How much are used (500 mile) Sumi IIIs worth?

They are 285 30 18s with about 250 miles as of today. They are a little soft for my preference, so if they don't improve to what I'm looking for by 500 miles, I may switch to the Yokohama Advan AD08s since the Michelins PSS aren't available yet. If Tirerack won't take them back (doubt they will) then I may have to take the hit and sell them. What would be a good asking price?

$200 all four IMO... They are USED tires... The guy has to take your word that they have no flat spot and the warranty is no-more at that point.... maybe $225.00

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Does Tire Rack have a satisfaction policy that you could return them under or are you past the mileage point?

I would not sell Sumi IIIs at less than 1/2 of regular price with only 500 miles if the tires are just too soft for your taste. Even if you sell them at $200 off, the 993 and 996 owners will all be very interested in them. I would settle for $150 cheaper than regular price from tire rack shipped to the new owner which is around 25% off. They will go quick. Especially if they were purchased a few months ago. Remember you will have to pay for dismounting tires which factors into your "hit."

Yes the mounting is a bummer too at $40 each wheel. I just had them put on about 2 weeks ago. I'm hoping the mold release hasn't worn off yet and that's where the softness is coming from. I talked to Damon at Tirerack and he said to try their CS department to see what they may or may not do. At least I have a history of buying tires, and winter wheels/tires packages over the past 5 years with them.

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My guys charge $20/tire. Don't give too soon on these tires.

I remember the sumi IIIs were softer coming from Conti IIs. The Conti IIs were so noisy towards the end of their life that I hated them. I just inflated the sumi tires at a higher psi until they felt better. Now I am used to the Sumi handling and all is well in my camp.

You need to match them with Sumi fronts to make them feel right.

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I go right as my shop is about to close with $40 in hand and I'm in and out in 5-10 minutes.

for what I pay I am thinking of buying a tire machine and starting my own business!! optic, what pressure are you running? when you say "soft" what are you telling me? Sidewall roll, traction? noise? and what is your unit of measure.... you are not the first person to not like the Sumi's but it is rare and I want to know what the reasons translate into...what conditions you drove that made you feel they were soft and what you felt that gave you the impression TIA it minght help someone from making the same choice down the road AND maybe we can find something to make them more to your liking

Optical TDI: When you decide to sell the tires, I am interested in the (2) rears, at the very least. R\ Scott

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They feel fine when driving like conservatively, but when I take a corner a bit quicker and transition from one side to the other the sidewall feels like its not very stiff. Maybe it's the deep tread, maybe its the mold release agent, maybe its me wanting the best response possible. I haven't taken anything real hard since they are still breaking in. After reading more, it seems that the Yoko Advan AD08 have super stiff sidewalls. I'm willing to spend more to get the more precise handling.

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Okay if I end up doing that I'll let you know.

well, based on your reply I would buy new tires...its the simplest solution if the Sumi's are 16" I will take them from you and run them at the track...once you get some heat in them and the right pressures they are pretty darn good IMO

TDi, what pressures are you running? Im due for a set of streets and ws considering the sumis as there are many many threads giving this tire a good recommendation. Ive been running Kuhmo exsta and they are responsive in the corners but they dont handle standing water very well.

datapoint: paid $230 shipped for 2 rears with 1k miles on them.

1k miles - those are worn out OH, street miles nevermind

What size are the fronts?

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Stock pressures. 44 rear. 36 front.

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Ed, you need one of these guys in your hood...

yea, we could call it "Ed's Used tires" and post a disclaimer that "Tires Might Not Fit" and have a motto "If It Dont Fit We'll Sell You More"

I don't particularly care for the sumis either though for most people they're probably fine. They're not going to improve from my experience.

Maybe its because of the 'stilt' ride height...too much body roll.

DOH!! mean I tell ya, mean ! lets see...what was that thread... oh yea..... https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...sway-bars.html about post #7 and 8 you still running stock sways in front and H&R's in the rear???

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I would be very interested in purchasing the 285x30x18s. Let me know once you set a price I just priced them locally and for the two for the rear they are asking $250 each tire out the door.

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Yes sir...put on the RoW M030 springs and struts only and left the stock front bar in place with the H&R at full still. It really helps keep some of the understeer away. Now on to new tires! Gotta call the rack tomorrow.

Don't you think your suspension is what your feeling instead of your tires? Hear me out here...you have different tires on your front than what you have on the rear. You are running a ROW 030 springs and struts with a different rear sway and a stock sway up front. Sounds kinda thrown together instead of matched together. I think you are making your care feel what it doesn't want to.

wait... they are differant front and rear.... AND the rear is set full stiff? I spent about an hour with my tire guy tonight - all I can say is there is a lot to know about setting your tires and I am now thinking the N spec tires might be in my future. back to your tires... have you checked what type of roll over you get on the sides? I mean as I said before, for you the best seems to be get another pair you like... but I know people who have liked these and really want to figure out what is behind the dislike and if its a set-up issue or a tire/grip/sidewall/compound issue

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Thanks for all of the thoughts on this guys. I would buy into that if I had done the suspension and tires at the same time. But the suspension was already on with the old tires which were PS1s in the rear which had zero issues. The issue came when I changed to the Sumis. The bigger rear sway bar really helps flatten the car and controls understeer. This setup It helped a lot at Mid-Ohio this spring. There's no way I would take it to the track with the mismatched tires after the dramatic change the Sumis are providing on the PS1s.

OK...so what tires are on the front and were the PS1's N rated? from what I understand of the N rating is that tire MFG's add additional strength to the rear tires to achieve the N rating. It is 100% due to the fact that Porsche's are rear weight bias. The added strength is for the added weight. When you get to 285 wide and 35% height the challenge becomes keeping the tire flat, the center wants to concave and you have to add more air which then wants to overinflate (we all know what worn under/over inflated tires look like) - the trick is to find the sweet spot - AND keep it in the sweet spot over temprature. As tires age and have less grip you can give up some sidewall strength for a little added grip whcih will make you a little slower but its like many things...you have to keep finding the sweet spot and comprimise the things you have to to get there. my tire guy is tracking the sweet spot on about 10 + differant tires and has detailed notes on what to do, when and why. Its amazing info and I am one of his test platforms for the Conti Extreme DW's - he helped me last track outting and I was absolutely SOLD by the results. Car never handled better but that said I am on a comprimise tire because of dual purpose..street/track - and limited budget...none after all the time spend together I am more and more convinced spending more money to get better tires and getting the N rated tires is money well spent...and for the street he thought the N rated (stiffer tires) "could" help save rims when hitting potholes and alike on public roads, something to think about. I had great experience with the Sumi's and I know many others who agree. I personally think you might be experiencing something more than tires depending on how old your PS1's were and how they were set up, but I wont discredit the fact that a better tire would make a better driving experience. In the end you have to be happy and when you switch I really want to hear what your thoughts are on the new tire you choose

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Thanks for the N info. My options I'm looking at are the Yoko Advan AD08s which I can't find a bad review anywhere so far. The only downside is that they have a 180 treadwear rating and are not N rated. I'm not too concerned about wear though, more importantly precision. Or I could source PS2s with the N4 rating new at wholesale cost through a friend. But if Tirerack will take back the Sumis, I would buy the AD08s from them. We'll see how my diplomacy skills (or lack thereof) work with the Racks' CS department.

I still think your set up is what you are feeling. Your previous tires covered the issue. If you do go to the Yokomama route I'm really interested in some feedback.

A comparison of the Sumi's to AD08's would be nice. I put AD08s on my car and they're doing what I expected from them: giving me great grip at autocross and a good feel. However I can only compare them to old Pirelli Pzeros. Compared to the those, the AD08s are stiffer, have oodles more grip (so far almost 2s per 60s faster), and should be fine for wet daily driving. However, they have a lot more road noise. They're also not cheap, though nothing in 295/30-18 was what I'd call "cheap". I have a friend in the local PCA who runs them on his 993, and he said he likes them except for the fast wear. Strangely he says they're quiet compared to his previous tires (which I neglected to find out the name of), while I think they transmit a lot of noise. I do run almost 10 pounds more air in them than the PZeros (rollover + insertion pyrometer ).

Stiff sidewalls good grip. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSe...rk=1&x=12&y=16

Yomi, how much heat can you put in a tire on a 60 second run?

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I wish I had logs from track days and hillclimbs for comparison. I will look on the pyrometer tonight (if I don't forget), but pretty sure it was reading 115-130 internal temps. It's obviously lower speed and for a shorter overall time, but also on Sunday afternoon my car did thirteen 40s runs in slightly more than one hour. So it isn't 60 seconds then park it. We had about one minute of downtime between drivers. The double driver street tire Civic in front of me was spraying their tires like crazy trying to cool them down.

SO ... what was the event? doenst sound anything like our autocross's (or did I miss read the original post)

A regular autocross, 69 participants, 3 run groups and ours ended up being the smallest. 10 runs for the day for each driver (the other 996 had corded his tires on Saturday, so he drove someone else's CS Miata while I let his co-driver drive my car for the day). 6 to 10 runs is pretty common for the events around here. Usually we have more time between runs, and normally I don't do double driver either. We also have test and tunes in the EI region with basically unlimited runs (non-competitive). Edit: I did have more time between runs than at a ProSolo, but not much more. A difference there is that you do 4 runs in quick succession then have a reasonable amount of wait before the next set. It's been a while since I've been to national events, but people spraying tires to control temps between runs is pretty usual here in the Idaho / Utah area. I've done autocrosses in Bend and Medford, but never up in Seattle (assuming we don't count HPDE school and events at Pacific Raceways, and I really don't count the "autocross" portion of the school which was ridiculous). Edit2: Actually I now remember took 3 Evolution schools in Seattle back in 2004, but that's not a normal event.

Took out the variable of the tires. For a test, I put my 17" rear snow tires/wheels on and it feels great. 17" snows with stiffer sidewalls than the Sumis.

Just talked to Tire Rack. They are going to try to get it resolved. I'll need to provide them with tread depth and what I will be purchasing next and will go to Sumitomo for a refund. Car is at the dealer through Wednesday (Cayman loaner), so I'll wait to get the depth at that point. I'm really considering going to the Yoko AD08s.

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I assume you mean during the actual school and NOT the open session where the entire field is opened up to make an autoX "experience" but even biggger that the standard autox? yea, the school run is a parking lot turn around...the real fun is after the school is done til dark !!

RE011.

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Apologies to OP for off-topic. Hopefully this isn't derailing the Sumi discussion. This was with BMWCCA back in 2004 or so and was done at Bremerton. They had a lot of typical "intro to track" events like lane change with ABS/threshold braking, skidpad, etc. One portion was an autocross, which was a fairly typical autocross setup though quite short. The problem was that the instructors seemingly had never actually been to an autocross, and thought anything over what I'll call 80% was "wild driving and not what you should do in an autocross!" They seemed to be track drivers who had read about this "autocross" thing in text and decided they would set it up, without actually every having been to one or listened to any of the fantastic drivers in their region. "Pretend the cones are people -- if you hit one you've completely failed!" was another comment from the instructors. Coming from an Evolution school where people like Andy Hollis and Glen Hernandez were encouraging me to get closer and hit some darn cones every now and then... well... Then we did a track portion, which (from my novice viewpoint) my instructor was very good at. Pacific Raceways the next day. A very fun extended weekend overall -- 3 Evolution schools, a track school, and a HPDE track day.

So, have you decided if you want to sell those Sumi 285x30x18s

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No dice on the 285 30 18 size.

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If Tire Rack doesn't take them back. Working with them now. Once I get them the tread depth (car is at dealer) this week, they will start their process of getting an authorization for a return. They can no more than 1/32" wear. There is no way there is 1/32" gone only after about 450 - 500 mile. It's a few hoops to jump through, so if they don't do it, then I will be selling them. Hopefully I'll know by early next week.

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Sumitomo does not have a buy-and-try period on them, so unfortunately they are his. Sorry to hear you did not like them, almost all do. Do talk with our customer service dept. on it anyway. We want you happy.

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Good to hear!

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Hopefully it works out and I'll get the AD08s. After putting on the rear snow tires for a test, they are stiffer than the Sumis...strange.

I just talked to customer service at Tire Rack. They are taking back the Sumis and I'm going to buy the Yokohama AD08s. Damon - I just left you a message about getting these ordered. I want them to go out Monday since my car is at the dealer until Tues or Wed.

Hey Damon: Let me know if you are interested in re-selling the two pre-owned Sumi's, (I know they were only driven to church and back a few times......) as they are a perfect fit for my car.........

I'll bet he returns under wear cause there a little too tight !

strange, i love my sumi tires...

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Maybe these were defective since most like them. As a point of reference I put on 17" wheels and snow tires ad a test to eliminate any doubt. The snows feel MUCH better than the Sumis.

something is defective LOL seriously though you HAVE to post your impressions of your new tires when they come