[s-cars] Sumitomo HTR ZIII

Wed Aug 5 22:16:59 PDT 2009

I just went through this debate process myself.  Let me tell you what I
decided on, which I will be ordering in the next week or so.  I currently
have BFG KDW2's -  on my '01 S4 with a coil over suspension - great grip but
they give me a headache they are so loud.  So, I was trying to decide
between Direzza Star Spec's - VERY sticky extreme summer tire, and the
Sumitomos, which had some negative reviews on TireRack (I always sort by
worst reviews first).  They seemed to paint a common theme of inconsistent
quality and they said the tires were pretty loud when you drive them hard.
I banzai way too many turns around town to have to worry about Mr. Officer
hearing me when the car is really still perfectly under control.  So I had
just about decided on the Direzza's when I stumbled upon the following Car
and Driver comparison test:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparisons/09q2/tire_test_nine_affordab
le_summer_tires_take_on_the_michelin_ps2-comparison_tests

To make a long story short, the second place tire was a new offering from
Hankook - the Ventus V12 Evo.  I then found as many reviews online as I
could and it sounded like a very good tire.

Beat the KDW2 in dry grip, actually beat everything except the Direzza and
Kumho XS (which is damn near a track only tire), was the quietest tire, and
had awesome wet performance.  You have to look at all the graphs of the
results that are links pasted in the review on page 1 under the "Downloads"
section to see how good these tires really are.  Since the Sumitomo had
performance that was on par with the KDW2 in the dry and the Hankook ws
better that seems like a good deal.  AND on top of that, for those of you
who think the Sumitomo's are cheap check out the Hankooks!  Tire Rack has
them for like $128 a tire in 235/40/18, more expensive than the Sumitomos,
but if you look at onlinetires.com they have them for 107.28 a tire for the
235/40/18's and Hankook currently has a rebate of $50 on four of these
tires.  With shipping, after the rebate, that comes out to like $420 for a
set of 4 in that size!  So I will be ordering these within the next week as
the rebate goes out at the end of August.  I will let you guys know how they
turn out.

--Calvin

-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com]On Behalf Of LL - NY
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 8:01 PM
To: mike claire
Cc: Robert Rossato; s-car-list at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Sumitomo HTR ZIII

General (haha) reviews of the General Exclaim UHP on the Saabaru site are
about the same as Mike's review (although there are two regular posters whom
do like them).  I'd stick by the Sumitomos, or consider the Falken Ziex
912's, which reviewd well by Grassroots Motorsports in the budget HP tire
catagory (sometime spring this year, me thinks).

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 9:12 PM, mike claire <mike.claire at gmail.com> wrote:

> BTDT with the Exclaims. I read the TR reviews. How can you go wrong -
> especially for the price?  I will explain.
>
> The big box store manager didn't even want to order them, he was sure
> I wouldn't like them. Ok thanks for the warning. Now just order 'em
> and match tire rack's price, thank you very much.
>
> A few days later they were on the car. I knew I was in trouble within
> the first 200 feet.
>
> They squirmed bad. I drove over sand and did a few 60-30 ABS stops to
> get the shine off the contact patch. Then I drove back to the store
> and took my lumps. It was an expensive mistake.
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
> On 8/5/09, Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Steve-
> > Considering how good the HTR-ZII was, I would get the Sumitomos- they
> fared
> > very very well in the Tire Rack test.
> >
> > You're driving a 740i now? Which chassis, E38? How do you like it? Any
> > issues with the car? I love those cars, they look great and drive
nicely.
> >
> > Taka
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:13 PM, Young, Steve <sryoung at trane.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Agreed.  Decent reviews, excellent price.  I'm trying to decide between
> >> the Sumitomo's and the General Exclaim UHP's which are ~$15 more and
get
> >> better reviews, but are directional.  I would normally have just bought
> >> the Generals, but the F/R sizes are staggered on the 740i and having
> >> directional tires precludes rotating side to side without a dismount
and
> >> rebalance.
> >>
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Steven Young
> >> Project Developer - New York / Vermont Territory
> >> ____________________________________TRANE
> >> 301 Old Niskayuna Rd., Latham, NY  12110
> >> Tel: 518.724.1453
> >> Fax: 518.785.4359
> >>
> >> www.trane.com
> >>
> >> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Robert Rossato [mailto:rossato.qlist at gmail.com]
> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 7:08 PM
> >> To: Young, Steve; s-car-list at audifans.com
> >> Subject: RE: [s-cars] Sumitomo HTR ZIII
> >>
> >> Curious myself.  Getting close to pulling the trigger myself.  Hard to
> >> ignore the cost.
> >>
> >> bob
> >>
> >>
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> > From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
> >> > [mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Young, Steve
> >> > Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 6:59 PM
> >> > To: s-car-list at audifans.com
> >> > Subject: [s-cars] Sumitomo HTR ZIII
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Anyone have any experience with these?
> >> >
> >> > Regards,
> >> >
> >> > Steven Young
> >>
> >>
> >> The information contained in this message is privileged and intended
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