Originally Posted By: JHZR2
And have you had the michelins long enough to do a true apples to apples comparison? All tires get noisier as time goes on IME... But it's as much a matter of alignment and wear patterns as it is anything else...
I had a Corolla (similar platform) and put Yokohama Avid TRZs on it, and regretted it about 6 months later. They seemed to get loud and hard, and took away any compliance that suspension seemed to have. They were wearing smooth, but just didn't seem to age well.
I regret it every time I don't buy Michelins, and certainly did so that time. I've never owned a tire that got noisy so quickly. I would say that the X Radials on our old minivan got noisier with age, but it was a very slow and gradual process, and the difference between new and aged wasn't nearly so great. I think all tires perform fairly good when new, but only the better ones maintain that level of performance as they age.