Owners rate the Hankook Ventus Prime 3 K125 as a strong-value summer touring tyre, with most reporting confident dry grip and a comfortable, refined ride for the money. Wet performance is usually described as decent rather than standout, and around one in ten owners specifically call out weaker aquaplaning resistance, particularly once the tread gets lower. Noise is generally seen as acceptable to quiet when new, but a smaller group mention it getting louder with mileage. Tread life feedback is mixed but leans positive overall, with some high mileages reported and others finding wear only average on heavier cars or with more spirited use.
What owners mention most counted across 103 reviews
These tyres have excellent dry and wet grip. I've driven them on all types of road and in all conditions except for snow and ice. They are very comfortable to drive on and give a stable and sure response when driving in all conditions. I've had them on the car for 18 months while driving in the city mainly, and occasionally on longer drives on various roads from Motorway to B grade roads. They have always handled well. My only concern is that I have only driven 12800 miles in them and they are already worn down below 1.5mm. I'm very surprised with that. I think I will only manage to get 2 years out of these tyres and possibly between 15-16k miles.
Finally worn down the old Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance and got a set of these on Jonathan's recommendation. Pretty cheap too - Managed to get them for £55 each from F1 Autocentres online, including fitting, new valves, old tyres disposed of etc. when the prices were fluctuating every day. Bargain! Esp. for these rims! Alas they've gone back up, stabilizing in the low 60's at time of writing so I lucked out there!
Initial differences - The road noise is slightly but noticeably better; It's still pretty loud on certain surfaces but not as obnoxiously loud as the Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance were, esp. on concrete slab sections of motorway where the EfficientGrips would leave me with tinnitus because they were so f'ing noisy! Again shows that the official tyre noise rating is useless as the EfficientGrip Performance is rated at 67dB vs the VentusPrime's 71dB so it shouldn't be quieter!!
Grip is noticeably better over the EfficientGrip Performance, at least in the dry - I've yet to trigger the ABS under heavy braking, and it gives confidence that when I want the car to stop, it actually will stop! This was a constant issue with the Goodyears - Under anything other than a perfectly dry flat smooth road, would often suddenly run out of grip when braking hard, triggering the ABS and costing me 50% of forward braking force making the car feel like it was suddenly lurching forward!
Also, there is a fairly steep right turn I often need to take at junction that has poor visibility and is onto a fast road so I want to clear the junction and get up to speed quickly - I find this is a good test of a tyre's grip as it has to contend with sudden high acceleration force and still deliver lateral grip; In my crappy FWD Yaris it's quite a good torture test of a tyre's grip.
The EfficientGrip Performance would almost always wheelspin if I just floored it, losing me forward acceleration and forcing me to back off until I'd straightened the wheel, leaving my rear hanging out longer than I'd like.
The VentusPrime3 has been much better - Several times now I've been through that junction and accelerated at full power into the turn and so far I've never spun the wheels up at all, it just hauled off like I expect them to. Feels much safer and gives me more confidence than the Goodyears did!
They do seem to ride a bit harder than the Goodyears, although this is at the higher PSI I tend to run my tyres at - At stock recommended PSI they absorb speed bump impacts and drains etc. as well as most tyres. The difference in shock absorption between low and high PSI is more noticeable with these than the Goodyears. Might be a factor of sidewall stiffness?
Very happy with them so far - Hankook have made a very good tyre here; My only concern is how long they will last, and how much the performance will degrade over its lifetime - Last time I had tyres with such good initial impressions was with the Continental Premium Contact 5 - I gave them high marks across the board initially, but quickly discovered the horrific wear rate. I think they lasted half as long as tyres normally lasted on that car and that totally negated the relatively low cost (for a Conti!) of it.
(Supposedly they have fixed this in newer version of the CPC5 but the price has gone up by over £30 since then too!)
Hopefully that won't be the case with the Ventus Prime 3 - We shall see when I've put some real miles on them and they've been through all 4 seasons!
Check out how the BEST all seasons tyres perform against premium summer and winter tyres!
Fitted these to my BMW 116i last summer to go with a pair of hardly used but old Kumho Ecsta KU31's that were my previous favourite tyre. Intitially I fitted the Prime 3's up front so as to wear the older tyres first on the rear.
Even with the car kicking the rear out a bit grip and feedback was always superb on the front, once in damp conditions the rear got away and I had to counter steer and brake to avoid hitting the bollard at the exit of the roundabout I was playing on. No problem!!
Grip and aquaplaning resistance was always great in the wet too and even in cold weather when winter came around it was still up there.
Over winter I switched the Prime's to the rear as the Kumho's were getting well loose even with full traction and ESP on with just the standard 115bhp. The front was noticeably less grippy with the Kumho's but still pretty good, the rear however was transformed allowing slightly wreckless driving again as long as the electronics were left on.
This summer I couldn't be arsed to swap the tyres back around, after roughly 8500 miles the Prime 3's are down to 6mm of tread which is not much wear and the engine has had a remap so is slightly more powerful. Kicking the back out is not quite as easy as with the Kumho's on the rear partly because the front will try to understeer a bit now but the car does handle better with the Primes on the rear if you just want to go fast in the corners.
I've just bought a E46 330d coupe for summer so this will be my winter car now, when I need tyres for the 330 I'll be buying more Ventus Prime 3's at least for the front.
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Researching the Hankook Ventus Prime 3 K125? Rate the tyres you actually drive - and help the next buyer choose.
Very good tyre. It's much cheaper than other premium brands but still gives good performance. Very good on dry roads. On wet they can be compared with my previous set of tyres which were Rainsports 3. Hankooks are quiet and have a good wear. I've done 3k miles and they seems to be still like new.
Now that I have done about 3000 miles on the Hankook Ventus Prime 3 (HVP3), it's time to rereview them.
They are currently at the rear of a Volvo 240 Estate, while the ContiPremiumContact 5 (CPC5) are still at the front. In the mean time, the suspension has been upgraded making it a little stiffer and better handling than a factory original car, so now it demands a little more from the tyres in corners.
In my initial review I was positive about dry performance, and that hasn't changed. In corners taken at speed, the HVP3 matches the CPC5. After 3000 miles I can say that the same goes for wet driving. The HVP3 is a good tyre.
The main reason I switched from CPC5 to HVP3 was high wear of the former. In tests the hvp3 performed better. But on my car, the HVP3 has lost enough tread in those 3000 miles that I doubt it's going to have a much longer treadlife than the CPC5.
They lost 0.6 mm at the rear (driven) wheels while the CPC5s lost 0.4 mm at the front.
If wear remains linear throughout the tread life, I'll be looking for replacements in less than 25,000 miles.
I'm still planning on having HVP3s on all four corners to get a better picture, but that will have to wait a while as the CPC5's still have some life left in them.
Dry grip is great especially after they're warmed up. They're loosing grip very progressively when pushed hard but they seem to have a bit of rolling resistance, not much though.
Wet grip is also great as is the wear rate. I also drove them for 2k km on a Skoda Karoq 1.5 TSI and they were lacking a bit of grip when pushed. I would recommend something sportier for cars of 140+ hp if they're usually driven in an agressive manner.
They convinced me to buy a winter set of Hankook winter Icept RS2 and they didn't dissapoint in an way.
I will definately buy Hankook again, most likely the Hankook Ventus S1 Evo 3.
Previous had 4 hankook ventus prime 2 Fitted this tyres all 4 by recomendation on the tyre review videos on youtube . Initial toughts and driving very good tyre , i mean excelent grip dry and wet at a good price!!! All good until they reached the 3-4mm mark... back is way loose now... if i make a spirited driving on moutain the rear feels like going on ice
... didnt have this till the 3-4mm mark . For the price they are the best ones i admit! And prettygood wear now at 3mm and almost 40k km.
.. gonna try Continental next time
So I have these tyres on my MR2, 185/55/15 front and 215/45/16 rear and I have nothing but good things to say about these tyres, only had them since January so can't comment on the dry grip (because England) or wear yet but in the Wet they have definitely surprised me, car has yet to step out on me when pushed 👠can't rate comfort as I went for the XL version for the stiffer sideways which increases the handling and feedback but will decrease ride comfort, If thats your preference. All in all a very good tyre and for the price I'll definitely buy these again👌 (my ratings are based against tyres in this price range)
First time buying and using Hankook tires, I was initially very doubtful but I listened to the tire-dealers advice who strongly recommended these tires above anything els including so-called premium brands.
I have nothing bad to say about these tires, it's very good tires in both wet and dry, always good grip and braking both wet and dry, very good and safe handling, good and controllable feel, very good direction stability, good comfort and low noise-level.
These Hankook tires can match any premium brand and in my opinion they are better, very satisfied with these tires.
The only downside is the wear rate which is average at the best, they did not last very long, unfortunately a very typical problem with modern tires these days.
Although this is the only car I have driven with these Hankook tires, I think I can strongly recommend them except if wear is the most important issue.
Their performance lasted until the very last mm of tread, actually until somebody decided to shred all four tires on a public parking lot........fortunately.....(suspiciously?)..... there was a tire dealer next to this parking lot and he sold me some Michelin Primacy 4 tires which I have made another review about.
I bought them in March this year with about 52 euro / piece and I made about 10,000 km. From the comfort point of view, silent, good adhesion on both wet and dry. I am very pleased with them, I recommend them and I would buy them again.
I've been through various brands of tyres on the car which were OK but the difference with these is amazing. With emergency stops the ABS hardly switches on (wet and dry) with super short stopping distances. They have a solid feeling with excellent road feedback but without being uncomfortable and the road sound is OK and not a problem. I didn't know that tyres could be this good and make so much difference to a car.
Recently, I went from ContiPremiumContact 5 (CPC5) on all four corners to Hankook Ventus Prime 3 (HVP3) on the rear axle. I have done a couple of hundred miles in the dry, and under those circumstances, the HVP3 seems to be on par with the CPC5. Cornering feels fine, comfort is okay and they actually seem a little quieter that the CPC5s.
Wet grip and wear are yet to be determinded and the overall picture will become clearer once my car has the HVP3 on all wheels. The initial impressions seem promising.
