Community Forums

HB Talofa · 07-09-2020, 09:00 PM

Anyone have any experience, good or bad, with these?

Kahoona · 07-10-2020, 12:04 PM

We bought an RV with those on it. They were three years old and had set for most of that time. We have driven on them for a year now under all conditions for thousands of miles and have had no problems at all. Since this rig is a DP we can't really comment on the ride quality. If you have a front engine that has a bad ride to begin with you would want to know more.

lllkrob · 07-10-2020, 02:01 PM

Sumitomo tires have been used for decades in the heavy truck industry without problems.

theroc · 07-15-2020, 09:35 PM

Sumitomo is one of my favorite brands. As you may or may not know, the Sumitomo company can trace it's roots back to the 1600s and I think is currently in the top 25 largest corporations in Japan.

Their tire and rubber business started in the early 1900s but didn't really get going until the early 1960s. Good news is that the ST719 is now made in their Tonowanda New York plant (Sumitomo Rubber USA, LLC ). So you have a tire that has a huge Japanese corporation behind it but are buying a product that is made in the U.S.A. employing American workers. This is similar to buying a Yokohama truck tire ...another big Japanese company that has a good reputation that has a U.S. subsidiary and a plant in Mississippi that produces commercial truck tires.

Commercial truck tires coming from both those plants have the reputation of having innovative design and top notch quality and engineering.

For me, Sumitomo and Yokohama beat anything coming out of China even if you may have to pay a bit more ...but far less than what you'd pay for a Michelin of similar design.