# It's tire day! Kumho Ecsta PA31



## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

Excited to be getting rid of the OEM Goodyears on my Diesel today and putting on the new Kumho Ecsta PA31's. 31,000 miles was about all I could take. Looking forward to seeing how these handle on the way home.


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## spacedout (Dec 7, 2010)

I went to buy a set of Continental pure contacts last week, ended up leaving the tire shop a hour later with Firestone precision touring tires instead. Only paid $79 a tire, so saved over $200 from what I was going to buy. So far pretty impressed with this tire. 

As hard as the roads and I am on tires, figured I'll be back in 30K for another set of tires anyway(my factory Firestone Fr-710 I replaced at 35K & the first replacement a Hankook Optimo H727 after 30K).


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## KOBALT (Nov 19, 2013)

Love me some Ecsta's. I have them on my Supra. My tread looks a bit more aggressive, though. Maybe I have a different sub-model of them.


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

KOBALT said:


> Love me some Ecsta's. I have them on my Supra. My tread looks a bit more aggressive, though. Maybe I have a different sub-model of them.


The PA31 is their High Performance All-season. I'm guessing you might have the ASX or the 4X (their ultra-high performance all-seasons). Unless you have summer tires on the Supra instead of all-seasons, then it could be one of the 5 summer Ecsta tires.

As of today, I've got an all-Kumho garage. My Jeep has a set of Roadventure KL61 tires, which been great-performing tires for trail and snow while maintaining decent road manners, even if a little loud. If you want to see a sweet tread pattern, check these out:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Kumho&tireModel=Road+Venture+SAT+KL61

I've got the Solus KR21 on my wife's van. They have an 85,000 mile tread life warranty, but with 50,000 miles on them, it looks like they're very likely to go 100k. That's some pretty impressive treadlife, but they're also the best-handling tire, especially on ice, that we've tried on that van, so they're not giving up any performance to get it. 

With all that, we have also paid about half of what we would have paid for the equivalent Michelin and 75% of what it would have cost for the comparable BF Goodrich or Firestone. I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I tried out a set of Firestones (Firehawk Wide Oval A/S) when I had my Grand Prix, but 20,000 miles later, I wished I had bought the Ecsta 4x instead. Also tried out a set of Uniroyals (Tiger Paw Touring) on the van and traded them in half-way through their tread life to get the KR21s because the traction control was working overtime on anything other than dry pavement. The OEM Bridgestones from the van were even worse. 

People always look a little funny at me when I talk up the Kumhos, but they haven't disappointed yet.


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## neirfin (Oct 18, 2012)

I've never had any problems with kumho and they perform great. I will say they are softer than most tires and wear fairly quickly but I probably drive them a bit harder than OEM


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

My drive home was on cold (16F), dry pavement. I took the "long way" that had some curves so that I could feel how the tires handled a little better. So far, I have to say I'm happy with the purchase. 

They felt more stable taking curves on dry pavement than the OEM Goodyears. Steering also felt crisper. I could hear a good bit of wind noise from the 15-20mph wind that I was fighting, but couldn't detect any noise from the tires. In fact, I think they may be quieter than the OEM tires, because it seemed I could hear the engine's behavior more clearly at highway speeds when passing or climbing a hill than I could before on the old tires. They were only inflated to 35psi when I left the tire shop, and therefore absorbed road imperfections to a higher degree, but once I got them inflated to my usual 42psi or so, they still felt equivalent, if not smoother than, the OEM tires on bumps and rough pavement.

I'm looking forward to trying these out on wet pavement and snow, because with this tread pattern, and according to the reviews of others on Tire Rack, they should really shine in wet/snow conditions.


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## Jim Frye (Mar 16, 2011)

I wish you good luck with the new tires. I had a set of Ecsta ASXs on our P5. Very displeased with them. They flat spotted sitting in the garage in cooler (not just cold) temps, were hard to keep air in them, and they were just as noisy as the Dunlop SP5000s they replaced. At 30K, I grew tired of them and replaced them. I wish I had done it sooner. 
[h=1][/h]


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

This is what's on the Subaru now. Is this what you had Kobalt?


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## The01Cav (Jan 4, 2015)

I ran the ecsta PA31 on my fusion, they seemed to be a decent tire.


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## revjpeterson (Oct 2, 2013)

On Tuesday, I got to drive in just about every possible road condition, and these tires really shine on adverse road conditions. They cut through water like a champ, as might be expected with the directional tread and large, deep grooves. On the way back from Omaha, I ran into an unexpected snowstorm while driving on I-29, and they cruised through about 1" of fresh, slushy snow, at about 33 degrees outside temperature, doing 70 mph with no problems. The only deficiency I have noticed in these tires is they get a bit hard in extreme cold, like -10F. They aren't undriveable at that temperature, but when the temps get down that low, the don't handle the ice or packed snow nearly as well as they did at 15-20 degrees above zero. So, a dozen mornings a year, I'll have to watch my speeds turning or stopping on the city streets before I get over to the highway, but the rest of the time, they have met or exceeded my expectations so far.


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