Tires Vredestein or Laufenn
Laufenn if you can afford it, these use the old patterns from Hankook and are essentially a sister company to them. I deal with tyres daily and would rate these above any of the other options you've been pushed towards.
Pretty much all of those tyres are decent, I use Laufenn Z and S series (which are made by Hankook) on the back of 2 of my high performance cars as I was getting sick of paying pilot sport or eagle money too regularly and they are honestly comparable.
I've run laufenn on a newish golf and they're decent.
Quiet, decent lifespan well priced.
Tyre ship guy told me they're owned by Hankook, kind of a Lexus Toyota thing i.e not brand new tech/materials and maybe a previous tread pattern.
Been happy with them and will keep using them.
Now I am running Laufeen with summer dunlops and I am blown away!
Laufeen has been the best tires I have had. I am about 15k miles in and they feel just as good as they did day on, if not better!
I have vredstein pinza on my GL 550 for 7k miles and are very happy with them.
The Vredesteins def looked noticeably bigger (taller) than the Yoko Geoloanders they replaced, but that could just be a worn vs new tire. So far so good other than not looking forward to cleaning them regularly lol.
Since virtually all of my driving is on pavement, I went the running shoe route with a set of the Vredestein Hypertracs. They've been excellent, in the dry, the wet, and light snow.
If you do get new tires you should consider Vredestein Hi-Tracs. I replaced the oem bridgestones with these and they have been tremendous.
Anyway, for what it is worth, I tried the 275/35ZR-21 Vredestein Ultrac Vorti+ XL both on and off track earlier this year. It is still a summer performance tire. Off track, I was seeing slightly improved efficiency over the factory P Zero, but the Ultras were slightly noisy on rougher roads (no foam inserts); on the track, for the first couple of laps, they were decent (plenty good enough for spirited driving), but driving to the max lap after lap they got squirrely and very vocal.
I have them on my sti. Theyre good on concrete and okay in rain. However absolutely trash on snow/ice. No grip around corners resulting in sliding not to mention having to be gentle and brake early.
Write your review
Help others - share your experience with this part.