Sumitomo HTR H4

[Wintermute]

Any experience with these tires? They seem to be pretty good all-season tires with a decent price and good handling. Plus they're non-directional so could rotate 'em without having to remove and remount the tires.

Specs:
Ultra High Performance All-Season
Speed rating: W
UTQG: 400 A A

http://www.sumitomotire.com/theline/product.asp?id=3

[986Jim]

Are you hard up for cash or something? Buy a proper tire man!

[Wintermute]

Gee thanks. That's great advice really.

Sorry, for a daily driver I don't need $1000 racing tires that will last a year.

Wintermute, do you really need "all-season" tires in Arizona?

[986Jim]

All of your tires will only last a year, might as well get a set thats designed for the car. If you want all season tires buy a Civic. You own a Porsche, so put descent tires on it.

At bare minimum check out Kuhmo MX they are cheap and descent tires. If your really hard up a set of Kuhmo 712's will still work.

[RandallNeighbour]

Check out the other sumi's like I bought. HTR Z-II I think. Much better tire.

ToolPants uses them.

The rest of you with $1000 for rubber need to keep your high-dollar opinions to yourself. My Sumi's are great tires. High Performance Summer tire though. Not all season.

[986Jim]

My recommendation: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Sizes.jsp?make=Kumho&model=ECSTA+MX

RandallNeighbour:http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Sizes.jsp?make=Sumitomo&model=HTR+Z+II

The sumimoto are cheaper, the MX are more of a discount style SO-3 really. I had never even heard of the MX but many times Kuhmo. My buddy bought them for his 655whp supra (Gretty T88 system, full on car) thats on pump gas btw, and they seems to hold the power through 3rd at WOT, but not 2nd which is not surprising. He has 295's in the rear of his car, so thats pretty good really. They have a nice solid block design which is good for holding power and grip in corners.

Either way this will be better than any all-season tire. If you can't, at minimum, pony up for these your in the wrong car.

Here is a clip from somebody with an Impreza that bought the HRT H4's you wanted to buy.
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________
I used the reviews from this site to make the decision to buy these. Unfortunately, I am not sure if the reviews are really from real people. I put these on my Impreza and drove it for a couple months. They replaced an old low end pair of tires. My opinion is that these tires are unsafe. The old tires, even with extremely low tred, performed better. They were unpredictable in wet conditions, felt loose in dry conditions, and snow is just out of the question. My wife then drove the Subaru for a while and she told me she did not feel safe driving it either. She had even refused to drive the car in rain on a couple ocassions. We just stuck with them because we knew we would be trading the car in.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Gee thanks. That's great advice really.

Sorry, for a daily driver I don't need $1000 racing tires that will last a year.

Wintermute

I know where you are coming from. Kumho and Sumi make a decent tire for the money, ie. the value equation. Yokohama also makes a nice tire.

One thing I think you do want to check out is the look of the tires. I have seen some Kumhos that look pretty bad on the car, ie terrible side profile.

Lastly, I would check Tire Rack on the price of Dunlops. Sometimes, they offer killer sales on some nicely rated Dunlops.

Good luck and thanks for asking.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by 986Jim

Are you hard up for cash or something? Buy a proper tire man!

Jim, this was a useless post. Make a proper contribution or don't post!

[Wintermute]

Ok thanks everyone for your opinions.

First off, I just saw that the H4's were new tires that Sumitomo had on their site and I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with them. I know Randall likes the HTR ZIIs and figured someone might have used some different models for comparison. That's basically what got me started down this particular road. If I can get a tire that gives me 90% of the performance at 30% of the price, I'm willing to deal with that. Gives me more $ to do other fun things with the car.

Also, I've used Kumho Ecsta ASXs in the past and loved them. They held up great and gave me good, solid traction all year round. In fact that's what is on the car right now (came with 'em) and they are very nice. Pretty much brand new (a few thousand miles).

As for all-season vs. not, for the most part they aren't needed in AZ. But we have family that lives in the mountains and there is usually snow and ice on the ground there during the winter. So having to change tires just for a weekend visit is irritating when I could have a decent all-season tire and not worry about it. But that isn't my main concern. I basically want something that will last as long as it can on this car, and give me good performance vs. price.

A high-performance summer tire (like the HTR ZIIs or the Kumho MX's) would be just fine because 95% of my driving will be summer-like conditions. As long as they maintain good wet traction (monsoons here can cause you to drive thorough 3-4" of water on all the roads), I'm happy.