Alternatives to OEM tires

I recently had the rear wheels off the Jeep PHEV (Grand Cherokee 4xe) while installing a trailer hitch. It was thrilling to discover that the OEM Michelin Primacy tires have the words “Total Performance” displayed on the sidewall. Look no further if you are seeking total performance.

 

Thanks for the feedback @Landshark. I checked the Michelin website, and since 2017 they no longer offer mileage warranties on original equipment tires.

 

While not great news, that is good information. It’s pretty much standard corporate policy to offer less and charge more.

If you have any interest in a futility fitness program, a conversation with the dealer would be a good place to start. Alternatively, the same conversation with a tree may yield a more desirable outcome.

 

I've somehow burned though two sets of tires. I don't drive fast and mostly just kids to school and back home for work. A few road trips and rotated every 6k on the dot.

First set of oem uneven wear at under 20k. Replaced sept 2 years ago.

Replacements from costco that were 55k miles uneven wear again.. costco guy said I could come in more often like 3k miles but wtf is going on. Seems some people have the issue and others don't. Some defect killing certain tires fast? Only got 2-3 rotations in each time and barely over 42k miles and on my third set of tires! Two were bad and covered under replacement warranty but not the others... expensive at 900ish every 2 years!

 

Did the uneven wear occur while the tires were on the front axle? If so, there could be an alignment issue. In that case, rotating tires will just cause uneven wear on the other two tires in short order.

Uneven wear at 6K or 10K miles is a red flag warning. The collective finger is being pointed at the tires. Maybe Honda is buying some China-bomb Michelin knock-offs? That doesn’t seem likely. And a QC issue at Michelin or Honda shipping off cars with the alignment out of spec seem equally unlikely. Yet we have numerous reports of members needing to replace tires at 15K-30K miles.

 

Not sure but afaik they were supposed to do alignment as well

 

I'm feeling better and better about this Nexen N5000 Platinum tire. I've read alot of good reviews about them on the internet and it's predesessor, the N5000 Plus. Sam's Club is offerring the N5000 Plartinum in 235/45R18/XL 98W for 127.88 plus $20 for installation. I'm going to see if America's Tire will do a price match. Also, I checked the manufacturer's web site and they are not made in China. They are comming from either a plant in Ohio or one in South Korea.

 

Were you charged for an alignment? Was it just an alignment check? Did the shop provide you with a sheet that showed everything was within manufacturer’s specs?

 

There’s certainly no point in buying expensive tires if the car is going to eat them every 15,000 miles.

 

Agreed! I've probably owned 30 sets of tires on my vehicles over the years. Lots of Michelin, Perelli, Continental and Goodyear, some of which were OEM. But I've also tried some of the less expensive Asian manufacturers life Kuhmo and Falken and I've always been impressed with the quality for the price.

 

Michelin is proud of their products and they are priced accordingly. I have a similar history of tire ownership as you. We may have only replaced tires with Michelins on one occasion and that was because Costco had a buy 3 get the 4th free or $150 off deal going.

Michelin is the Emperors new clothes in the RV world, particularly among those who own Class A motorhomes. Even though they are consistently the highest priced and are prone to sidewall cracking, folks love them and rave about the ride quality and handling characteristics of truck size tires, inflated to 120psi, on 40,000lb vehicles equipped with air ride suspension.

That said, I plan to replace the Michelin Energy Saver tires on the Clarity with Michelin Energy savers when the time comes. They have performed to my expectations and based on the remaining tread life, should still have sufficient tread at 55,000 miles or more. Owners who have had other tires installed have reportedly seen declines in EV range and MPG. That’s a trade off I’m not willing to accept for any potential benefit.

That purchase is still a few years away, so we’ll see what the reports are on the Nexen tires, now that a few owners are using or considering them.

 

No question that Michelin tires are the best. But that can't justify spending twice as much than a competitor tire that is 80% or 90% as good.

 

“Best” is a vague word. Particularly when the criteria used to reach that conclusion is subjective, or in some cases, just made up.

 

I'll probably switch onto Pilot Sport 5's once these Energy Savers are done

 

I just put a set of Michelin Cross Climate 2 (19") on my wife's Tesla Model 3, and so far it seems to be an improvement on the OEM Continentals: smoother ride, less noise, and a much longer projected life.

If all you care about is rolling resistance, this would not be your top choice, but I plan to put a set on my Model Y when the stock Michelins wear out.

I'll reserve my comments about CR, but I do want to endorse Costco for having honored their in-house warranty in the past, free rotation and balance every 5K miles, etc. If you want Michelins, buy them on sale, of course.

Elaborate charts that show a prospective net difference in mileage of ~1 MPG seem to me a waste of time. If money is important (of course it is), calculate total cost of ownership, including projected mileage rating (e.g. 30K vs 60K). If you care about braking distance, wet and dry traction, then rolling resistance figures will become less important.

Finally, based on personal experience, just about any BEV is a better choice than just about any hybrid, but, of course, YMMV.

PS: I nearly bought a Clarity hybrid when they were first introduced... until I found I couldn't get comfortable in the front seat.

 

I am very picky about seats too. You must have sat in the base model Clarity. The front seat of the Touring model is a huge upgrade over the base Clarity. For tall people, the base model seat doesn't work at all IMHO.

 

Those elaborate charts boggle the mind. But we have to put the “1 mpg” in the context of being from 28 to 29 mpg. And, if we remove the 18th tire from the bottom of the list, the other 17 tires are within .5 mpg of each other. Put another way, it’s less than a 2% difference between the top 17 tires on that complex chart.

All that information is largely irrelevant, since there is no comparison between any of those tires any the OEM, Michelin Energy Saver on the Clarity. We do have some reports from Clarity owners who have installed different tires and those tires have show an 8-10% reduction in EV range and MPG. If we extend a 10% reduction out to the warranty mileage of 55,000 miles it could add up to more than $500 if all driving was done using $4/gal gasoline. Depending of the cost of electricity and the number of miles driven in EV the cost difference could be much less.

Jasper Philipsen has won 4 of the 5 sprint stages in this years Tour de France. By any metric, he is a “better” sprinter than the others. What makes a car better is subjective and a matter of personal needs and preferences. For many reasons, a BEV is a non-starter for us.

The base model seats are uncomfortable. The drivers seat in the touring model is much more comfortable. Unfortunately, Honda saved a nickel and didn’t include the same adjustments on the passenger seat.

 

@Landshark - I take Consumer Reports at its face value anytime over your pseud-sceptisimsm. You have no standards and ,as it turns out, you had no clue that Consumer Reports developes its own standard stick with which they compare tires.
Michelin are formidable tires, they last forever, have longevity of nearly nothing else in comparison. You even have no clue what it means. The only tires that would last longer must be made out of solid steel. Think about it. Do not reply, please. Think.
The original OP had a good idea and did good comparison using valid research done by Consumer Reports.
By the way - there is no such think as OEM tires unless you do not know what it meant 40 or 50 years ago, and you mean the tires with which the new car is sold at US dealership. You do not know how the selection is made these days and by whom.

 

I was just happy to see that somebody (Consumer Reports) has taken a shot at a quantitative measure of rolling resistance. You can find a lot of other tire performance metrics to help decide on a tire based on whichever parameter you feel is important, but rolling resistance has not been included. Maybe the way that CR did this could be improved upon (and it was disappointing that they didn't include out Michelin Energy Saver in the mix).

LRR should be treated like any other performance metric with a standardized way to measure / quantify it. Then a consumer can properly weigh it along with the other more common measures of stopping distance. wet/dry traction, wear resistance, etc. Everyone can and will have their own priorities but it's impossible to make an educated choice without having a numerical basis to compare. I think rolling resistance is more important to EV drivers than to ICE drivers. It is also possible that an EV is disproportionately affected by the range of different tires compared to an ICE because they are more highly optimized to maximize range in other ways too.

 

I thought about it and put you on my ignore list.