Sumitomo Tires - Good? Bad? Indifferent?

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Recently installed a set of Sumitomo HTR T4's on my Civic. Originally wanted Bridgestones but Sears was out of stock. These Sumitomos seem decent and handle great. Price wasn't bad either at approx $70/each. I've never heard of Sumitomo so I did some checking. It seems they don't make the tires but use a "world's acknowledged quality-focused manufacturer". Any idea who does make them? And what's the group's concensus of these tires?
 
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Recently installed a set of Sumitomo HTR T4's on my Civic. Originally wanted Bridgestones but Sears was out of stock. These Sumitomos seem decent and handle great. Price wasn't bad either at approx $70/each. I've never heard of Sumitomo so I did some checking. It seems they don't make the tires but use a "world's acknowledged quality-focused manufacturer". Any idea who does make them? And what's the group's concensus of these tires?



Sumitomo is one of the great Japanese keiretsu (diversified industrial conglomerates). There are virtually no categories of goods not made by a Sumitomo company, no categories of services not offered by a Sumitomo company.

Sumitomo Gomu ("gomu" is the Japanese word for rubber) acquired the famed and important British/Irish company Dunlop during the heady days of the Japanese bubble in the 1980s. The bubble burst, and the tire manufacturing operations of Sumitomo, along with the associated brands, were acquired by Goodyear.

Sumitomo has taproots into some of the best names in the tire industry, but it now is a subsidiary brand of Goodyear. You can buy with confidence.
 
Oh that's great!
shocked.gif


Does that mean I'm going to have issues like this?

http://theoildrop.server101.com/forums/s...ge=0#Post694249

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Sumitomo Gomu ("gomu" is the Japanese word for rubber) acquired the famed and important British/Irish company Dunlop during the heady days of the Japanese bubble in the 1980s. The bubble burst, and the tire manufacturing operations of Sumitomo, along with the associated brands, were acquired by Goodyear.

Sumitomo has taproots into some of the best names in the tire industry, but it now is a subsidiary brand of Goodyear. You can buy with confidence.



My understanding was that the Dunlop Tire brand is now considered a joint-venture between Sumitomo Tire and Goodyear. I think it's far more complicated than just one company buying out another.
 
I think Sumitomo owns Falken. I don't know if Falken makes their own tires or not. I had a set of GRB 451's years ago. They were made in Japan.
 
As far as I can tell, Goodyear started a complicated joint venture with Sumitomo Tire to produce the Dunlop Tire brand. They did buy a 10% stake in Sumitomo Rubber Industries back in 1999, but reduced their stake in 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumitomo_Rubber_Industries

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Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (TYO: 5110 ) is a tire and rubber company based in Japan. The company was started in 1909 by the Sumitomo Group to make bicycle tires. Today, the company makes tennis rackets, automobile tires, tennis balls, golf balls, and various other rubber products.

Sumitomo is also the parent company of Dunlop Tires




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunlop_Tires

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The Goodyear Dunlop joint venture is managed from sites in Luxembourg and Brussels, which in turn reports to Goodyear in Akron, Ohio. The partner in the joint venture is the Japanese company Sumitomo Rubber Industries.




http://www.goodyear.com/media/pr/pr_2003/22677fi.html

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AKRON, Ohio, April 8, 2003 – As part of its ongoing plan to enhance the company’s financial flexibility, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company today announced that it has reduced its ownership stake in Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.

Goodyear, which acquired a 10 percent ownership of Sumitomo as part of their 1999 global alliance, today sold 20.83 million shares for approximately $83.4 million. Sumitomo bought 20.33 million of these shares. Goodyear, which now holds about 1.5 percent of Sumitomo, will take a non-cash charge of approximately $10 million (6 cents per share) related to the transaction in the second quarter.


 
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I think Sumitomo owns Falken. I don't know if Falken makes their own tires or not. I had a set of GRB 451's years ago. They were made in Japan.




Are you sure? I though Falken was owned by Yokohama.
 
Well I closely examined the sidewalls of these tires today and discovered to my amazement that they are.....


drumroll please....


Made in China.


I'll keep everyone updated as to how they hold up.
 
I have a set of these on an 02 Accent, they replaced some Hankook 835. I liked the Hankook tires better. The car doesn't seem quite as sure-footed with the Sumitomos (from Sears too) as it did previously. Wet traction is so-so. I've yet to see how they'll do in snow.
 
I have seen Falkens about 16 months ago that had Sumitomo Tire company right on them next to Made in Japan.

Flaken being a ricer/performance brand for Sumitomo.

Sumi's seems tobe fine and had good wear.
 
Well, 4 years later, here's my promised assessment of these Sumitomo HTR T4 tires....

The good: They lasted 64K miles, although the tread wear was a little uneven. I consider that my fault, I didn't rotate them enough. Dry weather handling was good. They never howled even with my sometimes aggressive driving.

The so-so: Wet weather handling fair. Could easily break them loose if I accelerated too fast. But they never aquaplaned. Even in dry weather they tended to squirm and pull when crossing joints in the road.

The real ugly: Handling in snow was terrible and sometimes downright unsafe. Even though they are M&S rated. And of course the more they wore out the worse they got.

Combining all these factors I did not consider these tires as replacements. If I lived in a dry and warm climate maybe. But I need an all purpose tire that can at least have SOME decent performance in snow. These Sumi's didn't cut it.

The new tires are Goodrich Touring T/A Pro Series.
 
I just got the Sumo HTR Z3's on my Mazda6s 2 months ago, and so far they seem to be pretty good for a cheap performance tire.
I paid $366 total from Tirerack,which included 4 tires,shipping,mounting,balancing and a $50 rebate.
For the money so far they seem to handle well, and are pretty quiet. There even better than my $200 per Mich that originally came on my car.
 
My experience with Sumitomo was really poor. I "saved" $175 buying 4 of them for my Honda Civic vs my typical Nokian tires I love. Huge mistake. The Sumitomo's SRIOXN(hopefully discontinued) I had a honeymoon period however after 10k miles beyond horrid wet traction and they were loud. One winter storm getting stuck in 3" of snow I drove straight to Nokian dealer put them(NRW's) back on.

Biggest waste of $250.

I am not a fan of cheap tires.
 
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I am active in open road racing. Quite a few of the slower cars used HTR's. They were dangerous and most of the sanctioning bodies will not allow them to be used. John--Las Vegas.
 
I had Sumitomo HTR+ on E430 few years ago, its ride is okay but performance/handling is below par for high performance cars. The tread life on that car was about 20-21k miles even with rotation every 5k.
 
I have the Sumi HTR T4s on my Cobalt, and I pretty much have the same idea with mine after having them for over a year and a half with 10k on them.

My biggest issue is snow, which we get a decent amount here), and the rain traction can be iffy sometimes. Traction is great, and they are wearing well...
 
It seems a lot of the Sumo's you guys are referring to seemed to be the T4, which is a touring tire, or the older HTR Z's. The Z3's are the latest UHP summer tire, and they seemed to have improved compared to some of the older performance ones.
 
Originally Posted By: EricZoom
It seems a lot of the Sumo's you guys are referring to seemed to be the T4, which is a touring tire, or the older HTR Z's. The Z3's are the latest UHP summer tire, and they seemed to have improved compared to some of the older performance ones.


Oh, I'm not saying it's a bad tire...the T4 is a good value, much better htan some of the off brands I've seen.


Here in MI though, I simply need a better all season tire that can handle snow better.


If I wasn't using the tires year round, the T4s would be just fine....
 
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