Hankook Ventus V12 evo2 Reviews - Page 3

Just replaced a set of factory fitted tires. For the first 10k miles I was happy with tires , good grip with no issues other than slightly annoying road noise. Wet and dry grip were fine for a road tire the only issue being lack of feedback which meant I had no idea where the margin for error was. I deducted a point off wet grip due to a floaty feel regardless of speed in standing water At the time I thought it was just the car set up. Despite the tires still having 4mm minimum of tread left the tires degraded very rapidly with what can only be described a vague feeling through the steering as if the sidewalls had gone soft. After another 4K miles they had to go.

Wear rate was good but the drop in performance negated any advantage.

Have replaced with Michelin Pilot Sport 4's which have transformed the car and it's never driven so well. Bags of feedback, less offensive road noise and the car feels better poised over bumps.

In short I would use the Evo'2 again if factory fitted but would replace at the first sign of deteriation.

For my daily driver, I have always been an Goodyear Eagle F1 fan. They provide a good balance between price, wear, performance in all conditions.

When I went to replace them last time, not only did they only have 2 in stock but they had a deal on the Hankook Ventus V12's which I knew were beginning to get a bit of a following as a decent semi performance tire that were being fitted as standard equipment to some half decent new cars.

So re-booted the whole car with them and drove away. It is hard to be negative about their actual peformance in terms of grip, roadnoise and ability to handle my fairly aggressive driving style. They have been on a FWD Diesel car which is light and nimble and thrown around a little. In the dry, they really are very very good, better than the Eagle F1's easily I would say. Wet grip is so so. By no means terrible but hardly confidence inspiring but then if you are driving to conditions, they are not dangerous. I don't feel they part standing water as effectively as other tires in the price bracket. However, in the dry, they stick like s*** to a babies nappy and it is very difficult to get them to part company with the road surface. If you really push, obviously you can do it but when you do, it is always consistent. You know where the limit will be. Always a good point in my book if you like to push it.

Where these tires fall down and fall down badly is wear rate. I normally get 20k miles from the fronts on this car and these tires were dust in less than half that time and being honest, I should have replaced them sooner than I did, as performance really dropped off about 2kmiles before I replace despite there just being legal tread left. I reckon they gave me about 6.5k decent use.

With that in mind, I could not recommend these for a standard daily driver. If you are looking for well priced performance tire for a weekend play thing while not wanting the degradation of some aggressive Yokies or the sort, then these could be up your street but I would still probably opt for some Toyo's personally.

Just replaced them all and gone straight back to Eagle F1. Instantly you can feel a bit less grip and slightly more twitchy where the Hankooks would give more confidence but it will nearly 2yrs before I shell out £500 rather than a handful of months. The Eagle F1's perform better in the wet and while not as grippy in the dry, have the same level of progressive performance before letting go.

Hankook Vetus V12. Really good tire but ultimately disappointing for my own personal use.