Cheap "UHP" All Season tire experiment: Cosmo MuchoMacho 215/40/17 $55 each

[danbfree]

First, please, no flat out tire snob mocking for this thread, so let's get this out of the way first: "All seasons are NO seasons"... I know, but where I live it's wet but mild with only a few inches total of snow a winter and I don't track this other than drag racing just for fun occasionally. I also have no intentions of pushng my car to the very, very limits, it's still a fun car being driven at 80%.. "Tires are the one thing keeping your car on the road, why go cheap?" Yes, I know, but with today's world economy tires are being made with quality in Thailand now and it's just a simple fact that sometimes things are cheap only because they need to try to get market share by word of mouth advertising, yada, yada, there are definitely exceptions to the rule of "you get what you pay for" these days... Most importantly, this is an experiment, I'm perfectly prepared to bite the bullet and buy some more expensive ones if these are really that terrible.

So I had already decided I wanted 215/40/17 all seasons to use with the black factory wheels for now. I had done my research and wanted something "stickier". As some of you know from another thread of mine, I was considering some 4 year old new stock on some Riken Raptor A/S, but the price went up to more than these and so I decided to go with what was hopefully some fresh stock on these cheapies These are 300tw with AA traction and are SUPER cheap, $55 each. Only downside I could see as far as specs is that appears to have only 8/32 of starting tread. And YES, hilarious name, PERFECT to go on a Fiesta, LOL...

So I ordered through Simple Tire eBay and they came the NEXT DAY! Just a crazy good deal at $220 a set of 4! https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-New-Cosmo-Muchomacho-P215-40r17-Tires-2154017-215-40-17/382651861113
Key thing to remember here, I am only expecting to get 20k out of these, we'll see how they actually perform

Anyway, they definitely pass the visual and feel inspection, they genuinely feel like great quality. Video review from a BMW guy here:

View: https://youtu.be/IHpsVvFbffE

Guy goes on to say he's shocked at how quiet they are with excellent wet performance and grip. His 2k update in the comments has him praising them more and more...

Rando internet photo I found, mine look exactly the same... Anyway, they are getting installed tomorrow and sorry I won't be able to quite do an apples to apples comparison as I'm also having my Eibach springs installed at the same time. But if anything, this will (literally) put even more pressure on the tires to perform, so I'll update this post with a review under the pic after I try them tomorrow!

 

[Clint Beastwood]

best named tire ive ever seen!

 

[Clint Beastwood]

wow you are expecting 20k?

I'll be lucky to see 15k from my current indys.

My abarth was so light it was still fun questionable tires, maybe the fist'll be happy too

 

[danbfree]

Wow, I'm impressed with this combo! Since the tire shop wouldn't do my springs I did have a chance to drive on the new tires a bit before going to my buddies house and doing my springs there. Tires are quiet and definitely sticky! I'm using factory 39 front / 36 rear for pressure, since these can handle 50 psi I think I'm going to bump up to 42/39. So after doing my Eibach springs, they take away a bit of the "right now" steering response but actually gives you a little more fine tuning of the steering. Almost like the difference between a Stratified and Dizzy throttle feel, you learn to just steer harder quickly when driving aggressively. But back to the tires, I'm definitely able to give it the beans harder before breaking traction with all TC disabled. Definitely seem to have better grip while cornering over the harder Pilot A/S 3's I had!

 

[HBEcoBeaST]

wow you are expecting 20k?

I'll be lucky to see 15k from my current indys.

My abarth was so light it was still fun questionable tires, maybe the fist'll be happy too

What are you doing to your Indy's?!? I have over 20K on mine since August 2018 and they should last until the year's end. I don't baby it either.

 

[HBEcoBeaST]

As much as I hated on the cheapy Ironman neogen all seasons my car came with they were much better than their $60 price tag. Feel was actually very good and while traction wasn't epic, breakaway was very linear and controllable. I decided to wear them out instead of replacing immediately.

Honestly the biggest issues I've found with cheaper tires is that they get noisy as they get low on tread and they don't last as long as name brand (80% as long). Both those negatives are made up for by the cheaper price.

I'm sure for your needs the tires will perform. Pretty sure they are warrantied as well which helps calm any initial quality issues.

 

[Clint Beastwood]

What are you doing to your Indy's?!? I have over 20K on mine since August 2018 and they should last until the year's end. I don't baby it either.

After getting my RMM, I didn't realize that my Stratified tune was getting wheelspin in first and second all the time (because it let go so smoothly with no hopping, etc.). Now that I am on the Dizzy or stock tune and more aware of the behavior in first and second tire "consumption" has slowed dramatically. I was also frequently driving through 4 inch deep recently-crushed concrete at a construction site which not only killed my wheel paint but it has been unkind to the tires on the car.

Also - concrete dust on a car is hard to wash off :facepalm: because it turns back into concrete when you hose it.

 

[danbfree]

After getting my RMM, I didn't realize that my Stratified tune was getting wheelspin in first and second all the time (because it let go so smoothly with no hopping, etc.). Now that I am on the Dizzy or stock tune and more aware of the behavior in first and second tire "consumption" has slowed dramatically. I was also frequently driving through 4 inch deep recently-crushed concrete at a construction site which not only killed my wheel paint but it has been unkind to the tires on the car.

Also - concrete dust on a car is hard to wash off :facepalm: because it turns back into concrete when you hose it.

I guess I don't care if other people think it's wimpy or cheating or "just not learning to use the throttle right", I find that the Cobb and Stratified type ignition based TC actually works really well. It seems to really keep power to the wheels but just significantly reducing wheel spin with so much torque being made so quickly. I've found that the Cobb setting at 3 is actually faster than no TC at all during drag races, so I'm sure it helps from just burning rubber up, hehe... But TBF, these news tires are so much stickier they definitely have more traction than the Pilot A/S 3's from the factory.

 

[FJ16]

So are these worth the $190 for a set of 205/45/16?

 

[Erick_V]

Been thinking about going the cheap tire route considering my Titans (17x8 et40) have been rather hard to sell. Was thinking about repairing them myself, mount tires, plastidip or superwrap for a new wheel color. If my wheels don't sell and these tires hold up for you I may go this route

 

[danbfree]

So are these worth the $190 for a set of 205/45/16?

Yes, they are even cheaper in that size, I'm happy with getting just a touch more sidewall and going wider, really fills the wheel wells out and seem to have great performance. I think the main thing is that they will simply won't last quite as long as a more expensive tire but the ride is grippy yet quiet and comfortable!

 

[V_2]

Despite having a (fckin awesome!) name straight out of the Wish catalog, I'd say you will be perfectly happy with these for your needs.

 

[danbfree]

Despite having a (fckin awesome!) name straight out of the Wish catalog, I'd say you will be perfectly happy with these for your needs.

hehe, yeah, Cosmo has been around for a while but a Chinese conglomerate bought a number of name brands and re-marketed a number of them... These are made in Thailand, where a lot of Chinese companies make their tires now at nice big new factories. When I had these installed, the guy found the name so funny he said he took a pic and sent it to his friends, lol, but he also said they balanced very nicely with very little weight needed, so I think they really are decent enough quality.

 

[SST]

where are these tires made in?
Does Cosmo falls under any tire company? as in a 2nd line of a bigger brand?

 

[danbfree]

where are these tires made in?
Does Cosmo falls under any tire company? as in a 2nd line of a bigger brand?

They are made in Thailand and do indeed fall under a large Chinese conglomerate that has a number of brand names, they just re-marketed the old Cosmo brand name with silly new tire names.. sorry can't find the details I had read right now but I remember that much from reading it recently.

 

[Clint Beastwood]

I'd be curious how they'd hold up in some place like socal or texas - I'd imagine in oregon you don't get as much "dry heat" as we do down here - for me at least, when I was keeping a stable of rarely driven cars, the dry-rot was REAL.

 

[danbfree]

I'd be curious how they'd hold up in some place like socal or texas - I'd imagine in oregon you don't get as much "dry heat" as we do down here - for me at least, when I was keeping a stable of rarely driven cars, the dry-rot was REAL.

Yeah, these are at least very fresh, made 1919 and are a nice quality sticky compound so shouldn't be bad though!

 

[flbchbm]

I'm all for cheaper anything. And you all know WHY they are made in Thailand.....the most rubber tree plantations are there, along with cheap labor. Indonesia is #2 and they make a ton of tires too. The plantation working conditions are horrible, but then again, any cheap labor situation is going to be.

 

[FJ16]

I just got some Rota Grid 16x7 wrapped in MuchoMacho 205/45/16 rubber, and so far I'm very impressed. Coming from the stock Bridgestones, they grip better and aren't loud (but my tires were worn down close to the bars). Wet traction also seems good; the real test will be longevity... but for $190 I'm pleased so far!

 

[danbfree]

So had the chance to take a little road trip on the tires this weekend and I'm impressed! We were caught in some downpours and these things cut through the rain and standing water like nothing, these are amazing in the rain! They say they take up to 50 psi of pressure, so I set them to 42 psi in the front and 39 for the rear while at about 70 degrees and with the temps only getting colder right now (we had record low high temps this weekend) excessive pressure won't be an issue...

Downsides? Yeah, I doubt they last more than 15k miles or so but for $320 I don't mind replacing them at would be every 18 months or so since I no longer have a commute, my car is just for fun and errands now, so to me the value is still excellent!