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Something positive about the stock Hankook tires...

wiredbean

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
NYC
My hankooks were floaty and loud. One blew out last winter to a faulty tire which seems to be a problem. I live on the east coast but I don't have to drive in the snow if i don't want so I haven't committed to winter tires yet (jury is still out). I switched to the michelins A/S 3+ and what a difference in every way even though still an A/S. The test will be this winter. I was going to use my hankooks till the end before I changed tires but after the blowout last year and reading VW has had a problem with these I didn't want to take any chances and now with the ride difference I am so happy I did have that blowout hahaha


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demi9od

Drag Race Newbie
Location
NC
Going down to 26 degrees tonight, putting my kooks back on. One positive thing that can be said for them is that they won't start cracking under 40f. And like wired above, I plan on replacing them with A/S 3 eventually, but it will take years for my short winters to wear them down.
 

avenali312

Autocross Champion
Location
Mableton, GA
Car(s)
2015 GTI
I'm glad someone found at least some positive with their stock tires. These Pirellis that came on mine are garbage... And they're expensive.
 

rip steakface

Go Kart Newbie
Location
pittsburgh, pa
Does anyone else think the Hankooks are loud? I'm trying to figure out if its the roads here or the tires.

Coming from a 98 BMW with every rattle possible, I'm trying to understand if tires are usually this loud

i think they're really loud! louder than the 15k mile conti DWS that were on my '15 GTI i just traded in. i hit a few stretches of brand new road surfaces on my daily commute where they go dead silent, so i've ruled out bad wheel bearings on my '17 sport that only has 400 miles on it...

i would take the oem pirellis that came on my '15 over these hankooks in a heartbeat!
 

VentoGT

Ready to race!
Location
South Shore, MA
I'm glad someone found at least some positive with their stock tires. These Pirellis that came on mine are garbage... And they're expensive.

I had Pirelli Pzeros on my MK6 GTI from the factory and they were the biggest piece of shit tire I had ever experienced. Bad in wet, bad in dry, crap grip, poor ride and loud. Will never buy a Pirelli tire as a result of this experience
 

RRocket

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
OKC
i think they're really loud! louder than the 15k mile conti DWS that were on my '15 GTI i just traded in. i hit a few stretches of brand new road surfaces on my daily commute where they go dead silent, so i've ruled out bad wheel bearings on my '17 sport that only has 400 miles on it...

i would take the oem pirellis that came on my '15 over these hankooks in a heartbeat!

OK. Yes brand new roads they are bearable any other road its terrible.
 

plastermaster

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Gualala
What Hankooks are we talking about? On my '18 Golf (not GTI) I have the stock Kinergy GTs. The seem very quite to me and I have been driving a Prius for the past 10 years. The only time I notice any noise is if I have a wall beside me it can seem loud, or a really rough road surface.

They feel kinda mushy around the turns though.
 

cb1111

Newbie
Location
Virginia, USA
Terrible compared to what?
Terrible compared to whatever they are driving.

People don't understand tires. Manufacturers have to walk a fine line between comfort, gas mileage, handling and longer life.

For 99% of drivers out there, the Hankooks are perfectly fine. You can "adjust" the different variables by playing with the air pressures.

On other car forums, the Hankooks are considered a step up from whatever comes standard on those cars.

That said, this wouldn't be a car forum if the lemming mentality isn't that everything the car manufacturer does is bad - the tires are bad, the brakes are bad, not enough power, intakes are bad, lights are bad etc.

The GTI, including the Hankooks, is a great overall package. If somebody says "I'm driving to the limit, I need stickier tires" then they should get summers.

However, I take exception with your position on winter tires. For ease of calculation, let's assume that you are driving 2k miles a month (so 24k a year).

You should switch to winters when the temps fall under 50 degrees or so (so where you are from late August to early June :p ). Accordingly, you're looking at running winters from November until May or about 6 months.

That means that you are putting about 12k miles on your winters and 12k on your "summer" tires, so if you are running high performance summers, then you'll get 2 years of life from them and probably 3 years on the winters.

I put "summers" in quotes because the type of tire you run in the summer depends on your needs. You could keep your Hankooks, run a better all season like the Contis or dedicated summers. The important thing is to understand that you really should be running winters in the winter because all weather tires really aren't - they are 3 season tires.
 

jbm119

Ready to race!
Location
Newark, DE
In my opinion, it is good tire for what it has to offer.
I will get good life out of it since it is 500 wear rating for my normal day to day driving.
It offered ok wet traction, I think, even though yesterday was my first time driving in considerable rain since I got my GTI in mid June.
I don't know how it will perform in snow.
Do I wish it offers more grip when driven hard? Yes.
But we all know we have to give up something in order to gain something.
Would I buy them new as replacement?
Probably no. I would spend more for Micheline.
But I think it does what it designed to do. Offer all around good performance. Not excellent at one area.
 

MSchott

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Michigan
Terrible compared to whatever they are driving.

People don't understand tires. Manufacturers have to walk a fine line between comfort, gas mileage, handling and longer life.

For 99% of drivers out there, the Hankooks are perfectly fine. You can "adjust" the different variables by playing with the air pressures.

On other car forums, the Hankooks are considered a step up from whatever comes standard on those cars.

That said, this wouldn't be a car forum if the lemming mentality isn't that everything the car manufacturer does is bad - the tires are bad, the brakes are bad, not enough power, intakes are bad, lights are bad etc.

The GTI, including the Hankooks, is a great overall package. If somebody says "I'm driving to the limit, I need stickier tires" then they should get summers.

However, I take exception with your position on winter tires. For ease of calculation, let's assume that you are driving 2k miles a month (so 24k a year).

You should switch to winters when the temps fall under 50 degrees or so (so where you are from late August to early June :p ). Accordingly, you're looking at running winters from November until May or about 6 months.

That means that you are putting about 12k miles on your winters and 12k on your "summer" tires, so if you are running high performance summers, then you'll get 2 years of life from them and probably 3 years on the winters.

I put "summers" in quotes because the type of tire you run in the summer depends on your needs. You could keep your Hankooks, run a better all season like the Contis or dedicated summers. The important thing is to understand that you really should be running winters in the winter because all weather tires really aren't - they are 3 season tires.

You should understand that most of my driving is on straight, flat highways like I-75 and the Ohio Turnpike. There is no practical advantage in using summer tires in this kind of travel. Also, we don’t get much if any snow before December these days and it ends in March so winter tires would be run for 4 months not 6 but if I ran summers I’d have to run winter tires longer due to the colder temperatures. I’m perfectly fine with quality high performance all season tires. I’m about to get new rims with Michelin AS3+ tires. My Hankook are just about done at 44,000 miles.
 

JamesS4

New member
Location
ON
I've been driving these on my AWD sportwagen for a few weeks now, and they are more than adequate, no complaints on cornering, acceleration, or braking. On a stock car, its more than enough tire.

Take it from someone with 20 years of pissing money away on high performance tires on a variety of high HP platforms.

Haldex is key. It overcomes the minor shortcomings of a mid range long lasting tire. As for wrong wheel drive cars? You cant really fix them with sticky rubber, at least not for daily driving. Believe me, I have tried.
 

plastermaster

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Gualala
I'm not one who is concerned much with maximum grip. I don't push my car that hard for that to matter. But, in my experience even in normal driving a good performance tire is very noticeable in how it feels to drive. There is a vagueness in steering response that good tires can remedy. Maybe the Golf is different but in a previous car, after suspension upgrades, I found good tires were as valuable as all the other upgrades put together. I can't really measure or provide data for that, but the feel of the car seemed drastically improved.
 
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