Sumitomo WT200
175/70 R13 82T 3PMSF

Very noisy tires

I’ve had these tyres on my three-and-a-half-year-old Mercedes for their second winter now. They were very quiet at first, but as the tread depth decreased and the rubber hardened, they became increasingly noisy. However, in both years the tyres performed brilliantly on snow, ice, wet roads and slush, so they did their job very well. Over the past two years I’ve driven 68,000 km, of which 13,000 km each winter – about 26,000 km on these tyres. I rotated the tyres once per season, front to rear. The current rear tyres are 1–1.5 mm above the 4 mm indicator, while the front ones are about 0.5–1 mm above it. Next year I’ll swap them again at the start of the season, which should give me another 5,000 km. I run about 0.3–0.4 bar more pressure when the tyres are cold, and they have worn evenly and cleanly on all wheels. When balancing, thanks to new rims and these excellent tyres, I only needed a few weights. In principle I would buy the tyres again, but – and here’s the issue – they now cost as much without fitting as they did with fitting back then, and for the current price I could easily get better tyres. The value-for-money rating I’ve given refers to today’s price; you can already get Kumho, Nexen and so on for the same money, which makes purchasing these very unattractive. Ride comfort is good, but has become progressively worse because of the high noise level. At first the tyres absorbed potholes brilliantly, but they’ve deteriorated in that respect too. Still, after 26,000 km it’s acceptable for them to have become worse, so the overall rating can still be considered good. I’d give them 8 out of 10 points.

Good tires, but the price has doubled.