GoodYear Assurance TripleTread

[ewetho]

Originally Posted By: kartracer55

Also, the balancing issue does not happen with all brands, it happens with cheap tires where the bands inside get damaged or deformed at some point. I have (sorry to say) balanced hundreds if not thousands of tires at this shop alone and have never encountered a tire that could not balance out one way or another. 90% of the time it is operator inexperience. Stick on weights are notorious for this, especially when being used on the outside of the rims. The machine does not account for the extra weight beyond the point where you are sticking on the weights when calculating the "required" amount. 75% of the time, less weight is required than the machine states to balance the tire, and adding the exact amount the machine states leads you into a vicious cycle.


I have used some basic and Advanced balancing machine and I have sent back and rejected GoodYear, BF G, Continental, and other brands as defects. Sure I can get the machine to read Zero-Zero but that won't make the steering wheel not oscillate or the tire NOT bounce.

Where I work now we have a Road Force Variance machine that will allow for the weight locations (even behind wheel spokes for hidden weights allowing for split weighting but not counter balanced) and is pretty dang close if you do your job setting it up. When I worked at Sears with a basic Coats balancer it was a guessing/intuition learning curve on using sticky weight that I got darn good at.

But Zero-Zero weights does not mean it will work properly. If it is egg shaped or has excess lateral runout your done.

Recently sent back a set of $800 GoodYears for an Expedition that had either excessive lateral or radial runout on ALL 4 Tires and it was some of their new stuff. The guy insisted that is what he wanted so we got a second set that was OK.

 

[mrsilv04]

I have a set of Goodyear Assurance ComforTreds on a '99 Park Avenue. Those tires carry some very precious cargo, my elderly parents.

They weren't cheap, but they have met and exceeded all of my expectations. Could have I saved a few bucks per tire and gone with a Cooper? Sure I could have. Did I? Nope.

When something has an 80,000 mile warranty, a few bucks is completely insignificant.

I have a set of Michelin LTX M/S on my Silverado. Cheap? Nope. Do they have a good ride qualities and excellent traction? You bet. They beat the cheapo Uniroyal Laredos that were on there before hands down. The Laredos had marginal traction, and the truck wandered all over the road no matter what air pressure they had in them.

I'm glad that it was the previous owner that had paid good money for the Laredos, and not me.

 

[SaturnIonVue]

Originally Posted By: wantin150
Man I love reading Capri's posts!
Me too! He writes so well also. Points are clear and concise. What an asset and resource for us!

 

[Brien]

Please dontuse tread warranty as a positive. That is a gimmick. Its a decreasing value, contingent on certain circumstances.

Road hazard packages are a much better option, and the price of tat depends on where you purchase.

Again, an 80k tire is NOT something Id want to put my life on. Tires are not supposed to last that long. The are too ard, and will negaively affect braking(safety) performance. Anyone care to take a shot at explaining how tires break down due to UV, heating, cooling, etc...?

 

[kkreit01]

Originally Posted By: SaturnIonVue
Originally Posted By: wantin150
Man I love reading Capri's posts!
Me too! He writes so well also. Points are clear and concise. What an asset and resource for us!


Ditto. He's a very great asset to this forum.

Brien on the other hand.....(just kidding!)

 

[Brien]

I like reading his posts too.

Just so yall know, I have a lot of background info, weather its right or wrong im not sure. If I post something inaccurate I very much appreciate it when you correct me and give a little bit of info to go along with the correction.

This allows me to learn, and to help others learn correct information

 

[wantin150]

Tires could very well last 80k. I know sales guys who put 40k a year on their cars. Very much in line with the tires ability. Also, what's the average now, 12 or 15k a year? That's only 6 to 7 years, which, according to some, is well within the tires life span (personally, 5 years is my max).

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: Brien
Please dontuse tread warranty as a positive. That is a gimmick. Its a decreasing value, contingent on certain circumstances.

Road hazard packages are a much better option, and the price of tat depends on where you purchase.

Again, an 80k tire is NOT something Id want to put my life on. Tires are not supposed to last that long. The are too ard, and will negaively affect braking(safety) performance. Anyone care to take a shot at explaining how tires break down due to UV, heating, cooling, etc...?



Doesn't everyone already know that just because a tire "says" it is an 80,000 mile tire, it doesn't mean that it *IS* an 80,000 mile tire. It is just one part of the grading system that the tire industry and the government uses to tell us how good that THEY believe a tire is, and what the consumer can reasonably assume the tire may deliver. Will it deliver 80,000 miles of wear? Who knows. If the consumer is as dumb as a box a rocks, and runs the tires half flat from day one, then they won't. That's not the tire manufacturer's fault.

However, it is one way of determining the differences in a "40,000 mile" tire and an "80,000 mile" tire. It helps the consumer approximate how much that tire would cost per X miles of usage.

If there were NO ratings, then how would the consumer be informed when they purchase a tire? It may be an inperfect system, but it is what we have to work with. A gimmick? No.

The same with the EPA MPG ratings. It is only a guideline. You may get that same MPG... you may not. Again, a gimmick? No.

If you don't like 80,000 mile tires... don't buy them. You make your decisions, I'll make mine.

Would it make you feel better if I put it in quotes, since that is what Goodyear tells me it will deliver? "80,000 miles"

The tires that came off of this Park Avenue were the OE Goodyear tires that had 55,000 miles on them. They still had plenty of tread left, but they were old. If they had been driven to the wear bars, they would have likely delivered 70,000 miles.

Assuming that, with this model and the driving habits of the owners, I believe that "80,000 miles" is likely and is very much possible. If not...SO WHAT! BIG DEAL! I'll simply go out and buy another set.

You think Road Hazard packages are a good deal, all they are is insurance. Unless it comes free with the mounting and balancing package (like at Sam's), I leave it behind. For a set of 4 tires, most of them cost about the same amount of money as one tire.

Capri = +1

 

[Brien]

The milage rating has nothing to do with the government. Only treadwear and tire construction have anything to do with te government.

 

[glennc]

That is true but mrsilv04's points seem valid to me. The manufacturers are putting real money on the line whenever they put a mileage warranty on a tire. Some marketing might be involved but it is not pure fiction.

 

[CapriRacer]

OK, it may be time for me to wade in - "Down, you 'Gators!".

Let's talk tread wear for a moment.

There are a lot of things that influence tread wear. While I know of no study that has put this all together, here's my rank order of the influences:

1) Straight line driving vs corners: Most tire wear occurs when you are cornering. The more you drive in a straight line, the more wear you will get out of your tires. Think of it as "Turns per Mile" where a turn is a substantially 90 degree turn- the "leaf" part of a "clover leaf" would be "3" turns. I've had the same tire (OK, different sets, but the same size / design) go as low as 3,500 miles and as far as 100,000 miles - and the difference was "Turns per Mile" (OK, OK, #2 was involved as well!)

2) Road surface: Some parts of the US have pretty abrasive roads. Southern Florida comes to mind, where the concrete uses limestone that has been in the ground very long, and the sea shells are quite evident - and SHARP!! They tend to slice the tire until the surface wears in. - then they get slippery!

3) Alignment: I'm only going to talk about toe, because it's much more easy to visualize.

If the toe spec on a car is zero degrees (I picked this so it's easier to do the math) and you set a tire to get 0.06 degrees more toe per side than the spec (that's 1/32nd of an inch for us old timers.), then this is like driving the tire sideways 1 mile for every 1,000 miles forward you go.

So guess what the typical tolerance for toe is? That's right - twice that!! Did I mention that the amount of sideways motion isn't proportional to the amount of toe? The more toe you put in, you get even more sideways motion!

4) Driving style: "Spirited" driving obvious induces a slip and into the tires and that causes wear.

5) Inflation pressure: I'm going to have to dig to find it, but I have a study that verifies rank order placement here.

6) The actual wear resistance of the tire: Notice how far down the list this is.

I put it here because generally, folks select tires within a fairly tight range of treadwear ratings. For example, A guy buying tires for his Buick LeSabre is not going to look twice at a set of "GoodGrips" with a 150 treadwear rating. He's going to stay in the higher end.

This brings me to the UTQG treadwear rating system.

Yes, there is a test and it has to be run over a given course, and it produces - oh, let's say reasonably reproducible results. But there are 3 problems.

1) The test is only 7,200 miles long. Not much wear takes place in that distance, so predicting the wear out point at 10 times the distance - well, it does stretch credulity.

2) The wear is compared to a control tire. However, the control tire is a given size (I'm thinking it is a medium size passenger car size) and it doesn't fit on many vehicles. So if the tire I want to test is strictly an SUV tire, the procedure allows a rating based on an intermediate step - compare/compare, so to speak.

3) The rating on the tire doesn't have to be the rating recieved on the test. So a tire could get a 760 rating based on the test but the marketing folks might not want one so high, so the tire will reach the market with (say) a 640 rating.

Needless to say the treadwear warranty and the UTQG rating need to be "in sync".

And that brings me to the treadwear warranty.

Folks - THIS IS A WARRANTY - IT IS NOT A GUARRANTEE!!!!!

This means that if you don't get the mileage quoted, they will give to a credit towards the purchase of a new set of tires. Not a 100% credit - a prorated credit based on what you got versus what the warranty distance was.

Did I mention the warranty limitations?

First, the tires have to be worn out. That means 2/32nds of an inch.

Second, the tires have to be on the same car and the same owner.

Third, the tires have to be evenly worn and regularly rotated.

All of this hardly ever happens, so the financial risk of a treadwear warranty is really small - and tire dealers love them!!

Keeping in mind the rank order list of what influences treadwear, you can see how the marketing folks love this area. They can say almost anything, there is plenty of manuevering room, and they don't have to back up what they say!

I am sure some of you will say that you got a "warranty concession" on a set of tires that were worn out on one shoulder - implying there must be a defect in the tire.

Tire Dealers have a lot of "wiggle room". They can do pretty much anything they want.

Give you a warrant on a set of tires, where you pay $100 a tires and they pay $30? Sure!! That's within their margin. They didn't make as much money as they could, but they didn't have to argue with you and you bought the road hazard policy, not to mention, they probably sold you an alignment.

That, my friends, is salesmenship.

The only residual problem is that you were left with the erroneous idea that the tire was defective.

And that's why I do this!!!

 

[Brien]

Nice post.

 

[kartracer55]

Originally Posted By: ewetho
Originally Posted By: kartracer55

Also, the balancing issue does not happen with all brands, it happens with cheap tires where the bands inside get damaged or deformed at some point. I have (sorry to say) balanced hundreds if not thousands of tires at this shop alone and have never encountered a tire that could not balance out one way or another. 90% of the time it is operator inexperience. Stick on weights are notorious for this, especially when being used on the outside of the rims. The machine does not account for the extra weight beyond the point where you are sticking on the weights when calculating the "required" amount. 75% of the time, less weight is required than the machine states to balance the tire, and adding the exact amount the machine states leads you into a vicious cycle.


I have used some basic and Advanced balancing machine and I have sent back and rejected GoodYear, BF G, Continental, and other brands as defects. Sure I can get the machine to read Zero-Zero but that won't make the steering wheel not oscillate or the tire NOT bounce.

Where I work now we have a Road Force Variance machine that will allow for the weight locations (even behind wheel spokes for hidden weights allowing for split weighting but not counter balanced) and is pretty dang close if you do your job setting it up. When I worked at Sears with a basic Coats balancer it was a guessing/intuition learning curve on using sticky weight that I got darn good at.

But Zero-Zero weights does not mean it will work properly. If it is egg shaped or has excess lateral runout your done.

Recently sent back a set of $800 GoodYears for an Expedition that had either excessive lateral or radial runout on ALL 4 Tires and it was some of their new stuff. The guy insisted that is what he wanted so we got a second set that was OK.


I was talking more about balance, not so much shape but yes you are right. A lot of the no name or off brand tires from tire rack have a wobble to them right out of the factory, I always watch the tread pattern while its on the balancer to check this out. I have never run into this on goodyear which is why I tend to push them over the michelin line at work, but It is entirely possible it happened.

 

[MGregoir]

I drove a car with them once and I really did not like them, the on center feel was really strange and I am used to driving on cheap store brand tires most of the time but I have driven on better Michelins and Potenzas. The on centre feel of the wore out Integritys on there seemed to be better than the TripleTreds and I don't know why.

Really, the easiest way is to drive on whatever is acceptable for the amount of rain you get in summer and get a good set of winter tires for where it snows. I have a set of Multi-Mile tires for summer and WS-50 Blizzaks for winter and although the tires in summer are a little prone to hydroplaning in certain conditions (they don't cut into water great if you are passing through standing water) but it's as simple as driving to conditions.

My parents' car has a set of Nokian Hakkapelittas for winter and on 3" of slush, I went 0-112 mph-0 in 5/8 of a mile without using ABS, and only getting into the traction control when the car upshifted from second to third gear. Expensive? Yes. Better grip in winter than some tires have in summer? Yes.

 

[EddieB]

Originally Posted By: EddieB
Originally Posted By: EddieB
I just put 4 of these on my 2005 Corolla this morning. I am hoping for the best and will report the performance later.


Just a few days with these Triple Treads and I am very pleased, especially with wet traction and lower noise.


Could not be happier with these Triple-treads. They are great on my Corolla!

 

[drifter420]

I have to say these are one of the best all season tires I've had. They do a good job in the snow ( for an all season ).

the highway I travel are single lanes so when it rains.. there's always 2 grooves of standing water on the road. These tires cut through them very well with lil hydroplaning ( versus all the other cheap tires I"ve had before which would make steering basically useless )

I would definitely recommend these or BFGoodrich Traction T/A if you're aiming for good all season tires.

I have had them for bout 2 years now and will be rotatings them in a month when I know the snow is gone for good and I"ll see how the wear is then when I can compare side to side ( or in this case rear and front tire wear ).

I will always pay a lil more for these tires then those el cheapo going forward. Its much cheaper for the extra $$$ to ensure I have better traction then the deductible it will cost cause I got into an accident with cheap tires.

they have the least amount of road noise thus far also compared to my other tires I"ve used before

p.s.
Uniroyal Tiger Paw sucks the most. I don't think I'd even put those on a trailer..

 

[buster]

drifter, agree 100%. I know exactly what you are talking about with the water in the road. Cuts right through it.

 

[tenderloin]

IMO It is a very good tire at a fair price. Some folks buy Supertech dino..others $10 a qt. boutique synthetic.oil.

For my vehicles I do not go cheap on brakes, tires, oils or other parts. That's just me .Whatever peace of mind I feel I am getting, even if it is a few bucks an item, is well worth it to me.

I have never had a problem with either Goodyear or Michelin in waaay too many vehicles to count for millions of miles. They wear like they claim. They ride and handle as advertised per tire classification. Flats have been almost nil either by running over items or road hazards such as pot holes, sharp rocks or curbs. PLUS I can still get a great tire with made in the USA on the side at a competitive price.

 

[EddieB]

Originally Posted By: EddieB
Originally Posted By: EddieB
Originally Posted By: EddieB
I just put 4 of these on my 2005 Corolla this morning. I am hoping for the best and will report the performance later.


Just a few days with these Triple Treads and I am very pleased, especially with wet traction and lower noise.



I love the new tripletreads. I finally have traction! I'm just as happy as I can be with these tires!!!!!!!! A++++




I now have 10K miles on these tires and I couldn't be more pleased. I recommend them to everyone!

 

[Nyquist]

I've used these in two Iowa winters now on a Chevy Malibu with plenty of snow and ice to go around. I have 45k miles on them, and they have about 35% of their useful life left.

I work odd hours which often involve me being one of the first to hit the roads when there is snow. I've often made fresh tracks on the highway in 3 inches of snow. These tires are surprisingly stable in snow for an all-season provided you don't exceed the right speed for the right condition.

Ice is always tricky, but you could at least stop and steer better than everyone else out on the road.

I've recommended these to friends as well, and they have been pretty happy.