Tires..price..performance..

[Mayhem_J30]

Look at this tirerack comparison of a michelon pilot h4 and a kumho.http://www.tirerack.com/tires/...lue=1

why is the kumho half the price? yet it seems to excel against the michelon. the tread wear ratings are interesting as customer rates the wear higher on the kumho but the actual UTQG rating is lower. unless i'm reading it wrong. i looked around on their site for data definitions but they seem to be missing now.

[Repo Man]

That link didn't work Chris. But from what I've heard, Kumhos have excellent performance at first but that performance becomes seriously degraded over time.

The Kumho that was tested, was that the Ecsta 712 or MX?

[Mayhem_J30]

sorry, must only work on mine because of temp files or something.it was Pilot XGT H4 vs Kumho Ectsa 711Both 225/45HR17'sIf any one is bored take a look at the two and let me know what you think. It's not time for new tires yet, heck mine don't even appear worn yet, but just noticed them after looking for winter tires for the other cars.The Michelons are a HighPerformance All-Season and the Kumho's are just High Performance. The Kumho's had an n/a rating for snow traction, but these tires will never see snow anyway. The Kumho's are $70 and the Michelon's $152. For less then half the price I've got to be overlooking something. If it's like you said Repoman that the Kumho's lose performance over time, most likely due to heat cycling it may or may not be worth it depending on severity. But like I said at half the price I can afford that trial and error.

[Q45tech]

Tire Review is a monthly magazine for tire dealers, their 10th annual survey just came out.In the Product Quality Area Kumho was 15th down from the top Michelin/Toyo...... but Dunlop, Continential, Mastercraft, and Uniroyal were lower.Kumho was 14th down from Toyo/ Michelin in Product Innovation and Overall Brand AverageKumho scored 4th in Profitability.But the above covers all tires in the brand so singling out one size and model is probably not fair.

Michelin Pilot H4 are premium material precision tires that stay round longer than any other brand on a Q. This means you don't have to balance or rotate or flip them as often.The real cost of tires is not the purchase price! It is the maintenance costs associated with keeping them vibration free especially in 16-17" and higher!

But then again most owners don't seem to care or don't spend the money for a precision balance every 90 days. Every quiver in the steering is noticeable to me.

I would take tread wear seriously on ANY tire after all you dump them half worn don't you.

[Mayhem_J30]

Thanks Q45tech, I did read that post from the other day. Obviously maintenance is not included in the tirerack survey results. It just initially strikes me odd that the results were exceeding the pilots with that kind of price difference. I'm still Michelon true like most of the Infiniti guys around here and I'm not switching unless there was some argument for the Kumho's...what I was looking for in this thread.So far that's 2 nay's for the Kumho's.

[Eswift]

ive got michelin pilots on the rear and some kumho's up in the front. about 10k miles on both, no problems with either to speak of, same amount of wear.

[Mayhem_J30]

ive got michelin pilots on the rear and some kumho's up in the front. about 10k miles on both, no problems with either to speak of, same amount of wear.

why did you go with two types of tires? will this not create premature tire wear?

[Q45tech]

When you mix tires be certain you understand [complicated changes in interaction] the slip angle vs weight curves under load as the stock Q uses steadily rising roll stiffness at the front vs linear rear..........Using harder compounds on the rear will decrease the rear traction [coefficient] and may increase power oversteer in wet.

Normally I use the Harder Pilot H4 [235/60/15] on the front and softer tires in the rear when I mix them.

Since the static weight load is at least 8-10% higher on each of the fronts. You want the highest rated tires there.

Using directional tires on the rear will mean LESS feathering if you have to put them somewhere.

[Q45tech]

The problem is how many test are done on heavy RWD cars like the Q and J.

By utilizing a tire that exceeds the minimal oem load rating you GAIN MUCH in durability and performace......the tire won't go out of round nearly as fast and may never do so...............where do you find 1700 pound rated tires for a Q or J [in a reasonable speed rating this is the hard part].

Just a 10% stronger tire would require 1673 pounds [something like a 98 or 99 load rating] you have a very very hard time finding these in 17-18 unless special oems.

[911/Q45]

I too was puzzled by comparable ratings between Michelins and tires that cost half as much(Sumitomo). I decided that, since the ratings are purely subjective by the Tire Rack customers, lower prices=lower expectations. My put on it is that head to head Michelin would be superior.

[Eswift]

what you say q45tech is definitely true, but those who opt for the plus-sized wheels usually are faced with replacing the tires much sooner than with the OEM size simply due to the generally progressively softer compounds used on tires with a smaller aspect ratio. i think the limiting factor then becomes the amount of tread remaining rather than a severe out-of-round circumstance. as always, performace has an extreme tradeoff in durability.

you definitley want the higher-rated, harder tires up front for either of these cars, though.