Well, I'm a little ashamed to admit this here, but times are tough in my industry right now, and I'm lucky that the company I work for is still alive, so I'm cutting corners that I would not normally cut.
Long story short, I needed one tire to get my Vette inspected. I now have nearly new rubber at all four corners but it does not all match. I bought a Kumho Ecsta (or something like that) in 255/50-16. I have my own Coats 1001 computer balancer and an old fashioned "muscle powered" tire machine lagged in the concrete behind my shop building.
The Kumho was the cheapest possible tire I could buy. It was $88 from Tire Rack, $99 total, dropped off of the Brown Truck in my driveway. I mounted it and it balanced with very little weight(good sign) as I recall it was 35 grams on the inboard lip and 20 grams on the outboard lip, that's about 1-1/4 oz and 3/4 oz. For a tire this massive that is not much external balance weight.
I got the tire in my driveway last Tuesday, mounted and balanced Tuesday night and drove it about 400 miles this week. I keep all tires properly dynamically balanced since I have my own machine. The others were properly balanced and on Wednesday it saw over 100MPH while passing folks on the wide two lane that I drive alot. There was absolutely no imbalance, smooth as silk at over 100MPH. This is a very good sign about these tires.
I may not be a very good reference for these tires yet. I will not have my true evaluation until the tire has seen about 20,000 miles or so. But so far, what little I've seen of it, I'm impressed. Another reason I may not be a good reference is that I have the facilities to properly balance them. It is very difficult to find a shop that will balance tires correctly. It's not difficult, I could teach a high school kid how to do it correctly in thirty minutes. The problem is that there are so many tire shops that refuse to put weights on the outer plane. If you don't want to scratch the wheel, use tape weights just behind the spokes, but you MUST use weights on the outer plane to prevent vibration.
All in all, since the tire balanced with such little weight, and so far seems round, not square as are many tires, I give the tire a good review.
If at the end of the life of this mish-mash set of tires, and the Kumho turns out okay, I will order a set of them. The price can't be beat and they appear to be one of the few tires today that are made in a radially sectioned mold rather than a clamshell mold. This provides much more consistent positioning of the belt. Michelin pioneered this tire mold method and there are very few other manufacturers that have, so far, followed suit.
Best of luck with your decision,
) I have less than 100 miles on them now, but so far they are well worth the money.
