase again.

:confused::)
 
I use these and i'm on my second set, for me they are really nice soft grippy tyres and i get a decent amount of wear out of them. I prefer them to the F1's as they have similar grip levels but last a little longer.

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop....gorie=6&Ang_pro_Seite=10&Transport=P&dsco=110

Thats my 2 peneth anyway. Like already said dont scrimp, but like i've found out, you don't need to pay over the odds either.

Oh and if you look at my tyres top banner this is the tyre on the pic, so they must like them too.
 
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I have kumho ecsta's and rate them very highly. Impressed with them! A friend of mine rates them also. Not much between them and the eagles and PS2's before them, and seem to be lasting much better than the eagles did (6k miles:eek:) 9k already, and plenty of life left. And yes my car is properly geo'd before anyone tells me It can't be.
 
am i the only one that uses conti sportcontact 3s? :o
(the previous owner had a mate at conti and got (free?) tyres, i've stuck with it as i don't want 2 different sets on the same car)
 
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