Possibly the new "king" of steet tires an my replacement set...

frayed said:

I just got off the phone with one of senior tech guys at Kumho about their new street tire, the MX, seen here:

http://www.kumhousa.com/pages/pass_uhp_mx.htm

For us M3 guys, I called to inquire about the tire, since it is listed in the 245/40-17, but not 235/40's. While they have not ruled out that size, it will be quite some time before we see them, probably 10 mos. So, if you are willing to go with wider rims up front (like 8 or 8.5's) and possibly use spacers (if you are using c/o's, for example), it may be a good way to go.

In my discussion, I learned that this is a max performance tire, just below the Yokohama AO32R (Dot R) in terms of ultimate grip but better than most of the street performance street tires on the market for dry and wet grip. It was engineered to best the Bridgestone S03 and the BFG KD. The tech rep I spoke with stated that he was supremely confident (my words, not his) that it would beat the S03 in performance, and independent testing will bear this out.

He did not give me exact pricing, but stated that they will be priced lower than the S03. BTW, the rep I spoke with was an industry veteran, defecting from Bridgestone 1 mos. ago after 15 years as an engineer for them. He was intimately familiar with the S03, as well as the BFG KD.

It will be interesting to see the independent testing from the tire Rack.

They will be available April timeframe, as they are in production now. If the Kumhos are close in performance to the present S03's, and cheaper, it will be a huge win for consumers like us; I bet there will be some downward pricing pressure on companies like Bridgestone. . . .

Just passing it along......

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In other tire news, we talked about where Kumho is positioned in the market, having gotten a loyal following in the track area for the great Dot R-compound tires, and their interest in getting more visibility and penetrating the street tire market. In talking over their street tires, the 712's, he thought they really offer the best bang for the buck.

I then brought up the Sumitomo's as being as good for the money if not better. The jist of our discussion here was that he thought the Sumi's are great tires, but not heavily marketed here in the US. Reading b/t the lines, I think he didn't comment b/c in the lower price points, the Sumi HTRZ II's kick the 712's butt. He also clarified that Sumitomo used to own Dunlop, but now Dunlop owned by Goodyear.

Finally, wrt their DOT-R compounds, the deal is that eventually they will kill their Victoracer V700 in favor of the Ecsta V700, but that they wanted to have ample overlap b/t the two to give racer-types a chance to migrate to the new tires and accept them. They did not want to have happen what happened to BFG with their R1's.

Peace.

Jeff

PS, this guy sounded really, really hooked into the Bridgestone organization, and got me a lot of technical information about fitment (Brian L., the stuff we were talking about) issues.

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