Crossovers and SUVs have gotten bigger, heavier, and increasingly car-like. They’ve also gotten considerably more complicated. There are turbocharged engines, hybrid powertrains, three rows of seating, giant infotainment screens, and, increasingly, electric motors and batteries adding even more weight.
So naturally, the tires have to deal with all of it. Kumho Tire is addressing that reality with the new Crugen GT Pro, an all-season touring tire designed specifically for the modern crossover and SUV crowd. The company says the new tire combines comfort, all-weather capability, long tread life and stability, while also being compatible with electric vehicles.
And unlike some new tire introductions that arrive in a handful of sizes and leave a substantial portion of the market waiting, the Crugen GT Pro launches in 85 sizes from 16 to 22 inches. Kumho says that gives it coverage of more than 85% of today’s crossover and SUV market.
Built for Today’s Bigger Crossovers
There was a time when an SUV tire mostly needed to be tough, reasonably quiet and capable of surviving the occasional gravel road. Today’s crossover tire has a somewhat more complicated job.
A midsize three-row crossover can weigh several thousand pounds before anyone puts the family, luggage, snacks and the obligatory emergency collection of charging cables inside. Add a hybrid or EV powertrain and things can get heavier still.
Kumho says the Crugen GT Pro was engineered with these larger and heavier vehicles in mind.
The tire uses what Kumho calls K-Maxmile technology, paired with a next-generation tread compound intended to improve wear resistance. The goal is pretty straightforward: make the tire last longer while maintaining the performance characteristics expected from a modern touring tire.
That’s particularly important for SUVs because tire wear can become expensive in a hurry. A vehicle with 20- or 22-inch wheels isn’t exactly wearing bargain-bin rubber.
Kumho is also emphasizing the tire’s treadwear warranty, describing it as one of the highest in its class. That’s an interesting selling point because treadwear warranties aren’t particularly exciting until you’re the person staring at four bald tires and wondering where all the tread went.
Even Wear Is the Name of the Game
The Crugen GT Pro also gets an optimized contact patch designed to distribute pressure more evenly across the tread. That sounds like engineering-speak, but there’s a practical reason for it.
A tire that wears unevenly doesn’t just look bad. Uneven wear can increase noise, reduce grip and shorten the useful life of the tire. Getting the tread to wear more consistently should help the Crugen GT Pro maintain its performance characteristics over a longer portion of its life.
That becomes increasingly important as SUVs become heavier and more powerful.
Kumho is essentially trying to make the tire’s entire tread surface do its share of the work rather than having certain portions of the tire shoulder more of the burden.
Quiet Is a Feature, Too
Another major focus is noise. Kumho’s K-Noise Defender technology incorporates resonance-reducing elements into the tread design. The objective is to reduce the noise generated as the tire rolls along the pavement without sacrificing handling or other performance characteristics. That’s particularly relevant in modern vehicles.
As automakers have improved insulation, aerodynamics and powertrain refinement, tire noise can become one of the more obvious sources of cabin sound. Electric vehicles make this even more apparent because there’s no engine providing a convenient background soundtrack of mechanical activity.
A noisy tire can therefore make a supposedly luxurious vehicle feel considerably less luxurious. Kumho’s approach is to address that noise at the tread itself.
All-Season Doesn’t Mean All Weather
The Crugen GT Pro is also designed to provide wet and light-snow performance.
Kumho’s K-Sipe Control technology is intended to improve wet braking, handling and light-snow traction. The tire also uses reinforced shoulder blocks and a zigzag tread pattern intended to improve stability, dry-road grip and high-speed handling.
That combination is aimed at the reality most SUV owners actually face.
Most aren’t spending their weekends crawling through mud or crossing rock gardens. They’re commuting, hauling children, driving through rain, dealing with the occasional snowstorm and taking highway trips.
For those drivers, an all-season touring tire makes considerably more sense than an aggressive all-terrain tire.
It should also be quieter, smoother and more efficient on pavement.
That’s the trade-off. The Crugen GT Pro isn’t being marketed as a tire for someone who wants to turn their crossover into a rock crawler. It’s designed for the considerably larger group of people who want their SUV to behave well on normal roads in a wide variety of conditions.
And Yes, There’s the EV Thing
Kumho is also making a point of noting that the Crugen GT Pro is EV-compatible.
That doesn’t mean electric vehicles magically require a completely different species of tire. It does, however, acknowledge some of the challenges presented by EVs.
Electric vehicles can be substantially heavier than comparable gasoline-powered vehicles, and their instant torque can put additional demands on the tires. Efficiency is also important because rolling resistance can have a direct effect on driving range.
Kumho isn’t claiming that the Crugen GT Pro will somehow turn an electric SUV into a hypermiling champion. Rather, EV compatibility means the tire is designed with the characteristics of today’s electrified vehicles in mind.
That makes sense given how quickly EVs and hybrids are moving into the crossover and SUV segments.
A Tire for the Crossover Reality
Perhaps the most significant thing about the Crugen GT Pro isn’t any single piece of technology. It’s the sheer breadth of the launch.
With 85 sizes spanning 16 to 22 inches, Kumho is positioning the tire as a mainstream replacement option rather than a niche product.
That’s important because the crossover and SUV market isn’t really one market anymore. It includes everything from compact crossovers on relatively modest wheels to enormous luxury SUVs sporting wheels that look like they were borrowed from a concept car.
The tire has to accommodate all of them.
Kumho’s combination of long-wear technology, noise reduction, wet-weather capability, light-snow traction and stability suggests the Crugen GT Pro is being positioned as a jack-of-all-trades touring tire. And that’s probably the right approach.
Most SUV owners don’t need a tire that’s spectacular at one particular task. They need one that’s good at almost everything, preferably for a long time, without making the vehicle sound like it’s wearing four sets of angry roller skates.
The Crugen GT Pro is available now through authorized Kumho Tire dealers nationwide.
