These tires were flawless in rain, ice, hairpin turns on Yellowstone, tight turns on Highway 1 and usually at 50+ MPH. These are awesome tires! I had a pair of Kumho Ecsta ASX on the back – equally impressive tires.

“Road noise on the highway is on the low side and it’s much greater than the more narrow OEM 18″ Dunlops I’ve known for the past year. In fact the ECSTA’s shoulder blocks are tilted into the direction of travel to improve grip and reduce unwanted noise while cruising.”

Is it really much noisier than the Dunlops?…..or did you mean to say “quieter” instead of greater?

There seems to be a conflict with “road noise on the low side, but much greater than the Dunlops”…the Dunlops must be, I guess, really, really quiet?

The SPTs were recommended to me by Phil Wicks as having good grip that would last, and since I had owned and been happy with a set of Kumho Ecsta Supra 712′s on my previous car (Subaru 2.5 RS) I decided to go with them.

In general, I found the SPTs to be fairly sticky and predictable for the first 7 or 8 thousand miles, but the extra durability that has been engineered into them was dissappointing. After the outer layer wears down, the predictable stickiness started feeling occasionally “greasy” during dry cornering, with a few instances of “hey it never did that before” when the grip gave ‘way without the usual warning. Also very odd: I started noticing that the SPTs were making sounds like sneakers on a a basketball court when passing over rubber lane markings during cornering. (No apparent change in grip – just the unusual noises.)

Turn-in crispness was never as sharp as with the Original Equipment 17″ Dunlop SP9000 performance runflats, but I expected that to be the case, as I switched to 16″ rims and tires in order to gain some extra sidewall height – to absorb some of the very harsh expansion joints on California’s freeways.

I expect that if I had managed to swap the tires front to rear before the fronts really started wearing, that I could have extended the “good” performance substantially.

The SPT’s were better in the wet than the old SUPRA ECSTA 712′s, which basically “went away” on wet pavement.

Overall, a decent tire for the price, but you’ll need to rotate end to end to really get extended life from them. I wasn’t thrilled with the look in the size I got, so I will probably not replace them with another set of SPTs. I’m currently looking at Goodyear Eagle F1 GS D3′s (if I decide to go with the same size tire: 205/50-16), and Falken Azenis 615′s, which come in my ideal size of 215/45-16.

Just thought some relatively long-term perspective might be useful.

Dave

Don’t know if you can get it in the US though, I believe that the Airman is exclusive to Canadian Tire stores up here.

Looks like the $50 CAD Airman is the same as Continental Tire’s ContiComfortKit available from the Rack.

http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/conticomfortkit/index.jsp

I have been running non-runflats every winter on my MCS and carry a bottle of “Slime” and a small compressor. I also carry a tire plugging kit.

“Slime” does not use flamable compressed gasses, like some of the “fix-a-flat-in-a-can” products. Which is why some garages refuse to work on tires that have “fix-a-flat” installed. Instead you use a small 12VDC compressor to inflate the tire. All very safe for the next poor sap that has to remove the tire from the rim.

So far I have never had to use the “Slime” in over 47,000 smiles. But I have had to install 2 plugs in the rf tires after I got nailed in the middle of the tread.

Plugs held just fine, even thru 7 days of Auto-X driving.

Hope this helps.

I have never tried the SPT’s, but I love the MX’s and swear by them in the wet and dry.

As you wear your tires (especially the aggressive drivers) you may wear out the shoulders first. This will contribute to the wandering and additional road noise. It is important to rotate your tires.

Note – safety standards say that the best tires should be on the rear of the car, as it is safer to understeer than oversteer. This is why cars are typically set up from the factory with understeer.

If you are especially frugal, you can swap your tires on the rims. If you do that, beware that running the tires counter-direction works fine on dry, but could actually channel water to the center of the tire in the wet and be somewhat hazardous. Due to that reason, I cannot recommend doing this. However, I have been known to do it on my track-only tires to get more life from them.

Happy and Safe Motoring. :)

cheers mikie

Up here in Canada, many of us MINI owners have gotten our hands on the Airman Tire Repair Station, which is a all-in-one tire air compressor/repair sealant unit:

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/pw/airman.htm

The manufacturer also makes a variety of air inflation products – http://www.activeproducts.com

Great looking product, it looks very OEM designwise, like something that MINI themselves would have designed. The fact that the sealant is made by Dunlop doesn’t hurt credibility-wise.

Don’t know if you can get it in the US though, I believe that the Airman is exclusive to Canadian Tire stores up here.