Michelin Hydroedge vs others

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customers get 35-40k+ out of the sumitomo's

they are light and balance good


I doubt they will offer the same attributes of the Michelin's, but they are probably 50% cheaper or more

they do seem to experience inner and outer treadwear problems. The noisey tire you have is probably from that bad wheel bearing or alignment chopping it up.... as long as their are no components playing and the alignment is good, these new tires should hold up and not do this!

If you want to shoot in between, I really like most Uniroyal tires, they are owned by Michelin, and I would rate them between michelin and sumitomo. I do not like the AS6000 series.......

I do however like the new Touring series tires, out of the last 5 new ones I balanced, I only put weights on 2 of the tires, and they were light weights at that..... The tread structure looks strong on the edges and I believe these tires will hold up very nicely in the mileage department.........

If saving any kind of money is a good idea for you, then if I were in your shoes and could do it, I would put on the Uniroyal touring tires....... if I could barely afford tires at all, and had to not eat a couple days to buy a new set, I would go for the Sumi's....

I promise you will like the Uniroyals, and you won't be dissapointed with the sumitomo's when you factor in the price. 20 and 30 dollar price differences between particular tires really add up when you purchase an entire set.
 
Please forgive the tardiness of my comments, but for the OP, and anyone else doing their homework, here are my observations.

I have purchased two sets of Hydroedges. The first was for my 2003.5 V-6 Camry (same size tires as the OP's). They were, in my opinion, the best tire-car match I'd ever had (obviously, for me and my operating conditions). {but see footnote below} They were quiet, responsive, and nevermind hydroplaning resistance, they convinced me I could have driven my Camry across the Pacific ocean had I wished to do so (yes, yes, I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea...). An A+ tire experience.

Based upon my happy Camry experience, a few years later, I put a set of HEs on my 04 Prius (bought used in 06), replacing the F- Goodyear Integritys it came with {see second footnote, below}). Amazingly, the Hydroedges proved to be a very poor combination with a US-Gen-II Prius. They handled fine, and had the same outstanding wet performance, but in this app, noise was the deal-killer. The G-II Prius went very light on sound insulation, in the designers unbending effort to reduce weight. This, unfortunately, plays badly with one of the Hydroedge's few weak spots: the large tread blocks and pattern seem to create noise patterns that, if you can hear it, can be very objectionable. Any time the Prius went into stealth mode (electric only), which happens a lot in urban driving, I'd hear this unrelenting, obnoxious "wawawawawawawawawa" sound from the tires.

After about three weeks, I exercised Michelin's 30 day "no questions asked" trade in policy. They replaced the HEs with a set of Primacy MXV4s, with a much "finer grained" tread pattern, and presto, no more "wawawawawa". Kudos to Michelin for their tire design and customer treatment.

Anyway, my assessment is that the HEs are a superb product, but as with any human invention, they are not perfect for every application to which they may conceivably be applied.

FN1: When I bought those first HEs, within 20 miles, I was convinced they were a disaster. I was hearing odd noises, and every time I'd hit a pavement joint, I'd get a VSC light, and if I were braking, hyperactive ABS activation. It was so bad, I stopped and looked things over, thinking perhaps the tire store had broken something. Well, they hadn't broken anything, but they had mistakenly installed a wrong-sized tire on the right-front. Ooooops. When I returned and brought this to their attention, they IMMEDIATELY installed a new proper-size tire.

FN2: The mere existence of Goodyear Integritys is a cosmic travesty. That well-reputed car-makers install them as OEM tires is even worse. If you're looking at any car, new or used, that's wearing a set of Integritys, factor in the cost of a fresh set of something else soon. Also, the very name of this tire is one of the most boggling automotive oxymorons I've ever seen. I think I'd rather drive on bare rims than this tire. . .
 
Mine are working well. Not much snow/wetr duty so far. Driving 1000 mi a month is quite low for me.
 
BTW, the Camry hybrid, at about 40k miles, is down to about 3/32ths on the tread, and looking ready for replacement. Based upon my Gen-5 Camry experience, I'm tempted to try another set. Based upon my hybrid Prius experience, I'm not.

Comments welcome. . .
 
For the most part, they have worked well. I've recently received a complaint from my sister though, who is the main driver of the car, that noise is making it to the cabin.

I have to completely agree on how bad the Integritys are. The set that came on the Camry needed to be replaced at 25k.

The set of BFGs that replaced them probably could have done 60-65k instead of 50 if it weren't for the bad wheel bearing and bad alignment that wore them funny.
 
Well, the Hydroedge seem pretty good in the wet-frozen-snowy roads I was on today. They haven't let me down since installed. The basicly drive like a HR tire, but with really long wear. A C0nsumer magazine rated them higher than TripleTread, making me comfortable with my purchase.
 
Still happy. Zero wear after 5k or so. There is really no deficit of handling. They are just like an H+ rated tire.
 
Originally Posted By: Audi Junkie
Still happy. Zero wear after 5k or so. There is really no deficit of handling. They are just like an H+ rated tire.

They seem to never wear out.

Even with mostly city driving, I still have 6/32" left on all four tires after 45k.
 
Originally Posted By: kkreit01
Originally Posted By: Audi Junkie
Looks like a c0nsumer magazine rated HydroEdge #1.


..unless you ever have to drive in snow/ice. I tend to read between the dots in these ratings. How can a tire be rated tops, when it's "poor" in any category?


Reading between the lines is good, knowing which lines to read between is better.

From an tire standpoint, water, snow, and ice are not remotely similar.

Tires are designed around a set of operating conditions. The wider the range of conditions you design it for, the more compromises must be made.

I have two sets of tires for my car at the moment. One for winter, one for not winter.
My all seasons are OK in the snow, and not great on ice.
My winter tires are AMAZING (yes, so good it's worth putting in all caps) on snow and ice, as well as dirt.

Were I to drive them in warm weather, they'd be done before the end of summer.
 
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