If I had to choose between the Kumho, the Dunlop and the Goodyear, I'd pick the Dunlop.
Both are not at the top of the current offerings...but the ZII is better than the NT05. Make sure you have a sprayer to keep them cool because grip falls off a cliff once they get hot.
I don't shave tires, and I ran 150+ runs and a few thousand street miles easily on my Z2s last year. They still have life left in them.
I have lived in the snowiest city on earth (Valdez, AK) as well as the UP of Michigan and now in Maine and I've always used the Dunlop Winter Sport M3's with great results. I will keep using these (or Winter Sport 3D for larger wheels) as long as they make them.
I am running Dunlop wintersport 3D's on my Mk6 GTI and regularly take it through some really nasty stuff to go skiing here in CO. I will likely buy Dunlop winters again. They are my first winter tires, but they seem to perform well. They are on their 3rd winter, I think, and they still mange to get me around just fine. The only times I ran into issues was when I was trying to go up steep grades from a stop on very slick roads, but that is more to do with the lack of AWD than the tire. They also perform well in the dry, even on some of our testing mountain roads here.
I have Dunlop Graspic DS-3s on my car in the winter and they perform quite well on dry and wet pavement. They are a bit more slippy and the feel is a bit more muddy
Drove in the rain with the Dunlop Saturday. The traction control came on a few times, but I think its due more to the amount of low-end torque the GLI makes. Now it wasn't difficult to drive, just watch how much throttle you give it.
I'm on ZII's on my "street wheels" and while they're fine for around town, I've never liked them from a performance perspective. Compared to the purpose built 200TW cheater tires (e.g. RE71R, RT660, RS4) the ZII's give up a LOT of grip and probably seconds per lap at a racetrack.
They did ok on the track for a summer tire (240tw) but I think next season I'm going with something else. For the life of me I could not corner in these
Westlake RP18 - Delaminated the tire before I killed the tread, good life, crappy grip.
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