Porsche 944 Tyres

After installing these tires on my 944, it felt like a new car.
No more road noise and great grip.

I have owned 4 Porsche 944/968's (still have an '89 944 and a '95 968) plus BMW 5 and Mercedes E sedans. I've driven over 500,000 miles in these cars and had experiences with many different tires. My first 944 had Pirelli's on it and I hated those. Good dry handling but dangerous when wet, and they wore out really fast. I used Michelin Pilots on the sedans and was happy with them, but not at all for the sports cars (once was enough there...Pilots are not performance tires). I tried Kumho's and was happy but not elated, and then my friend at Big O tires recommended Yokohama AS430's. That was years ago and I've been using them since. I recently purchased a 1995 968 that's got Michelin Pilots on them. I don't need new tires yet, but I'm going in today to "upgrade" to the Yokohama's. The Michelins are loud, almost impossible to balance (could be mildly flat spotted, but we can't find them) and tracks poorly on uneven roads. I don't race at all, so for every day driving the Yokohama's are as close to perfect as one can expect. (Ps: My first set of AS430's were replaced after 7 years and over 50,000 miles only because they were getting too old and becoming brittle from being parked outside in the sun. The treads still looked at about 60% left).

Put a set of these on my car to replace some very disappointing Kumho KH15s and they have transformed my car!

The level of grip they offer is fantastic. With the Kumhos there was horrible understeer and no warning about losing grip - with the Goodyears the situation is totally resolved.

Plenty of grip, good warning about what is happening with the car and impeccable road manners - the perfect match to my 944.

It just goes to prove that you get what you pay for and quality shows!

Did 20.000kms on them and they still have plenty of 1000's of miles to go! Very good in dry...the size of the tyres was bdaly chosen since it gave a very 'baloony' drive to my Porsche 944. However they wear brilliantly since they were subject to a lot of grippy conrnering! In the wet they were poor...although a 944 RWD will never be great in the wet but the tyres could grip better I thought. For the price I believe they are very good value for money!

New Pirelli P6000's were fitted to my car when I bought it - they're coming off as soon as I can find replacements. Dry grip is OK, but I've had better and the car felt nervous. Wet grip is atrocious. Almost no progression at all, car just snapped away as I pushed into bends - wouldn't recommend P6000 for spirited driving - they bite back!. Wear rate seems good and quite quiet on motorways. Not a tyre for me though!

I have been running my 944 as a daily car for the last 5 years. Firstly with Dunlop SP9000s which were excellent, then Pirreli P6000s which were less progressive and had poor feedback. Then I got a set of second hand 17" alloys which were fitted with Conti WinterContacts. Frankly these winter tyres were better than the Bridgestones RE050 that I have now.

In the dry the Bridgestones grip well, but give no feedback and are not progressive. When it rains I just end up aquaplaning everywhere, and when it snows I get stuck!

The Conti WinterContacts had surprising high grip in the dry and were progressive so you could actualy slide around and have some fun. They lasted longer, and were obviously far superior in bad weather.

As soon as it is dry I am going to kill what is left of the Bridgestones on a circuit :-) and probably go back to the Contis.

How the P6000 can be considered a high performance tyre is beyond me. These things appear to be made of Bacolite rather than rubber - I sewar you can see a crystalline twinking in the tread in sunlight.

They are hopeless in the dry and hopeless in the wet and a fantastic way to take a performance car and make it broadly comparable with a Korean shopping trolley in ability. They must be outright dangerous on mid or rear engined vehicles.

On the upside they last for ever, but unless you only care about owning a performance vehicle rather than driving one then steer well clear.

I put a set of these onto my 944S on the recommendation of the team at my local (not a national chain) tyre supplier; they told me that one of their team was a grass-roots racer and that he was delighted about these tyres.

I trusted their opinion and bought 4...

Disasterous! My car suddenly had understeer, where before it was beautifully neutral. There was no warning about the rear end breaking away and precious little feel when trying to get it back again. The performance in the wet was even worse and made my car frankly terrifying.

I've been driving for 20 years & have never experienced tyres affecting the performance of a car like these Kumho's did - I was shocked to say the least.

I approached the shop that had recommended them and after much discussion they agreed to upgrade to a better tyre, charging me only for the diffeence in price. I would like to say that this was great service but they whinged continuously and tried to make me feel like a bad person for not thinking the Kumho's were wondeful - to cap it all they didn't balance the wheels properly and I had to pay to get it rectified elsewhere - I'm not going to 'name and shame' because that's not fair, but suffice to say they've lost a customer for life...

I've just read that the all weather version of this tyre the KH16 has just become OE on all new Ford Focuses - all I can say is good luck because these things stink...

I wouldn't use these tyres again...