Thoughts on Kumho Ecsta 4X?

Friend is shopping for new tires. Asked for my opinion. I explained that my two requirements for DD tires are "cheap" and "round." I liked the Bridgestone Potenza Grids that we had on the fit...way more than the Dunlops that came on it anyway, which isn't saying much I guess.

Aaaahhh crap. DO A SEARCH, N000000EWB! Sorry. I forget it's there sometimes.

Any dissenting votes?

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/kumho-ecsta-4x/49642/page1/

I LOOOOOOOOOVE the B-stone Grid/RE960AS/RE970AS tires. If I don't spring for a set of snowies soon, I'll probably go that route again, although the Kumho 4X has been catching my interests since its so damn inexpensive.

I ran a set on my wife's Mazda5. They were a decent tire, quiet and somewhat grippy for what they are. They lasted 32,000 miles before they were worn to the wear bars. I replaced them with Yokohama YK580s in a slightly larger size and I'm very happy with them. The YK580 doesn't have as much grip but is a great tire for this vehicle. The tread is much deeper with a harder compound so hey should last longer. If your friend is primarily interested in tire life and quiet then I'd recommend the Yokohama over the 4X.

I also did some suspension work to limit toe changes in the rear of our Mazda5 and increase the life of the tires.

Nope. I commented there, and now they are at the end of their life at 39k miles. To the end they've been great DD tires. Decent enough in snow, good in the rain, good off-ramp grip. For a 7-8/10 driven car, these were great.

I hope they are better than their predecessors, the Ecsta ASX. I had a set of those on my old WRX and they were awful. Very, very loud, handled like garbage, and they wore quickly. I had them on for 30k, but I should have changed them out at 20k.

Do they still make the Continental Extreme Contact DWS? I got those after to replace the Kumhos, and they were great. I put over 30k on those and it looked like they maybe had 5k on them. Good in the wet and snow, and they handled better, too.

We have the 4x on Chrissy's Mazda3 on RX8 18s, and they have been very good for about 10k miles so far. They are somewhat sporty, good in the rain, wearing well, fairly quiet, reasonably priced, no issues at all. Not something you'd take to the track but perfectly fine for even sporty all street use.

I have them on my DD RX8. They grip better than the summer tries that were on there before. A++ would buy again

I have them on the Mini. I like them. Surprisingly, I like them more than the RE760 Sport that the 4x replaced on the Mini for DD duties.

Huh I'll have to recommend these for anyone who can't get SPTs/S-drives or similar.

No need for winter driveability here but most shops still import all-seasons for some reason (probably because they don't last as long). My dad has ASXs on his X-trail right now...typical horrible all-season junk.

Got them on the SeX. Now have 19k miles on the , with 7/32 of tread left all around. On the thin skinned, lightly sound deadened Forte they are a bit loud. For a nice quiet DD tire I'd still go with the Platinum LX before I'd but the 4X again.

Hmmm... I have been considering these for my Mazda2 (I am thinking 205/55/15, this is the size Bspec uses). I can deal with them being a little loud as long as they are grippy and can handle the light duty winter requirements of MO.

Thanks for the help guys. FYI, they've got a $50 rebate on Kumho's website right now. Go GRM sponsors!

The big open tread was nice for winter. I only got stuck once all winter and that was driving blind into a 4' tall snow drift at 15 mph. Needless to say I was a goner.

I actually didn't like them in the wet/compacted snow very much. I trucked through 6+ inches of light dust but after the snow got compacted by the snow plow I had trouble parking on a slight incline in front of my house.

I don't trust them enough that I'll be shopping for winters this season, but I like driving around in the very rare storm that we get.

Bobzilla wrote: Got them on the SeX. Now have 19k miles on the , with 7/32 of tread left all around. On the thin skinned, lightly sound deadened Forte they are a bit loud. For a nice quiet DD tire I'd still go with the Platinum LX before I'd but the 4X again.

based on some info gathered here on the board, I went with Kuhmo Platinums on my wifes's Mazda5. I am much happier with them than the crappy, low-bid, Toyo's that were on there. We have not put many miles on the Platinums yet but they are good.

Aussie Steve is running Platinums on the Super-Elantra

bluesideup wrote: I also did some suspension work to limit toe changes in the rear of our Mazda5 and increase the life of the tires.

Can you expand on this information? My wife has a '10 Mazda5. The factory tires were shot within 28k miles.

Yeah, I talked him into them. They're on the wife's "new" car now as well.

Important to note that said friend's car will never see more than a couple inches of snow.

JohnRW1621 wrote:

bluesideup wrote: I also did some suspension work to limit toe changes in the rear of our Mazda5 and increase the life of the tires.

Can you expand on this information? My wife has a '10 Mazda5. The factory tires were shot within 28k miles.

Note to self: Self: You have not checked/adjusted tire pressures on the 5. What part of the tire is getting excessive wear?

All Mazda5s have an issue with camber eating through tires or at least that's what it's blamed on when you look at the tires as they hit the tread wear bars. They run about 1.5 degrees front and rear which isn't too crazy so I didn't quite believe it was all a camber issue. Looking at the design of the rear suspension the tires toe in as it compresses to add stability under load. With a van people tend to load more crap in it so the rear end squats down on a regular basis vs say a Mazda3. Certainly my wife hauls an excessive amount of junk in our van.

To combat this toe issue I replaced the trailing arm bushings with Energy Suspension bushings designed for a Ford Focus (platform sharing win!) which seems to have cured the tire wear problem. The redesigned Mazda5 (2013?) supposedly has stiffer rear springs to keep the rear from squatting.

I also switched from the OEM 205/50R17 to a 215/50R17 with a higher load rating.

Some people like to use an adjustable rear camber link to set the camber at 0 degrees. Let's see front camber at 1.5 and rear at 0 plus maybe not the best driver in the world behind the wheel....no thanks.