tires: Sumitomo vs Falken
 

Tire questions get posted a lot but i have a very specific question.

from my tire guy i can get sumitomo htr a/s p01's for $101 a piece. or i can get Falken azenis rt615 for $103 a piece.

I am buying them in 195/60 R14, its a summer only car and i plan on putting on about 5k a year through the summer. i was told that the falkens are really soft and will wear fast and im ok if i only get a year out of them.

what would you guys recommend buying?

Personally I like the Falken's the soft rubber makes for a smooth ride and some good grip :nod: I don't see any reason why you wouldn't get 2 to 3 years of driving if there keep in good shape {air pressure, alignment, regular balancing/rotation, not doing burn outs at ever light :blush: , tire shine every ONCE in a while to bring the black shine back/ protecting and weather/temperature not to hott or cold

I also run the Falkens. They are a really great tire, I drive street and autox. I would check out discounttiredirect.com, I bought mine last month and paid $95 each and then got a $40 rebate and free shipping. (same size as you too)

Good Luck!

never ran falkens so no opinion on them. currently running sumitomo htr 200. excellent tread wear. don't remember when i got them so can't say how long they lasted but i'd say a good couple yrs. mine is driven daily with an occasional spirited street driving on twisty roads but no track/autocross time. bought thru tirerack.com but now need replacing and currently not available in the current size. i have a thread in the SE section with pix of what i found and site i got them from. btw, they were $272.96 with shipping for 4.

I've had my falkens for a couple of years now. During that time I've probably put 5-6k on them and 10-12 autocross events. They are still looking good. I don't think that you can find a better tire for street and track use.

If you are looking for something that last longer ie: this is a daily driver and you're looking to get 40-50k from these tires then the falkens are not it. I'm not sure what the treadwear rating is for the sumimotos is but the falkens are 200. (This is as low as you can go and still be street legal) If you are looking to get something that will last a long time, shoot for something with a treadwear rating of 400-500.

If it were me, Falken hands down.

I am with the Sumitomo's. Hands down I think a better tire. A friend of mine ran Falken's and where he was squealing through turns, I had nothing but grip. We both have 85's, at the time, stock suspension when we did this.
They are a soft tire, and super sticky when hot. After a little spirited driving, if I went through a parking lot, that had anything on the surface, it would stick to the tire. As far as tread wear, I am pretty hard on the tires. But they were like 45$ a tire, so I didnt really care lol.

looks like im going to get the falken's, they sound like the better tire for how i intend to use them. the price i got is installed and balanced. i dont think those websites will ship to canada for free.

Thanks a lot for the input guys!

IIRC, the tread wear rating on the sumitomo htr 200 is 380.

Series and model somitomo's were you using?

If you can get the Falkens for only a few dollars more than the Sumis, then go for it. On the other hand, that probably means you are over-paying for the Sumitomos. Shop around, because that price seems awefully high...




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It's only the HTR 200's that are dirt cheap. Also the treadwear rating has no bearing on whether the tire is street legal or not. It has to be DOT approved to be street legal and most racing classes require a minimum 140 treadwear to run in a street tire class. This applies to Canada as well. We've adopted or mirrored most DOT regulations. If this is a summer car definitely go with the Falkens. The Sumi's you posted are an all season tire and won't have nearly the grip the Falkens do. They are completely different rubber compounds. They'll shine in the rain and that's about it. In that case if it's a torrential downpour, just back off a touch and you'll be fine.

I stand corrected on the treadwear rating. I didn't understand how the value was calculated until reading this article on TireRack.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=48

I'm still sticking to my vote for Falken over Sumimoto.

FWIW, Falken's