If you’ve got a sports sedan or coupe or a sporty crossover and you really want to get the absolute most out of its handling properties, braking performance, cornering abilities, and steering response, ultra-high-performance (UHP) or summer tires are going to be the way to go. All-season tires are a great choice for their balance of year-round traction, a quiet and refined ride, great wear properties, and solid road manners, but they usually fall a bit short of the nimble handling and quick, light steering response you can expect from a summer or UHP tire. Summer and UHP tires differ from all-season or Grand Touring tires in some key areas of design and construction, and that’s what gives them an edge in handling and braking performance.

While there are plenty of choices of premium summer and UHP tires on the market (with premium features and premium prices to match), the good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get that kind of performance from a set of tires. The Optimum UHP from Green Max is a UHP tire that beats expectations and offers premium performance at an affordable price. Let’s get a look at what it has to offer with this Green Max Optimum UHP tire review:

Features and Benefits

Here are some of the great design features and innovations that make the Green Max Optimum a great performer and a great value in the arena of affordable UHP tires:

• The asymmetric performance-oriented tread design is divided into two segments, with the outboard side delivering a confident grip in wet weather and the inboard side optimized for traction on dry pavement
• A redesigned footprint is wider and fatter for ride comfort, improved wear properties, sticky braking, and cornering traction
• The advanced tread compound is designed for glue-like adhesion to the road
• Circumferential and angled grooves resist hydroplaning by efficiently flushing water from the tire’s contact patch on wet roads
• Tread pitch is randomized and computer-tuned to keep road noise muted by negating certain frequencies and harmonics
• Reinforced shoulder blocks resist tread squirm and deformation by adding rigidity to the tread, enhancing cornering ability
• Covered by 40,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty
• Polyester casing with two high-tensile steel belts and polyester cap ply
• Wide range of sizes for various fitments

Pros and Cons

With the Green Max Optimum HP, this is a tire where the Cons are far outweighed by the Pros:

PROS:

• Handling, steering response, and braking are all nimble and precise
• Ride quality is refined and quiet
• Great performance on wet or dry pavement
• Covered by 40,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty

CONS:

• Can be noisy on some pavement surfaces
• Not an all-season tire
• Not good in snow
• Not for use when daily temps are below 40-45 degrees F.

SimpleTire’s view on Green Max Optimum UHP tires

Are you acquainted with SimpleScore? SimpleScore is the proprietary rating system that the SimpleTire team developed to give you a quick, at-a-glance idea of any tire’s strengths and weaknesses. We look at the tire’s technical details, manufacturer info, specs, customer reviews, and other data points, then process that all to a 1-10 score for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, as well as an overall average SimpleScore. In the case of the Green Max Optimum UHP, the SimpleScore numbers break down this way:

Green Max Optimum UHP:

• Traction: 7.8
• Handling: 8.2
• Longevity: 8.0
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.0

Those are numbers that would be pretty respectable for any UHP tire, and they look even better when you consider that SimpleTire’s price on the Green Max Optimum UHP runs from $63.96/tire to $188.98/tire.

We should get one of the Cons listed above out of the way first off. Summer and UHP tires like the Optimum UHP use a tread formulation that’s designed to be softer and stickier for good traction and braking performance - in some cases, UHP tires might be as soft as a pencil eraser. The downside of that tread compound is that it will stiffen up and lose grip in subfreezing weather, and tire manufacturers advise against using summer or UHP tires if temperatures are lower than 40-45 degrees Fahrenheit.

With the Green Max Optimum UHP, its combination of sipes, circumferential, and angled grooves do a great job of resisting aquaplaning on a wet road. Even with high-horsepower sports sedans and muscle cars, the Green Max Optimum UHP is capable of cornering and steering response that punches far above its weight class. At highway speed on the interstate, road manners are solid and stable without a need for constant corrections, but the Optimum UHP also responds well to driver commands during an emergency swerve or cornering.

Some drivers commented about a firmer ride on some surfaces, due to stiffer sidewalls and shoulders of the Green Max Optimum UHP, but that also means a more rigid tire that’s capable of better cornering ability. We should also note that the 40,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty is a real selling point since many summer and UHP tires don’t feature a mileage warranty at all. All in all, we’d say that the Green Max Optimum UHP is a performance tire that compares well to premium brand tires that cost much, much more.

Vehicles the Green Max Optimum UHP is a good replacement tire for

While not used as original equipment, the Green Max Optimum HP is a good replacement tire for vehicles like the:

• Acura TL
• Audi A6
• BMW 135i
• Buick Regal
• Chevrolet Impala
• Dodge Charger
• Ford Focus
• Honda Civic
• Hyundai Veloster
• Jaguar XKR
• Lexus GS350
• Lincoln LS
• Mazda Miata MX-5
• Mercedes-Benz E550
• Nissan Maxima
• Pontiac G6
• Scion tC
• Subaru BRZ
• Toyota Camry
• Volkswagen CC Sport