I knew the tyres on the Lexus were a bit iffy, they were 5 years old and nearly worn to the tread markers on the back. The fronts had some tread left but were budget brands. The front tyres were Sunny 'Sport Macro' and the rears were Jinyu Gallopro. They were OK in the dry, though it really wasn't hard to get the traction control light flashing if you needed to zip out of a junction, and they were quite noisy on the motorway.

They were also pretty sketchy in the wet. I'd had a couple of 'Tokyo Drift' moments leaving roundabouts at really quite tame speeds in the wet so knew they needed doing.

The MOT picked up on them being a bit rubbish too. I'd been holding off changing them until the MOT verdict came in, but a clean bill of health (other than the tyres) meant I could pull the trigger on some new rubber with no nagging doubts.

I'd been seeing what options I had. it has 225/45/17s on the front (which were fairly cheap and plentiful) and 245/45/17s on the back (which were not cheap, or especially plentiful). Almost all of them were XL rated which was a bit annoying as it does the comfort no favours. The Lexus wasn't specced with XL tyres from new, but the only not-XL rear tyres I could get were about £170 each which I couldn't quite stomach. Anyway, in the end I opted for a full set of Kumho Ecsta PS71s from Oponeo.co.uk for £304 all in, and had them fitted earlier by my local tyre fitter for £20 a corner including disposing of the old ones, valves and balancing which I'm fairly happy with. I checked half a dozen supply & fit outfits and they all wanted £500+ for Kumhos or similar so £385 feels a lot better.

I've run Kumho tyres before and been pretty pleased with their performance and longevity. All the reviews seemed to praise their wet grip which is a big consideration for me. Living in the Effluent South were rarely get errrmaGERRRRD snerr or sustained subzero temps but it does rain a lot which is where I've found the key difference between budget tyres and mid-ranges really comes out.

My local part-worn & tyre fitting place managed to get them all sorted for me a few days later, they're a really handy place to have nearby and are always happy to help. With the new tyres fitted, I needed to wear them in a little bit but even driving home at 30-40mph the new tyres were definitely quieter than the old ones so seems to be money well spent.

I've put about 100 miles on them now and worn off the residue of the release agent the tyres are coated in from the factory and they now grip really well. I was coming home late one rainy evening earlier this week and the difference in adhesion was amazing. The old tyres would understeer really badly on a couple of roundabouts near home, and it was quite easy to get the back end to step out too with the old budgets, the new Kumhos turn in really well and don't understeer at all, and its all but impossible to kick the back end out, even giving it quite a bit of revs. I'm sure I could make it drift still, but its gone from having to be super careful not to drift it on a wet roundabout; to needing to try really quite hard to make it do something silly. Money well spent!

Having subsequently Googled reviews for the Sunny NA305 that were fitted to the front of the Lexus, someone has described as being something that "I wouldn't even fit to a wheelbarrow." which made me chuckle!