[krishnaprasadgg]

Let me get the standard part out of the way:

Tyre Model: Momo Outrun M3
Size: 215/50R17
Car: Ford Ecosport Titanium S
Price: Rs.5550/- per tyre as of 29th Feb 2020
Where to get:
1. Hercules Tyres (215, Link Rd, opp. Maruti hospital, Jai Bheema Nagar, Seshadripuram, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Last I spoke to them they do ship tyes to nearby states. Momo India's Facebook page can provide authorized dealers in other states.
2. Madhus Tyre Care (12, Hosur Main Road, Mavalli, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
No idea if they deal with shipping tyres.


Now let's get into the meaty part.

A little over a year ago. We welcomed a new car into our garage, The Ford Ecosport Titanium S Diesel. It had replaced our trusty old Maruti Dzire after it served us for about 1L KMS over a span of 5 years.

We loved everything about the Ecosport, the engine, the power delivery, and the looks, everything but the tyres. During the initial research phase, while considering options for the upgrade, the tyre issue is what came up consistently. Just people after people complaining about how bad the Bridgestone Ecopia performed on the 17" wheels that came standard on the S model and how many struggled to get it replaced under warranty even. There is even a dedicated thread here in Tbhp just for discussing this issue, which helped me a lot in understanding that it was an issue to deal with. But we weren't ready to not get the S variant just because of the bad tyres, so we started looking into options of which tyre was best as a replacement.

The stock size


Stock Ecopia removed as soon as the car hit the road


Now considering that we put a lot of mile on the car and that too 98% of our driving is strictly Highway miles safety was of paramount importance and so was not getting stuck on the road because of tyre issues. So it was decided that we will go ahead with the Ecosport S but change the tyres ASAP to something better.

So the search for a better quality tyre started

Now the stock tyres were of the size: 205/50R17 size

While we looked at the following options

Michelin Primacy 4ST
The Michelin Primacy was ruled out as it was not available in stock sizes and the next upsized tyres came in 45mm sidewall height which along with the 17" wheels did not inspire much confidence in our road conditions. A jump of 5mm in sidewall height there was a huge jump in price too, with a single tyre costing well above 10k, so dropped that as I was on a budget for tyre replacement.

Michelin Pilot Sport 4ST
While the Pilot Sport 4ST was available in the stock size the price was again the factor that played spoilsport but was kept as the current best option if I would not be able to find a better option in time.

Continental Maxcontact MC5
Now a friend of mine was using the Continental Maxcontact MC5 on his Ecosport and had a lot of praise about the grip the tyre offered but alas they did not make one which would fit the 17" wheels, the max it went to was 16". So naturally, that option was also out the window.

MRF Perfinza
When I was considering the MRF for the change I was willing to test only the Perfinza as I had used exclusively MRF tyres on my Dzire and of the different models I tried only the Perfinza was something that I liked. But then again Perfinza did not make any tyre for the Ecosport which would fit anything above the 15" rim sizes.

Momo Outrun M3
Now about this time I had decided that there was no other option to go for other than the Michelins, that is when I was told about this new Momo Tyres that were available by none other than fellow Tbhpian and close friend Xaos636. He had been running on the Momo Outrun M3 on his Baleno RS and has been super happy ever since.
On enquiring a bit more found out quite a few Ecosport owners had swapped onto these and were very happy too, apparently they had really good sidewall strength and were run-flats too. I also heard they made them specifically for the Ecosport dimensions too which I do not know if it is true.
The best part was they were very reasonable too. The tyres cost me around Rs.5550/- per tyre.

Cost & Date of Manufacture


In for 2nd set of tyre change






I am not going to comment about Appolo or Bridgestone as for some reason I forgot about the existence of these brands and hence I did not even do the research on these. If anybody who has experience of Appolo or Bridgestone tyre which fit and are good do add your experience to this thread so that it may be helpful for people to consider for making an educated choice.

After much deliberation decided to go one size up and get the 215/50R17 instead of the stock size, I made sure that jumping up a size won't cause any clearance issue or rubbing and decided to place the order for them.
I used this Tbhp thread (Tyre Size Calculator!) and also this website for making sure that the upsizing was a safe one to do.

So the choice was made to go with the Momo Outrun M3 of size 215/50R17 and got in touch with the dealers of Momo tyres here in Bangalore. It is a shop named Hercules Tyres. I am attaching the address to Hercules tyre below.
Address: 215, Link Rd, opp. Maruti hospital, Jai Bheema Nagar, Seshadripuram, Bengaluru, Karnataka

Also just FYI you can also get Momo tyres from Madhus, which seems to be Bangalore Tbhpian's favorite spot for tyre care and I do not blame them. I myself have been a repeat customer there.

While for my first set I had no other option but to get from Hercules, I had a wonderful experience from there and had nothing to complain about. While both shops are pretty good at giving a competitive price, I went with Madhus as I got a better offer for Tyre+Fitment+Road Force Balancing and Alignment and this time around the chaps at Hercules tyres took too much time to get back to me regarding a proper quote I just went with the easiest option.

P.S: I am in no way associated with either of these shops and opinion/suggestion is purely based on the level of customer service I have received from both shops.


Review

Fitment
They fit perfectly onto the stock 17" wheels that came as standard on the Ecosport S variant. No clearance issue anywhere and not to mention that the tyres definitely improved the stance of the car. The tyres to stick a little bit outside the wheel well but not so much that it looks like a frog ready to jump but just enough to give it a mean stance.

Right Tyres are the Momos(215/50-R17) Left is the Ecopia(205/50-R17)


Stance Front


3/4 Angle




Front tyre side view


Side Stance


Tyre pushing a smidge out of the wheel well


Spare Wheel


Right: Momo Tyres, Left: Stock Tyres.


Side Note: There are people who have gotten away with fitting the 225/50R17 on the Ecosport as well and faced no clearance issue, but I did not choose for this as the tyre would have stuck out of the wheel well much more than what I was ok with and not to mention the car would get more sluggish than it already is.


General Performance

Mileage: While the company says to expect only around 30,000 kms of usage from this tyre. My first set of tyres lasted me approximately 37,000KMS. I could have easily extracted around 40-42k kms out of them had I rotated the tyres properly.
Me the big goof that I am, conveniently forget to get the tyres rotated whenever I went in to get the tyres aligned and ran the car without tyre rotation for about 20k kms. This caused the fronts to wear down considerably than the rear and the rest of the 17k kms I ran the 2 rear tyres at the front to offset the wear on them.


So at the point of mounting the new set, the front tyres had a good 2-3k kms more life in them than the rear which had the tread depth level with the tread depth indicator.

Tread Life Left at 37k kms






Performance: The Momo tyres are for sure heavier than the stock Bridgestone Ecopia and since I went with a wider profile too the car did feel a bit more sluggish on the road due to more unsprung mass added to the wheels and higher grip in offer, while the car did feel a fraction slower it was nothing that you'd feel during normal drives, the place where it would feel apparent was when accelerating out of 2nd and 3rd gears(this I would say was the Achilles heel of the Ecosport S diesel engine, the car just was so lazy when you rev it up 2nd gear and shifting to 3rd there just was no power to offer, this made highway overtakes in between slow-moving trucks a very tricky situation), to rectify this I got the Code6 tune on my car and have been running this tune for the past 10-12k kms and it did help with the sluggishness. So it is to be kept in mind that moving up to 225 can make this even worse. So I would suggest considering the 225 only if you are ready to tune the car to rectify this problem.

Side Note: The refreshed Ecosport S variant(16" wheels) apparently has a completely different tune and some physical changes in the transmission that addresses this issue as I have been told by my friend who also went to get the code6 tune for his car but couldn't due to this changes as the map wasn't ready yet at that point.

Terrain Handling: I have taken it over most of the road surface that our country has to offer from silky smooth highways to God awful bumpy roads to non-existent roads which were just gravel and dirt with huge craters everywhere. And sustained no punctures at all and no cracks/cuts to the tyre sidewall and no bent rims as well.

Muddy/Dusty soft roading conditions at Chikamagalur




Sticky Twisty Roads of Ponmudi, Trivandrum. Accompanied by friends Ecosport(Front, Conti tyres) and another friend's pristine Fiesta 1.6S


This was really surprising as I have had quite a few incidents where I had hit some potholes at full load and unfavorable speeds. I don't believe it was plain luck that saved me through this entire 37k kms. While I was hearing people who were on the stock tyres to have bubbles/burst sidewall and bent rims for much less.

Wet Grip: Had the chance to drive the car with both stock and momo tyres through rainy conditions and I have to say that I was very happy with the way the Momo outperformed my expectations. I had not faced any situation where I felt the car was slipping or had no grip in wet conditions or while hard braking in wet conditions. I guess the Asymmetric design does do wonders for this situation. In anyways it was a much better feeling than in wet, but in the interest of full disclosure, I did not have the scenario where I got to try the hard braking grip in wet with the stock tyres.

Xaos636's Baleno RS and my Ecosport both running the Momo Outruns and both of us are on the second set now


I had this scary situation once while driving through TN highways during night time while it was raining cats and dogs, I usually hold the left lane only during this type of conditions to avoid running into puddles of water along the right shoulder as there is little to no drainage along these highways. But in one stretch I misjudged and was attempting an overtake and did not see a huge puddle of water coming up and drive right into it at about 90-100kmph, I had had one or two similar scenarios in the past when I was a relatively new driver and remember it being a very violent situation to go through, but in this case, the car performed in a very calm manner and did not lose control at all apart from a little bit of resistance at the wheel which I was very easily able to control. I do not know if the water channeling ability of the tyre is to be given the credit here, but that was the take away from the situation for me. Do correct me if I am wrong.

Dry Grip: Nothing much to say here. I have never felt a shortage of grip/ traction on dry tarmac and never had any skids or wheelspin happen yet. Though towards the end of 37k kms I did feel the braking distance had slightly increased when getting the car to slow down on hard braking.

Tread Pattern


Tyre Size


Braking: Very confidence-inspiring in both dry and wet scenarios. Gravel roads also the tyre held up pretty well, but haven't tried hard braking at all as I always take it very easy while driving in conditions like this, don't think it's worth testing it out.

Ride Quality: Initially I thought that going with stiffer sidewall tyres would make the ride quality a bit more harsh but surprisingly never felt much of a difference to the ride quality at all.
It performed pretty well on smooth roads but was a bit harsh on bumpy roads I was running all 4 tyres at around 28psi at the time. I ran with this config for a few thousand kms.
Then I decided to try running the tyres with 32psi and this made a huge difference for me, suddenly the ride was much more comfortable even on bumpy roads, the car would glide over most bad patches while the same roads were very uncomfortable to ride when on 28psi. I have a feeling that running the car on 28psi did also lead to a bit of accelerated wear during the initial few thousand kms.

Road Noise: As per Momo the road noise is rated at 73db. I am not sure how good the score is among road tyres, never did the research on that. But I can confirm that road noise into the cabin is pretty minimal, I drive almost every time with the music and AC on and usually having a conversation if there is anybody else in the car. So I barely notice any road noise at all. No complaints there.



Warranty: Momo provides an unconditional 2-year warranty on any manufacturing defect. They provide a warranty card at the time of purchase which needs to be furnished if in case you want to claim a warranty on the tyre. So do keep in mind to collect this card if you are opting for these tyres.

So to sum it up. I was extremely happy with the first set that I got myself my second set of the same tyres. They provide a great grip and decent life all while being pretty affordable.
I hope I have covered most areas here in this review. Do feel free to ask/add any points in the thread. I hope this will be helpful to people looking for a different tyre for their Ecosport or in general for momo tyres as I could not find any reviews when I was out looking for one.

Let me sign off with 3 beauty shots of the car.







Cheers
Krishna

[Sheel]

Thread approved! Thanks for sharing.

[GTO]

Many thanks for sharing! That is one heck of a detailed tyre review. Added to the homepage .

Despite your positive review though, very honestly, I would never consider such a brand. However safe the car might be, the actual grip level comes down to those 4 small contact patches we have through our tyres. And for that, I'll only trust the established brands like Michelin, Yokohama, Apollo, Goodyear etc. I don't see any compelling reason to trust a newbie tyre brand and for the common sizes, I don't see the price difference as a motivating factor either.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by GTO

Many thanks for sharing! That is one heck of a detailed tyre review. Added to the homepage .

Despite your positive review though, very honestly, I would never consider such a brand. However safe the car might be, the actual grip level comes down to those 4 small contact patches we have through our tyres. And for that, I'll only trust the established brands like Michelin, Yokohama, Apollo, Goodyear etc. I don't see any compelling reason to trust a newbie tyre brand and for the common sizes, I don't see the price difference as a motivating factor either.

Thanks for the kind words. I just hope the review will be helpful to someone in the future.
I do understand the sentiment behind it, I also am someone who rarely go for un-proven brands whenever I get something and that too for something as critical as tyres which can literally be the difference between life and death. Apprehension towards an unproved brand is always going to be there, that's just how it is.

Seeing that they build quality parts which are used widely in the racing world(F1 wheels, Steering Wheels, Race suits, Harnesses) and seeing the quality of their street products as well(Wheels, Steering wheel) and a friend who used their wheels and tyres and was extremely satisfied, I decided to give it a shot, I did go into this completely expecting to be dissatisfied but was pleasantly surprised.

But I'd be lying if I were to say that price was not a factor, while I strongly agree to go by pricing and sacrificing safety is kind of a backward thing to do, in this case it turned out great results.

Now that I have a new appreciation and trust in the brand I decided to go with it again. Here's to hoping they live up to my expectations this time around too.

Cheers
Krishna

[GTO]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Thanks for the kind words. I just hope the review will be helpful to someone in the future.

You bet it will! Thanks again for sharing. Here is another forum thread with generally positive reviews.

[DevilzzzzOwn]

Not to take anything away from a 5 star post, but isn't the Eco missing the top lug nut on the spare?

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by DevilzzzzOwn

Not to take anything away from a 5 star post, but isn't the Eco missing the top lug nut on the spare?

Haha. No, it comes as such . The spare wheel is mounted using 2 regular lug nuts and one special lug nut(to prevent theft) right from the factory.

Imagine my shock the first time that even I felt that one lug nut was missing. It's something subtle, I never noticed this on any number of Ecosports I saw on the road until I happened to own one.

Cheers
Krishna

[shashi792]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Performance: The Momo tyres are for sure heavier than the stock Bridgestone Ecopia and since I went with a wider profile too the car did feel a bit more sluggish on the road due to more unsprung mass added to the wheels and higher grip in offer, while the car did feel a fraction slower it was nothing that you'd feel during normal drives, the place where it would feel apparent was when accelerating out of 2nd and 3rd gears(this I would say was the Achilles heel of the Ecosport S diesel engine, the car just was so lazy when you rev it up 2nd gear and shifting to 3rd there just was no power to offer, this made highway overtakes in between slow-moving trucks a very tricky situation), to rectify this I got the Code6 tune on my car and have been running this tune for the past 10-12k kms and it did help with the sluggishness.

Side Note: The refreshed Ecosport S variant(16" wheels) apparently has a completely different tune and some physical changes in the transmission that addresses this issue as I have been told by my friend who also went to get the code6 tune for his car but couldn't due to this changes as the map wasn't ready yet at that point.

We have two Ecosport TDCI S (White-2018 and Red-2019) at out house, both running Ecopia 17. For the White-2018 one, we had to get both the front tyres changed under warranty as the side-walls had the very-famous tyre bulging issues.

For the Red-2019, we had a small incident where a Toyota Fortuner, with slightly higher than city speed hit our stationary car (service road). The front-passenger wheel section was damaged. We had to replace the fender, tyre and alloy wheels. But, what surprised me was that the tyre side wall had burst.

The good part of the incident was that the Fortuner owner, even before we discussed how this happened, agreed to get the car fixed. He spoke to the service guys at Ford and asked only to do a replacement of parts and not repair anything. We got fender, tyre and the alloys replaced @ Cauvery Ford, Bangalore.


On the other note, do you feel a difference in city driving after the Code6 tune ?. What were the numbers after the tune ?. We were thinking of getting one either one of the cars tuned.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by shashi792

We have two Ecosport TDCI S (We got fender, tyre and the alloys replaced @ Cauvery Ford, Bangalore.

Oh man! I am so sorry you had same issue with both the cars. Yeah, the tyres are pretty bad. I'd suggest when the current set runs out to really look into replacing them with something else. Like GTO said there can be cases where people just don't trust new brands enough. But I have been happy with these for about 40k kms.

Originally Posted by shashi792

On the other note, do you feel a difference in city driving after the Code6 tune ?. What were the numbers after the tune ?. We were thinking of getting one either one of the cars tuned.

Oh boy, I'd have to pen a different thread for the tune review, because there is a bit to be said. Maybe you can PM me and we can get a bit more deep into it for now.

We don't do many city drives, but it is not that bad, as you might know, the 1st and 2nd gear in the ecosports to have an unwanted jump in them, which makes bumper to bumper a bit tedious. I'd say that has reduced a bit. The engine pulls a lot more smoother with now in the lower gears.

I am not aware of the numbers, can't really go by the word without dyno testing it. And I went with the Tune + Air filter change. I am running a BMC filter. I have been told the tune if you choose to go with the OEM filter is a bit different.

Also I must mention this for the S owners. The first tune I did had messed up the cruise control functionality(everything else was fine). I had this issue where the cruise control would cut off within 5 seconds of it getting activated, I had to leave the car with Sajan(He is the one who develops the tunes) for a few days to get it rectified. And both the tunes were quite different in nature when you drive. I use cruise control a lot as 90% of the car sees only highways.

Hope this helps

Cheers
Krishna

[shashi792]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Oh boy, I'd have to pen a different thread for the tune review, because there is a bit to be said. Maybe you can PM me and we can get a bit more deep into it for now.

Sure, let me know when your in Bangalore. We can go for a spin. And also, experience the remap.

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Also I must mention this for the S owners. The first tune I did had messed up the cruise control functionality(everything else was fine). I had this issue where the cruise control would cut off within 5 seconds of it getting activated, I had to leave the car with Sajan(He is the one who develops the tunes) for a few days to get it rectified. And both the tunes were quite different in nature when you drive. I use cruise control a lot as 90% of the car sees only highways.

When, I spoke to another person from Pete's on this. He did mention that the ECU for TDCI-S is different.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Update post.

Had my first incident with the tyres. During one of my recent drives, I happened to run onto a steep road - interlocking tiles surface transition gradient at a speed of about 50kmph when it should have been about 10kmph. It was a hard hit but to be honest, had me worried for a few seconds. Stopped the car did a visual inspection and all was good, confirmed with the tpms reading on the MID and no indications of anything wrong were found. So I moved on about my day. A few days later I noticed that the front right tyre had a 2 psi drop as compared to the rest. I did not make much of it and topped it up, but then again 2 days later when I was about to start on a Palakkad - Bangalore drive I noticed the very same tyre had dropped pressure again.

I figured it was a small puncture so nothing to worry about, I filled the tyre up again and set about with the intention to fix up the picture if any at Madhus as I anyway had booked an appointment for alignment and tyre rotation there since the last adjustment was done at 37k and now I was at 42k km.

It was during the trip that I realized that there was something wrong with the tyre/wheel as once I hit highway speeds the steering started vibrating in a very slight manner, it did not upset the handling of the car a bit but the vibration was pretty clear but subtle.

Bent Rim

And once I rolled into Madhus for the work it was confirmed that I had a minor bend on the alloy wheel. Looked like an easy fix so I did not fret much instead asked the techs there to swap the tyre that's on the bent rim to the spare wheel and to mount the spare tyre on the bent rim as the spare tyre is over 2 years old and has never been used(Never had a puncture so far, even at 44k of use, touchwood) but has been exposed to the elements every single day as I do not have the tyre cover for it, so I was a bit apprehensive about using that tyre as a replacement tyre. While they were about to do that they noticed that the tyre on the bent rim also had a nasty bulge developed at the same spot and some tear on the inner sidewall.

Tyre bulge & Slight surface rupture

So yeah after about 44k km of combined usage with the tyres(37k on the first set 5k on the second) I have my first damage/incident with the tyres.
To be honest, considering the impact that caused this bent I am grateful that the tyre held up this well and did not cause any risk to me or the vehicle. Because I do realize that things could have gotten much worse. I drove about 500-600kms with that tyre as I did not notice any issue with it until I started my journey to Bangalore when I hit the highways in the form of the steering wheel vibrations

Tyres removed for road force balancing and rotation

Anyways I was left with no other option but to run the spare rim + tyre that has been unused for the last 2 years, I explained my concerns to the techs at Madhus and they assured me that that was not an issue and I can use the spare tyre without any hesitation and the tyre was placed on the right rear and the rest of the tyre were rotated as required.

I will be attempting to fix the bent rim as it looks to be a small risk-free job and get a new tyre to replace the tyre with the bulge on it.

Alignment spec before and after the fix

Also, Madhus now have a new machine set up where you can drive on over it at a specific speed and it has lasers in them that measure the tread depth and pattern of the tyre and alignment check is also done and you can also program your vehicle into the machine and it remembers the history on the rotation done on your car from what I understand. Pretty epic stuff.

New machine installed at Madhus, pretty epic stuff

As usual, Mohsin and the staff at Madhus were very accommodating and helpful as always.



P.S: I am in no way associated with Madhus, just a long time happy customer of theirs.

Cheers
Krishna