Tire life

Well James, Bill Putney was right. This is working itself into a long
thread. I asked the same sort of question at the beginning and,
unfortunately, got a lot of opinions and little substance. There seemed to
be some general agreement that there isn't much objectivity to be had when
it comes to tires.

If you really want to assess the quality of any tire, you are pretty much in
the dark.

My original premise was that you will do well to buy on price and buy from
someone who has an interest in your repeat business. Keep them aligned,
balanced and properly inflated and they will likely do the 40K miles or so
that they advertised. There will be some variance and you may find yourself
not liking this or that about the tires. But if you went cheap, you will
feel better about it than if you paid through the nose for "quality" tires
that weren't.

Ken

 

Good question.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

IMO it is and it is not. What about US requirements like UL? Same thing,
no?

In fact, CE marking has resulted in substantial simplification of the safety
standards in the EU. Even now I get statements in potential clients'
machine specifications requiring compliance with (taking the latest example)
with certain Belgian standards. When I replied, saying that our machines
(supplied from Canada) are CE-marked but we would be happy to comply with
additional requirements if we were sent the documentation, I was told to
forget about it; CE would be sufficient.

Otherwise we would have a plethora across the EU. The mind boggles in
today's context.

So, is it a trade barrier per se, or only because it is not a copy of US
regs????

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

[...]

 

I'm not terribly familiar with the CE process, but I thought it was
supposed to be somewhat akin to our UL program. If this is the case,
then at least it has some functional value, safety, whereas the ISO 9000
process lacks any functional value. It is all about cosmetics. Now, if
the CE mark doesn't give some assurance of safety or other functional
attribute, then I agree with you.


Matt

 

Just buy Michelins and you'll be happy.

 

I did and I am not. I bought a set of Cross Terrains for an Expedition and I
am not all that happy with them, mostly because they have become very noisy.
The original Continentals on the vehicle were replaced at 50,000 miles
because they were hard to keep balanced (but they still had plenty of tread
left). Initially the Michelins were quieter, but now, after 25,000 miles,
they are much nosier than the original Continentals were after 50,000
miles.They look good - in fact it is hard to tell they have worn at all. I
also have a set of Michelins on my Thunderbird and they are horrid. They
won't stay balanced and they don't have good traction.

However, I just bought a set of Michelins for another vehicle, so I guess I
am still a Michelin man. But if these don't work out, I think I'll try
something else on the Thunderbird.

Ed

 

IMO, Michelin are the most over rated tire on the market. In 40 years of
driving, the only tire that has ever blown out on me was a Michelin, and the
rest of the same set were less than satisfactory.... performance and short life.
Many years ago when I worked on a highway maintenance crew we picked up more
tire debris from blown out Michelins than all other brands combined, and they
were not all that common at the time, so the failure rate was many times worse
than other brands. When you look at the tire brands used by transportation
companies, who would expect to do careful research before committing to a brand,
you will note that very few of them use Michelin.

 

I'd like to see how you collected those statistics. Ironically, I just had a
Michelin blow-out on my pick-up. Of course it was 7 years old and had a big
nail in the side of the tread. I suspect I had been driving around with low
pressure for more than a few miles and when I went over a horrid bump in the
road (thank you State Government of NC) it deflated more or less instantly.
But, I didn't leave any debris behind to be picked up (although there was
something runmbling around inside the tire).

Actually I would expect them to buy the cheapest tire they could (with some
adjustment passed on the UTG wear index). I have a friend who operates a
small fleet of tractor-trailers. He swears Michelins are the best, but then
his extensive research consists of driving a truck.

Ed

 

Dave Smith proclaimed:

Could you describe the type of debris from Michelins that you picked
up?


Purely an unscientific survey consisting of checking the brands on
the commercial big rigs I drive next to, the appearance of any brand
*other* than Michelin is pretty darned rare. This is as much due to
their wear patterns and re-treading capabilities as to any inherent
superiority I suspect. That unscientific survey does include having
the top truck lines as customers....which gives pretty good
opportunity to check tires.

 

ANd checking big rig brands is useless, as they are more then likely recaps!
And the reacps are not made by the original manufacturer.

This is as much due to

 

Tire carcasses.

Your unscientific survey shows much different results from mine. I spent the last 16
years as a truck and bus inspector and I find it hard to believe that unless you did
your survey within a block of a Michelin dealer that you would find anything like
that. I spent a lot of time every day crawling in, around and under trucks and buses.
We always paid close attention to tires, and I didn't see many Michelins.

 

Perhaps you would like some hard scientific reportage now?

[from a tire industry report out of U Chicago]

Seventy five percent of the companies in the industry (accounting for
90% of the value) experienced a takeover bid or
were forced to restructure during the period 1982-1989 (Mitchell and
Mulherin, 1996). As aresult of this activity, control changed hands in
over half the companies in this industry. Even more remarkable, in the
majority of cases, control was transferred to foreign owners. By the
end of the decade, traditional American firms like Firestone,
Uniroyal, Goodrich, Armstrong, and General Tire belonged to foreign
companies. As a consequence, large U.S. owned tiremanufacturers, who
in 1971 represented 59% of the world production and included four out
of the top five producers, in 1991 represented only 17% of world
production with only one of thetop five producers


[from an EPA report]
The mid- to late 1980s were difficult times for the world tire
industry. Tire manufacturers faced declining demand for new cars,
declining tire prices, a record high U.S. currency, and record high
tire imports. As a response to this market distress, the industry
went through a period of significant restructuring and consolidation.
Foreign firms bought out several American firms, leaving the world
tire industry with nine ultimate parent companies that have annual
sales in excess of $1 billion each. These nine companies account
for 80 percent of world tire sales (Ita and Gross, 1995). Four of the
nine companies have their headquarters in Japan (Bridgestone
Corporation, Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd., Yokohama Rubber Co.
Ltd., and Toyo Tire and Rubber Co. Ltd.), three are based in Europe
Groupe Michelin, Continental A.G., and Pirelli), and two are
headquartered in the United States (Goodyear and Cooper).


Brian Whatcott Altus OK

 

Truck tires I cannot comment on - but when it comes to passenger tires
I am certainly no fan of Michelin. If the choice was a Michelin or a
Firestone 721, the Michelin would win (but 721s have not been made for
over 30 years). I find they go hard, giving poor traction, harsh ride,
and tire noise, early in their life - then go on to live, as cripples,
for next to eternity. They.ve come a long way from the early X, but
not far enough, given the advancements other companies have made.