Need your falken opinions

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Gilstein

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So my wife's car, Hyundai Santa Fe, and my car, Mazda 6, will need new tires before too long. Both see about 60 miles a day on two lanes highways and the occasional road trip. As I research tires im trying to find that balance between price, ride, longevity. Her car has more options (235/65/17) but mine is a more limited selection (225/45/19). Ice and snow performance is of no concern to me; cold weather matters but not ice or snow. I don't track the Mazda, and let's be honest while it handles well and I love driving it, it's still a 184 hp 4 banger at the end of the day. That being said I've noticed two different falken tires that fit our cars but don't know much about them, so I'm seeing if anyone on here has any experience with them.

For her car it'd be the sincera 250 a/s or possibly the pro G4 a/s and for mine it'd be the Azenis fk450, so what says you bitog?
 
many here will probably give them good reviews. I've used them twice: on my intrepid and on my echo. in both cases I had to replace them much sooner than with other brands of tires. I only got 30k out of them on the Intrepid; and 40k on the echo.
 
Yeah, Falkens are OK at best. I usually can find sale prices on other name brand tires that are the same as or lower than the price of falkens. I would keep looking
 
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I have had good luck with them. Had a set on the 1998 Buick Regal GS, 1991 Corvette and currently run them on the Trans Am.
For the money they are decent tire. The do well on the WS6 and Corvette. The Buick wore them out a bit quicker than I would have liked but were still a good tire.
 
I had some E rated falcon truck tires on my ford. After about 10k they were worn enough to be past the sipes although they still had tons of tread. Basically bald with only 4 grooves.

Americas tire pro rated them somewhat and replaced them with coopers
 
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I had a set back in 2010-2012. I don't remember the specific model but it had a wear warranty of either 50 or 60K. They were great and quiet when new but they were toast and worn out at less than 30K under normal driving/acceleration. Mileage warranty was useless. One of the tires also went out of balance and had one area almost bald.
 
Falken makes good tires at a good price
smile.gif


I have the Ziex ZE950 on my car, and they are awesome. The Pro G4 is a rebadged Sumitomo HTR AS P02, which in turn is s lightly modified ZE950 (the siping is slightly different)

For the Santa Fe, get the Ziex ZE950 or the Wildpeak HT. The Wildpeak might be a better choice for an SUV than the SN250, since it's designed with the taller profile in mind.

For the Mazda, the FK450 is probably the best choice.
 
I would look at other brands of tires. We can help you further however you need widen your choices. Many less expensive brand/model of tires will get recommended here. What year(s) are your vehicles and is the Santa Fe AWD? This helps when searching for tires.
 
As others have stated,they wear quickly. My experience was with the Ziex 912 and its derivatives. That being said, if you can get them at a good price then they're okay if you don't expect 50-60k out of them. Discount Tire recently had a sale and with all the rebates available, I got a set of 17" FK450 for ~$180 before cost to install.If I had to pay full price, I might have went with something else.

So far, the Azenis FK450 is really quiet. If they wear well, I might actually consider them for my other car when it needs tires.
 
In addition to mentioning other brands, your Santa Fe(235-65-17) shows to be a "T" speed rating according to TheTireRack. Is this correct? If so, the General AltiMAX RT43(in which I had on my Lexus RX300) is my 1st choice for your wife's Hyundai. And they're a high scoring tire at a very reasonable price.

And for your Mazda 6(225/45/19), man you are looking at some really pricey tires!
Kumho Ecsta Platinum come to mind as they are a really nice touring tire(in your size) compared to other Hi-Perf tires(ONLY). Your choices are limited in your size if you're looking for an inexpensive(but good) tire that is good riding and quiet for your daily commute(60 miles 'roundtrip).

Both tires ^^^ are good choices at very reasonable prices, and are available in your sizes(per vehicle) without getting into some private label tires. These tires are also very good at the everydayness/normalness for the way most people drive everyday...and then some. And these tires will be good for those foul weather days of cold(er) temps and torrential downpours of rain(as compared to high perf tires). In My Opinion!

Good luck,
CB
 
I ran the old FK452 on my previous car. It's the only tire I've ever switched out before it ran out of tread. It was okay at first, especially in the rain. Main weakness was vague-feeling steering; everything else was fine. But by the time they were half-worn, the dry grip was mediocre, the wet grip was weak, the steering was as bad or worse, and the NVH was off the charts. I got rid of the set when it still had plenty of life left in it. I could tolerate the mediocre grip, but the NVH made me hate driving my car.

My brother has run two sets of Falkens, the original ZE-512 and ZE-912. He liked them at the time, but has since had better tires and has no desire to go back.

I'm sure Falken has improved since then. But then again, so has every other tire manufacturer. Ultimately, Falken is still a budget brand, and with tires, that's almost always a losing proposition.

In 235/65/17, there aren't a lot of options I'm familiar with. I know what I'd bet on, but I'll defer to others here.

in 225/45/19, you can get the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ on sale at Tire Rack. Buy this now.
 
Since you drive that much I would look into tires that return better MPG.. since you could save quite abit in gas.

The fk450 is a budget uhp tire similar to the kumho 4x II both will drop fuel economy somewhere between 7-10% compared to excellent MPG/LRR tires

I'd define a excellent LRR tire as one that provides excellent fuel economy.. not necessarily a tire you would want (low traction etc)
Many oem tires, Michelin energy saver, goodyear fuelmax, bridgestone ecopia would be examples.

Usually you can find a good tire with Good LRR and good traction as a compromise.

an example would be a pirelli p7+ vs cooper cs5 ultra.. both are grand touring one provides significantly better MPG.
 
I had falken pros on a toyota rav4 and they were absolutely excellent tires. Quiet and great performance.

I have bought maybe 3-4 sets of falken tires over the years, and not had problems with them at all.
 
Originally Posted By: Rolla07
Why are you only considering Falken? Id look elsewhere, there are better options.


I'm considering several others, especially for the Santa Fe but these two tires I asked about are relatively new and not much info on them. Supposedly falken got better once the Goodyear partnership ended and these two tires are after that split. The Santa Fe has many options and I'm looking at the Bridgestone Alenza plus and various coopers there. There aren't many options in the Mazda size though unless you want to pay for a big performer.
 
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Originally Posted By: Gilstein
There aren't many options in the Mazda size though unless you want to pay for a big performer.

You should. They are expensive for a reason, and it's far more than balls-out grip.

Unless the money just isn't there no matter what you do, it's almost never* worth trying to save money on tires. No matter how much bigger the price tag looks, the price difference between the best tire and a terrible one is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your operating budget for the car -- but what the extra money buys you can totally transform the car.



* In my experience, I could drop the "almost." I'm only leaving it in because I have to imagine there are exceptions to the rule. But I've never seen one, ever.
 
I had Falken Z-something on my 560 SEL. They were... meh. Dry was ok-ish, wet no traction whatsoever. On a damp (not even wet!) road, the car would loose traction and kick the back out at 1200/min - with very gentle throttle...

But they were the only tyres available in this size with the correct speed and load indices. I'll never buy these again (unless I get another 560 and have no other choice).
 
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