Alternatives to OEM tires

Hi @Landshark, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but by your theory above, you could never rotate tires at all since after only 5,000 miles of driving on new tires, the front tires (especially on a front wheel drive car) will always be more worn than the rear. This would be even more true after 10,000 miles of driving.

I prefer to maintain as even wear on my tires as possible which almost necessarily requires that you routinely put the tires with the least wear on the front.

 

For the sake of clarity, I’m not the least bit concerned about your welfare or how you choose to burn through the last few curly hairs of tread on your tires.

Also of note, it isn’t my theory. In case it wasn’t clear, is the recommendation of those mentioned previously.

Best of luck with your choice of new tires.

 

I think the expert recommendations would be consistent with this.

If the tread on all 4 tires is very good, then the position becomes unimportant. This is the scenario with all new tires, and I believe the expert advise would be to rotate the tires in order to balance wear (without nit-picking which have 'more' wear and should go on the rear) because they all perform equally well.

When there is a large discrepancy in wear (as there is when a pair of tires gets replaced, or perhaps when the tread is nearing end-of-life), then it makes perfect sense to put the 'good' tires on the rear as described in the article above.

 

There are two competing interests:

The desire to wear your tread evenly.
The desire to maximize grip in the manner safest to a driver.

In a FWD (technically FF) car, the front tires tend to wear faster than the rears. That means that when you rotate tires, and want to wear tread evenly, you would put the tires with the most tread on the front to balance wear.

However, putting tires with less grip on the rear means that the rear will tend to lose traction first relative to the front in less than ideal conditions. If you're ok with the rear potentially swinging around on you, go ahead and keep doing what you're doing. Some people (like me) are comfortable with that risk and prefer to have even tread wear.

That being said, if you're a frequent rotator of tires, there shouldn't be enough of a tire disparity to make a difference front to rear, and when you replace tires, you'd replace all four. The problem comes when you have new tires on the front, and old tires on the rear, and that would make it more likely to end up in a spin condition.

 

Just installed my 3rd set of tires @80k miles. Went with the Bridgestone Potenza re980as+ , these have more grip than the oem tires but the tradeoff is wear. I'm expecting about 30-35k miles before they will need to be replaced. Smooth quiet ride with enhanced grip in the corners (no chirping like OEM tires) when driven aggressively.

 

Thanks for the update. At 77,000 miles my original Michelins still have some life but I got a slow leak in one and I figure at this point its not worth fixing. So I've gone another level in cheapness than you and ordered from Walmart 4
BlackHawk Street-H HH11 UHP
for $84 apiece. They have good reviews on the Walmart site and are 420 AA rated, 50,000 mile warrantee (all tire warrantees pretty useless anyway). I'll report back how they work out.

 

Thanks for the update @Charged_Up. I can't wait to step up to the Nexen myself. I have a few more thousand miles to go, or unitl it starts raining here in Sacramento. Since rolling resistance improves with age, the fact you don't notice a reduction in mileage implies that that rolloing resistance is better on the Nexen than the OEM Michelins.

 

Great find, @David Towle. Those do get great reviews at Walmart. The only downside I see is they are made in China. I've been cautioned against buying tires made in China. But if they work, great! I see Walmart has a 90 day return policy so if you don't like them for any reason you can get your money back.

 

There are LOTS of tires made in China now, I've noticed it especially in new cars. All the western manufacturers have plants there. So I don't know if it means anything unless you want to avoid Chinese stuff on principle.

 

Not on principal, but experience. And not my experience, just what I was told. Maybe its an old wive's tale. Maybe things have changed over the past decade. Here's a Consumer Reports article from ten years ago, for example. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/chinese-truck-tires-are-no-bargain/index.htm

 

I have installed and used the BlackHawk Street-H HH11 UHP tires for about a month/1000 miles and am quite happy with them. Note they are made in Vietnam, not China. They were actually $82 each plus $20 to mount and balance. They clearly have better traction than the OEMs especially in the wet, no more chirping as I accelerate from a stop. The ride is quite soft, so much that I have upped the pressure to 42 psi, I'll explain the rationale below. They definitely are not low rolling resistance, I have seen my around town driving range drop from 66 to 61. And on the highway I've seen my gas mpg drop by about 1 mpg to 42 as best as I can tell. But at about $700 less than the OEMs, and $220 less than the Nexen Platinums, it seems well worth it, especially since I have an excess of solar power. How long they last, I shall see, but I'm not concerned since the originals lasted 77,000 miles. For many here though I would think the Nexens make more sense with their reduced rolling resistance.

When I first used them at 36 psi the ride was way softer and smoother than the OEMs. I thought of my rougher riding Tesla Y and looked at its specs. It weighs about 400 pounds more than the Clarity, but its much larger tires are good for 500 pounds more load each, total 1 ton, AND the recommended pressure is 42 psi. So I thought if that car can use 42 psi with those much larger tires, then certainly the Honda could too. Even at 42 psi the ride is still significantly softer than the OEMS. Maximum recommended is 44 psi.