Dry Cracking Michelins

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First, thanks for the vote of confidence to everyone. Ill try to live up to it.

Those are surprisingly bad after 3 years. Yes, I know it is hot in Phoenix, and I also know that Michelin's tend to crack more than other tires. Nevertheless, it is still a surprise.

Where they are is at the point where I think they need to be removed. They are NOT in immediate danger of failing, but they have crossed the line with regard to risk (IMHO).

Since it has only been 3 years, I am sure the DTC will adjust those with no issues.
 
Originally Posted By: Cooper
Every set of Michelin tires I have ever owned have dry rotted like that. I have never had the problem with any other brand. I will not buy Michelin tires because of this. They are overpriced for the lack of quality you get.


That's how I feel and caught some heat over the years for saying it. I was never a big fan of their tires, but bought them on a few occasions for various reasons. I'll continue to pass now. You have the warranty, use it. Those tires IMO are unacceptable, especially for the time in service.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
Wow! I would not expect that from a 3 year old tire!


I would...if it's a Michelin!
 
you have any pics of the inside sidewall?

I've seen premature cracking like that when tire shine is used.
 
I'm at Discount Tire right now for a rotation and balance and the guy wasn't concerned, said to just keep an eye on it. The last set of these very tires were splitting at the sidewall at 47k miles and about 6 years
 
Wow, a surprising amount of cracks for three yr old tires.

I just inspected the Michelin's on my SUV and there are NO cracks in the sidewall or tread. I have the LTX M/S with a build date of "0109". They have 31,000 miles on them, and were installed in April '09.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
My grandma has a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer LTZ and it just crossed over 100k miles a few weeks ago. She bought it from her sister May 2009 and it had Michelin Cross Terrains on it that were put on sometime in 2005. Those tires had around 47,000 miles on them, still had decent tread, but were getting kinda dry and were separating from the sidewall, you could see something white in between the tread and sidewall. Being time for new tires we took it to Discount Tire in October 2011 and had them look at them. Despite being 6 years old, Discount Tire had no problem warranting out 3 of the tires (one wasn't separating yet) so we bought 4 new warranty certificates and purchased 1 new tire, once again Michelin Cross Terrains. It's Ben a little over 2 1/2 years since we got them and they're starting to get some cracks again...


Those tires do have a lot of cracks for their age, but I can't say that I'm surprised, and here's why...

It's my suspicion (maybe CapriRacer can confirm or deny) that the tread/rubber sidewall formulation is essentially "written in stone", or at least "written in contract", for OES (Original Equipment Supplier) tires. If I'm not mistaken, these Cross Terrains are in the P245/65R17 size, and they were an OES tire to the TrailBlazer/Envoy series of SUVs. GM asked for certain qualities in a tire and tire companies bid the proposal. Michelin apparently was awarded the contract and constructed the tire. Those SUVs are long out of production, but as I understand it, an OES tire is essentially "frozen in time" in terms of material/formulation upgrades. So whatever Michelin was using 10 years ago to build these tires new, they were still using in the 28th week of 2011. You were, in effect, buying a brand new 10 year old tire.

I don't say that to excuse the cracking on the tires. It does seem pretty early to me. But I contrast that with two different sets of the Cross Terrain tire we had on our Acura MDX (the OE set and one replacement set) and those tires didn't experience any sidewall cracking at all. Even through 45,000 miles of service. They were a different size (P235/65R17), and I think that's key to what's going on. Michelin was likely using a different rubber formulation for Acura's tire, a rubber formulation that may not have been as prone to cracking.

Of course, there's also the environmental differences; your example sat in the Arizona sun and our Acura is garaged all the time. That has to play into it some as well.

The Michelin Latitude Tours on our CR-V have started to show very fine checking down at the bead area. They are about 2.5 years old now and have 30k miles. They are past 2/3rds of their life, and the checking won't prematurely end their service.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Those tires do have a lot of cracks for their age, but I can't say that I'm surprised, and here's why...

It's my suspicion (maybe CapriRacer can confirm or deny) that the tread/rubber sidewall formulation is essentially "written in stone", or at least "written in contract", for OES (Original Equipment Supplier) tires. If I'm not mistaken, these Cross Terrains are in the P245/65R17 size, and they were an OES tire to the TrailBlazer/Envoy series of SUVs. GM asked for certain qualities in a tire and tire companies bid the proposal. Michelin apparently was awarded the contract and constructed the tire. Those SUVs are long out of production, but as I understand it, an OES tire is essentially "frozen in time" in terms of material/formulation upgrades. So whatever Michelin was using 10 years ago to build these tires new, they were still using in the 28th week of 2011. You were, in effect, buying a brand new 10 year old tire.....


Sort of

When a car manufacturer spec's a tire, so long as it is being supplied as an OE tire, only minor changes can take place.

GM requires that there be a TPC number on all their tires. GM also requires that the OE tire be available for 3 years AFTER the tire is no longer being supplied.

But once the period of time is over - for everyone except GM, immediately after the tire is no longer supplied, and in the case of GM, for 3 years after that - then the tire can be reverted to normal specs - the way a tire manufacturer would do it. Most tire manufacturers do make that change or discontinue the tire.

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
.......I don't say that to excuse the cracking on the tires. It does seem pretty early to me. But I contrast that with two different sets of the Cross Terrain tire we had on our Acura MDX (the OE set and one replacement set) and those tires didn't experience any sidewall cracking at all. Even through 45,000 miles of service. They were a different size (P235/65R17), and I think that's key to what's going on. Michelin was likely using a different rubber formulation for Acura's tire, a rubber formulation that may not have been as prone to cracking.

Of course, there's also the environmental differences; your example sat in the Arizona sun and our Acura is garaged all the time. That has to play into it some as well.

The Michelin Latitude Tours on our CR-V have started to show very fine checking down at the bead area. They are about 2.5 years old now and have 30k miles. They are past 2/3rds of their life, and the checking won't prematurely end their service.


What I have noticed about Michelin tires is that they use fairly hard tread rubber compounds and fairly hard lower sidewall compounds - and those tend to be more prone to cracking. I don't think the cracking is as critical on a Michelin as on other brands, but it does show up much earlier.
 
I don't know what originally came on the car, but I do know that in the owner's manual it has a little advertisement flyer about being equipped with Dunlop tires, but being the top of the line LTZ, it may have had Michelins. This is it's 3rd set of tires.
 
I've had many sets of Michelin tires, including those that came OEM on an Accord and an Aersotar and I've never seen cracking like this even on tires run for up to seven years and 92K.
OTOH, the owner of the little hole in the wall tire shop I often use for mounting tells me that this type of cracking is very common with Michelin tires.
 
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