Kumho Crugen Premium

Brand: Kumho
Tire: Crugen Premium
Category: Crossover/SUV Touring All-Season
UTQG (treadwear): 440 A A

A tire with some history...that's what we see here with the Kumho Crugen Premium, which used to be called the City Venture Premium. Kumho decided to do a name change at the end of 2013, but they emphasize that nothing has changed in the construction or materials. Now if this was a top tier tire, I'd say..great! But alas it is not and I can't help but think that this tire could have used some updating to go along with that name change. Typically you find this tire attached to the Hyundai Santa Fe as it has been an Original Equipment (OE) tire on that vehicle for quite some time now, however this tire can be fitted to a variety of SUV and crossover vehicles. OE tires are traditionally tires that are employed just to get cars off the dealership lots, and in the case of the Crugen Premium..same story. This isn't the worst OE tire I've come in contact with, which is saying something.

Compared to other Crossover/SUV Touring All-Season tires, this one ranks in the middle of the pack. I think Kumho has done a nice job at making an OE tire that is responsive and has good traction on dry pavement. Wet traction is a little less than ideal, but where this tire really struggles is on snow. I can name 10 better tires in this performance category that are better in snow. They actually roughly correlate to the overall rankings so you can check out all the other tires that perform better than the Crugen Premium. One great aspect about them is their longevity. It's not hard to find sets of these that last longer than 80,000 miles, making this a very good 'value' tire. On the other hand, and as I mentioned above, snow traction is very poor. In fact, I would say that cold traction in general is very poor. Here in the Midwest United States, where we get numerous inches of snow every year, I really can't recommend these tires to anybody. Even light snow of 2" or 3" is too much for the Crugen Premium. Unfortunate. But if you happen to live in a place that doesn't get much/any snow, then I'd say these wouldn't be a bad choice. At the end of the day there are just much better options on the market.