like the title says, i just bought new tires moving me from the 235/45r17 Yokohama ES100 tires to the Kumho KH11 in the stock size of 225/50r17. my primary reason for going back to the stock size was ride quality.

the ES100s still had about half of their usable treadlife left, so my only reason for making the jump so soon was the fact that the ES100s have developed a wicked howl at moderate to high speed as well as during the final 10-15mph of braking. in addition to that, two out of the four are no longer round. the flat spots were murder on road noise, braking, and cruising smoothness. and oh yeah, one of the Yokos had a nice blister developing on the inside sidewall. bear in mind that i do not race, drive inordinately hard, or fly over potholes. 95% of my driving since putting on the Yokos has been city commuting. if anything, i've been slowing down more and cornering less hard these days cuz the incessant buzz and lopsided ride are terribly disconcerting. my god, i wished those ES100s would shut up and just roll. i had none of those problems when they were new.

so far i've only logged a few days on the Kumhos, and I can tell you that oooooh..... the 225/50 rides so much nicer than 235/45. from even before the ES100s, i had 235/45 BFGs and AVS Int.s and i can tell you that it's the tire size not the mileage or tread pattern that gave me back this smoothness. they have a reasonably sporty tread pattern and have nice sidewall markings (excepting of course the enormous KUMHO banner across the side). we'll see how they hold up to city life.

one strange thing tho, is that with their assymetrical tread patter, the right side and the left side don't look the same. i thought they were supposed to be mirror images of each other, a la pirelli. but i guess not. when i got home i called the tirerack folks and they confirmed it, not mirror images. hmmmm. anyone else notice this about the KH11s?????

btw... why is the forum running so slow these days??????

 

I installed the KH11s about a week ago and noticed the same exact thing. I had the wheels sitting in the driveway and was looking at the pattern thinking there's no way the pattern will roll the same direction on both sides. I kept looking at the tires thinking there would be a directional arrow, but there isn't one to be found. These tires only require that cornering tread block be mounted on the outside hence the reason the tire says "out" on one of the sidewalls.

I too am impressed by the tires too. The 225/50 KH11s ride far better than my 235/45 Sumitomo HTR+s ever did plus they're much quieter. I haven't pushed them hard yet because I'm still in the breakin period, but normal day to day driving is quite good.

According to the Tirerack these tires were suppose to introduce about a 3% speedometer error because they are 1/2" too large in diameter. With two different GPS units from my work, I tested the speedo accuracy and it was within 1mph at every mph (20mph, 40mph, 60mph, 80mph).


Dave

 

good to know dave. you sure do a lot of testing for your goodies.
i just get in, drive, and let my booty do the testing...