Wow! What a diverse set of answers I've gotten in this thread!
I asked about the crack I have in my sidewall and was told answers
from "its common, ignore it" to "you're gonna die!" (well, almost ;^).
I talked to Kumho, and they said it was due to the tread cap rubber
separating from the sidewall rubber -- a cosmetic problem, but not
a performance or safety issue.
And then others chimed in with circumferential cracks in their tread,
and others with perpendicular cracks in their tread (ye ol' mold seam).
Some have blamed under-inflation (definitely NOT the cause in my case),
while others disagree. And that led to an amazing diversity in what
people set pressures at. Some are running in the 40's (mine get quite
slippery above 35), while others run around 30 (definitely my choice).
Some have asserted that Kumhos deform a lot; others consider them quite
stiff. Once I had a slow leak in my valve stem which resulted in my
pressure dropping to 15#. Visually, it didn't deflect at all -- but I
went ahead and checked the pressures anyway because the steering response
didn't feel right, and to my surprise it was way low. I thought then --
man, those are stiff tires!
In contrast, the answers on the M3 list to such Kumho questions seem to be
very uniform -- everybody has independently come up with roughly the same
answers for tire pressures, etc.
So, my QUESTION: Do different size Kumhos vary a lot in behavior?
Is it the use of oversized tires causing the diversity?
Or is it the different weight distributions? FWD vs. RWD?
Differences in suspension geometry? All of the above?
Just curious, an interesting revelation; comments?
Brian
98 M3/4 CSP Kumho 245/45/17's on 8" and 9" rims
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