Latest CR Tire Testing Results - 2015 Testing Program

[CKN]

Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
The Defenders that I have are noisy, and should have a smoother ride.

But once you get that idea in your head that Michelin tires are fabulous and nothing beats them, then anything is possible.




BEST POST OF THE DAY!!

I really like the posts that start off with "I am thinking of purchasing one of the following Michelin Tires" and then the topic turns in to a LOVE FEST!

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: CKN
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
The Defenders that I have are noisy, and should have a smoother ride.

But once you get that idea in your head that Michelin tires are fabulous and nothing beats them, then anything is possible.




BEST POST OF THE DAY!!

I really like the posts that start off with "I am thinking of purchasing one of the following Michelin Tires" and then the topic turns in to a LOVE FEST!


That's because there are a lot of folks on here that like Michelin tires. If your brand gets no love, make a thread about it, LOL!

 

[Vuflanovsky]

Unfortunately, there apparently are a lot of folks on here that like Michelin tires even if they don't know if they like them or not. In my experience, they're not worth a 25-30% premium over something that performs almost as good ( if not better ) on your particular application. For me, it's the individual tire first and not the brand. In other words, I'm not going to buy it because it's a Michelin, I'm going to do my best to research what seems to work well on my particular vehicle.

Personally, I would never put Defenders on a sport luxury vehicle but there are people here that do that. I have to wonder how much of that is "Michelin" and how much of that is "I wonder how these will perform on this car?"

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Vuflanovsky
Unfortunately, there apparently are a lot of folks on here that like Michelin tires even if they don't know if they like them or not.


And there are many of us here who have tried other brands and went "[censored] IT!" and then regretted wasting money. I've done that in search for alternatives for the LTX M/S (and now M/S2).

I replaced Toyo T1R's with the Michelin Pilot Super Sport and the price difference was negligible but the PERFORMANCE difference was INSANE. The PSS is an incredible bang-for-buck tire if your application specs or can take advantage of UHP rubber.

The A/S3's I have on my wife's Charger are massively better than the OEM GoodYear Eagle RS-A's that came on my SRT-8 and are around the same price.

In many instances there isn't a big premium over a comparable tire. Michelin has some serious stand-outs and those are the ones that tend to get championed the most on here.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: Vuflanovsky
Unfortunately, there apparently are a lot of folks on here that like Michelin tires even if they don't know if they like them or not.


And there are many of us here who have tried other brands and went "[censored] IT!" and then regretted wasting money. I've done that in search for alternatives for the LTX M/S (and now M/S2).

I replaced Toyo T1R's with the Michelin Pilot Super Sport and the price difference was negligible but the PERFORMANCE difference was INSANE. The PSS is an incredible bang-for-buck tire if your application specs or can take advantage of UHP rubber.

The A/S3's I have on my wife's Charger are massively better than the OEM GoodYear Eagle RS-A's that came on my SRT-8 and are around the same price.

In many instances there isn't a big premium over a comparable tire. Michelin has some serious stand-outs and those are the ones that tend to get championed the most on here.


Many members here have bragged about mileage in excess of 100k miles on LTX M/S's. And it's not just the mileage, it's the fantastic traction in almost any conditions. A lot of times it is far more noticeable with a little torque and/or weight, as Overkill will tell you. On a "normal" car those Goodyear RS-A's are considered a good tire! But replace them with PSS or even AS3 and the difference is amazing. His car weighs about 4400 pounds in street trim!

Another huge difference for us is usable life. The LTX MS and MS2 we use in load range E on 3500 service vans last up to 3 times what a 'normal' tire does (our vans weigh 9k pounds all day every day) and the traction does not seem to diminish with wear.

I have also noted members here state that PSS's were amazing in the rain even when virtually worn out! So frankly, it seems to me that Michelin offers some great tires that actually are pretty economical to own (in our experience).

I feel certain that they have a few dogs in their line up too...

 

[MCompact]

I have Michelin tires on the 328i(Primacy MXM4), X3(Premier A/S), and MS3(PSS)- as well as BFG rubber(All-Terrain T/A KO) on the Wrangler. I only wish they made a PSS that would fit the ti...

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
I replaced Toyo T1R's with the Michelin Pilot Super Sport and the price difference was negligible but the PERFORMANCE difference was INSANE. The PSS is an incredible bang-for-buck tire if your application specs or can take advantage of UHP rubber.

The PSS on a Toyota Yaris will not make any different with any other tire, or on a sedan that take 1 minute or quarter mile to get up to 50 MPH from death stop, or take a curve at less than 0.1-0.2G.

I encountered a slow driver in a Porsche Panamera S, he was first one on left lane, on the right is a Prius. When the light turn green the Prius accelerated at normal Prius speed which was very slow, the Porsche Panamera S on front of me was about 30-50% slower, after 1/4 miles the Prius was at least 500 ft ahead. This Porsche driver should drive a Prius not a Porsche, a Michelin PSS on his car is a totally wasted.

I don't mean every Porsche should red line at every acceleration, but at the minimum should accelerate at normal rate of a normal sedan. A sport sedan accelerate at half the rate of a hybrid car known to be slow is something.

 

[brslds]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Many manufactures now have time limit for warranty too, if driver doesn't accumulate enough mileage in that time frame then warranty will expired on time. Ex, an owner gets down to 2/32" with only 50k miles with 6 years/80k miles warranty in 7 years, he/she will not be able to fill for mileage warranty.

Michelin, Pirelli and Continental are 3 of the best tires according to CR and many other testers. I had good experience with Michelin and Pirelli and mixed results with Continental. The Continental DWS was terrible on fairly heavy rain when fit on my E430, and it was rated as excellent rain tire. Other Continental models were okay on other cars.

One of the problems with these 3 brands are cost, they are much more than others while the advantages/benefits are barely better. One of the others is General RT43, its cost is much lower while it performs very close to these 3 top tier brands. I think Cooper CS5 is very good too and costs substantial less. I don't know if CR tests it or not.

I have a set of DWS on my Rav4 235/55/r18 (38PSI nitrogen filled) and my experience in heavy rain with them follow CRs rain performance. Its weird that your situation had issues.