On my way home from my recent vacation I decided to make a slight detour so I could make another pass at the Ice Lake Trail near Silverton, CO. I was set to go and made it a few steps when I realized I had forgotten something in my car, so I turned around and set my back on the ground next to the front driver side tire and noticed a completely bald spot on my tire. I took a closer look and part of the tire was ripped so I figured a blow out was imminent.
Bald spot:
Tear in tire:
I really did not want to put new tires on this vehicle since I plan to purchase another in the near future, but my hand was pretty much forced since it would take a while to purchase a new vehicle and I don't drive around with my car's title in case I want to trade it in on a whim. I drove back to Durango, CO and spent the night looking at tires. I had previously done some research in case I really had to replace the tires and settled on Continental Truecontact based on reviews and price, or if those were difficult to get I would go with Michelin Premier A/S or Michelin Defenders again. Of course, Discount Tire doesn't appear to stock anything but their in house brands, and everything else is special order. I really didn't want to drive on my spare for 1200+ miles so I went ahead and purchased a set of 4 Arizonian Silver Edition III (apparently made my Cooper for Discount Tire). The good thing is that I was out of there for $430 with all taxes (lower than my home state) and recycling fees. I also discussed the issue of my TPMS light with the sales guy/installer and said that I thought one (or more) of the batteries had gone bad so my light would flash for about a minute and then come on solid. He said they would test them and shortly after he came back and said they were all responding so they should be able to get the light off. Sure enough, they came through, and I no longer have to stare at the light like I'd been doing for the past ~2 years. Apparently the issue may have been that the light wasn't reset at some point by a shop that had rotated the tires (?). To be honest, I think it wasn't long after I had gotten the Michelin Defenders that the light came on, but I didn't think that was connected because it did not come on immediately after getting the new tires on.
Anyway, what I've noticed with this new set of tires is that at interstate speeds they do not seem to be as stable as my old Defenders even though the Defenders were nearly bald. I'm not sure if new tires take some time to break in, but I've put about 1300 miles on them, and they still feel the same. However, I do notice that I do not spin out when coming from a dead stop when there is a good bit of gravel and dust beneath the tires. I also haven't had a chance to really test them in the rain at higher speeds, but at low speeds (max 40mph) today they seemed okay. Road noise also seemed about on par with my Defenders, but I listen to my radio a lot. Another thing I noticed on my drive back from Colorado is that my car will pull pretty hard to the left to where it requires constant and pretty forceful effort to prevent from crossing over in to the lane next to me which turned out to be absolutely infuriating on a long drive. Would an alignment fix this? Does anyone have any experience with how well these tires wear? They have a 55k mile rating which seemed pretty low for their price.
New tire:
Bald spot:
Tear in tire:
I really did not want to put new tires on this vehicle since I plan to purchase another in the near future, but my hand was pretty much forced since it would take a while to purchase a new vehicle and I don't drive around with my car's title in case I want to trade it in on a whim. I drove back to Durango, CO and spent the night looking at tires. I had previously done some research in case I really had to replace the tires and settled on Continental Truecontact based on reviews and price, or if those were difficult to get I would go with Michelin Premier A/S or Michelin Defenders again. Of course, Discount Tire doesn't appear to stock anything but their in house brands, and everything else is special order. I really didn't want to drive on my spare for 1200+ miles so I went ahead and purchased a set of 4 Arizonian Silver Edition III (apparently made my Cooper for Discount Tire). The good thing is that I was out of there for $430 with all taxes (lower than my home state) and recycling fees. I also discussed the issue of my TPMS light with the sales guy/installer and said that I thought one (or more) of the batteries had gone bad so my light would flash for about a minute and then come on solid. He said they would test them and shortly after he came back and said they were all responding so they should be able to get the light off. Sure enough, they came through, and I no longer have to stare at the light like I'd been doing for the past ~2 years. Apparently the issue may have been that the light wasn't reset at some point by a shop that had rotated the tires (?). To be honest, I think it wasn't long after I had gotten the Michelin Defenders that the light came on, but I didn't think that was connected because it did not come on immediately after getting the new tires on.
Anyway, what I've noticed with this new set of tires is that at interstate speeds they do not seem to be as stable as my old Defenders even though the Defenders were nearly bald. I'm not sure if new tires take some time to break in, but I've put about 1300 miles on them, and they still feel the same. However, I do notice that I do not spin out when coming from a dead stop when there is a good bit of gravel and dust beneath the tires. I also haven't had a chance to really test them in the rain at higher speeds, but at low speeds (max 40mph) today they seemed okay. Road noise also seemed about on par with my Defenders, but I listen to my radio a lot. Another thing I noticed on my drive back from Colorado is that my car will pull pretty hard to the left to where it requires constant and pretty forceful effort to prevent from crossing over in to the lane next to me which turned out to be absolutely infuriating on a long drive. Would an alignment fix this? Does anyone have any experience with how well these tires wear? They have a 55k mile rating which seemed pretty low for their price.
New tire:
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