Who is Doc on Tirerack? He recommends Michelin's Primacy MXM4 as best all around tire

[JEDI]

http://blog.tirerack.com/blog/docs-...imacy-mxm4-the-best-of-the-best?affiliate=FH3

"One of our most frequent requests for passenger car tires is for something quiet and comfortable, often regardless of price. Based on our testing and customer feedback, our best recommendation is typically the Michelin Primacy MXM4."

my Michelin MXV4's are almost 15k miles past their 60k warrenty. tread is down to like 4/32 or 3/32. no way will it handle snow so i need new tires before winter comes.

Costco has a $70 rebate on a set of Michelin tires, till Nov 4.

I was going to get another set of MXV4 but read that MXM4 is the newer version of the MXV4?
The upgrade is lower rolling resistance, thus better gas milage. downside is a little lower tread life. (55k vs 60k warrenty.)
Price is the same for both for my size tire.

And i saw this recommendation by Doc at Tirerack which makes me lean even more towards the MXM4.
Then i thought, Who is Doc???
Some random blogger, or a guy that works at Tirerack?


edit:
clarified title to Primacy MXM4.
apparently michelin also produces the HX MXM4, which are terrible tires from what i've read. they are oem to many Hondas.

 

[Throckmorton]

Is he a real doctor?

 

[halik]

I'm kind of impressed someone actually keeps a car for 70K+ miles

 

[JEDI]

I'm kind of impressed someone actually keeps a car for 70K+ miles

lol.. my mazda3 is past 150k.
went thru the oem ties (great wet traction, horrible treadwear), bf goodrich traction t/a (love those but no longer sold at Costo), and now mxv4's.

this will be the 4th set of tires. leaning towards mxm4

 

[shabby]

Then i thought, Who is Doc???
Some random blogger, or a guy that works at Tirerack?

Click on his name

My nickname is Doc, and I'm a sales specialist at Tire Rack.

 

[jpeyton]

I had MXM4's on my 8th gen Accord; it came with them from the factory.

Ok tires; not very quiet, grip was ok. I bought a set of summer tires, BFGoodrich g-Force KDW 2s, and that made a huge difference in grip (wet or dry).

It snows maybe 2 days a year in my city, so I'd rather have super grippy summer tires than kinda grippy all-season tires.

 

[JEDI]

Click on his name

ahh.. he works for Tirerack.

Thx!

sold on MXM4's now!

 

[JEDI]

I had MXM4's on my 8th gen Accord; it came with them from the factory.

Ok tires; not very quiet, grip was ok. I bought a set of summer tires, BFGoodrich g-Force KDW 2s, and that made a huge difference in grip (wet or dry).

It snows maybe 2 days a year in my city, so I'd rather have super grippy summer tires than kinda grippy all-season tires.

um.. arent the accords equipped with michelin Pilot HX MXM4? (whcih are horrible tires from what i've read since google lead me to those pages.)

i'm talking about the michelin Primacy MXM4.

and why the hell do they use the same suffixes for their tires?!
i think there's also a Michelin Energy MXM4 too

 

[hans007]

I had mxv4s or whatever on my tsx. All those tires Michelin uses are on Honda cars and they are all terrible. If you just want tires that last long OK maybe its OK for that. But even then they are expensive. Get some contipro or something better tires that last nearly as long

 

[phucheneh]

I've installed and driven on lots of MXM4/MXV4 tires, but never had them on my car.

I never really noticed a difference between them. Both are typically built pretty well (balance up with very little weight; no excessive runout) and offer a decent ride (soft sidewalls). Noise or ride complaints are probably just due to the fairly hard tread compound. Any long-wearing tire is going to be similar (or worse).

Definitely not a 'performance' tire, but certainly very competent. They are to Michelin what Eagles (particularly RS-A, LS, and other really common variants- not F1's or some such) are to Goodyear. Or Turanza to Bridgestone.

 

[JEDI]

I had mxv4s or whatever on my tsx. All those tires Michelin uses are on Honda cars and they are all terrible. If you just want tires that last long OK maybe its OK for that. But even then they are expensive. Get some contipro or something better tires that last nearly as long

i think all the oem michelins on hondas are the HX variety, not the Primacy.

I can vouch for the primacy mxv4s as having great wet traction as well as tread life. i'm almost +15k over the 60k warrenty.

hhmm.. i think i'll clarify the thread title

 

[JEDI]

I've installed and driven on lots of MXM4/MXV4 tires, but never had them on my car.

I never really noticed a difference between them. Both are typically built pretty well (balance up with very little weight; no excessive runout) and offer a decent ride (soft sidewalls). Noise or ride complaints are probably just due to the fairly hard tread compound. Any long-wearing tire is going to be similar (or worse).

Definitely not a 'performance' tire, but certainly very competent. They are to Michelin what Eagles (particularly RS-A, LS, and other really common variants- not F1's or some such) are to Goodyear. Or Turanza to Bridgestone.

oh god no.. Eagle RSA's suck!
they are oem to 2005 Mazda3 15" and 17" tires. thankfully for 16" tires (like mine) Toyo's are the oem.
dont know why they switched to Toyo's for the 16" tire option but i;m glad they did.

and i think you're talking about the HX MXM4/MXV4 variety, not the Primacy MXM4/MXV4 variety if you are comparing them to the RSA's.

 

[phucheneh]

I do believe you're right. Didn't even know there was more than one variant...Michelin needs fewer tire lines with the same silly roman numeral names.

FWIW the cheap Eagles (RS-A and LS are the cheapest, I think) haven't seemed so bad to me. They're priced a good bit below most of the Turanzas or MCMXLVIII tires, so I don't really expect as much. The Bridgestones are probably the worst value.

 

[jpeyton]

um.. arent the accords equipped with michelin Pilot HX MXM4? (whcih are horrible tires from what i've read since google lead me to those pages.)

i'm talking about the michelin Primacy MXM4.

and why the hell do they use the same suffixes for their tires?!
i think there's also a Michelin Energy MXM4 too

My bad, they were the Pilots, not the Primacy. Shame on Michelin for their tire naming scheme.

 

[Meghan54]

FWIW the cheap Eagles (RS-A and LS are the cheapest, I think) haven't seemed so bad to me. They're priced a good bit below most of the Turanzas or MCMXLVIII tires, so I don't really expect as much.

When we bought our Murano, it had a brand new set of Eagle LS's on it. I ripped them off in less than two weeks and replaced them with Continental CrossContact LX 20's.

The Eagle LS's looked nice, had decent dry grip, but the moment the ground/pavement had any moisture on it, may as well have been a sheet of ice the LS's wet grip was so horrible.

The Contis were a vast improvement. The Eagles are now holding up a table top....

 

[pauldun170]

We hadthem as OEM on our Mazda6.
I thought they were ok as all season OEM tires go but stopped buying them since they constantly formed bubbles in the tires. Sucked since they were pricey at the time.

 

[onza]

Had mxm4's on my 2006 Acura TL, I got rid of them within 8k miles. They were garbage in all weather conditions except dry weather.

3/10 rating imo

 

[BassBomb]

The reccomended primacy MXM4 are not the same as the tires that come stock on hondas and acuras, those ones are garbage

the primacy is a pretty good tire and will be a significant improvement over stock honda/acura tires

sources: own accord which previously had stock "energy" tires, dad owns lexus had previous "pilot" tire and he switched to primacy

 

[phucheneh]

So are Energy and HX the same? I can recall seeing those markings a lot, but never the Primacies.

 

[BassBomb]

So are Energy and HX the same? I can recall seeing those markings a lot, but never the Primacies.

Not same, but similar and not great

 

[Majunior]

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=165

This tends to suggest that they recommend other tires over the Michelins you're posting about.

I got the Continental EC DWSs, the same listed in the reviews, before last winter. It didn't really snow here, so I can't speak about that performance. The dry and wet stability are fantastic. They don't have summer tire rigidity in the sidewalls, so they tent to roll a little if under-inflated or under extreme cornering. But for a performance-based all season on my 07 Si, I haven't had a better tire.

 

[phucheneh]

I just don't trust Conti. I know a lot of people, especially those with Euro cars, tend to disagree.

Their build quality (or general quality control) has just always been garbage. The car tires are usually decent enough but still pretty damn lopsided for the price you pay. Because their size magnifies the out-of-round issues, their truck tires are friggin' horrendous. Never seen a round set.

That's probably why I tend to like Michelins more than most. At least the damn things don't need a half pound of weight to get balanced. More like an ounce in most cases.

But I'm not looking for raw performance...my interest was always more in avoiding people coming back with complaints. Never had a complaint with Michelins (other than they cost a lot). Those chain-smoking mimes make some pretty good tires.

 

[JEDI]

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=165

This tends to suggest that they recommend other tires over the Michelins you're posting about.

I got the Continental EC DWSs, the same listed in the reviews, before last winter. It didn't really snow here, so I can't speak about that performance. The dry and wet stability are fantastic. They don't have summer tire rigidity in the sidewalls, so they tent to roll a little if under-inflated or under extreme cornering. But for a performance-based all season on my 07 Si, I haven't had a better tire.

yeah, tires in the Ultra High Performance All-Season category look great for wet traction/light snow:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=UHPAS

unfortunately Costco doesnt sell Continental EC DWS.

the primacy mxm4/mxv4 is the best they have for wet/light snow in my tire size (p205/55 r16). it was a toss up, and i'm selecting the mxm4.
dont get me wrong. i have no problems w/my mxv4. but the mxm4's *should* give me a little better gas milage at a cost of 5k treadlife. I think i come out ahead ($) in the long run.

 

[SSSnail]

I'm kind of impressed someone actually keeps a car for 70K+ miles

As opposed to what, buying a car with 70k miles on it?

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=165

This tends to suggest that they recommend other tires over the Michelins you're posting about.

I got the Continental EC DWSs, the same listed in the reviews, before last winter. It didn't really snow here, so I can't speak about that performance. The dry and wet stability are fantastic. They don't have summer tire rigidity in the sidewalls, so they tent to roll a little if under-inflated or under extreme cornering. But for a performance-based all season on my 07 Si, I haven't had a better tire.

Recently replaced my front tires with a pair of Conti EC DWS and couldn't be happier. They're very quite, pliant and don't exhibit the tramp-lining symptoms as with my previous tires. Haven't pushed them hard, since I haven't properly broken them in yet, but lightly pushed, they seem to hold very well for AS tires. Overall, I'm very happy with them.

 

[Majunior]

Recently replaced my front tires with a pair of Conti EC DWS and couldn't be happier. They're very quite, pliant and don't exhibit the tramp-lining symptoms as with my previous tires. Haven't pushed them hard, since I haven't properly broken them in yet, but lightly pushed, they seem to hold very well for AS tires. Overall, I'm very happy with them.

At first, the tires felt VERY slick to me. I was very un-inspired. I had read to give them 500 miles to break in, then reevaluate. I did, and the characteristics of the tire completely changed. their grip and turn in are much more confident now. If you're concerned about them, let them heat cycle a few times. you'll be happy.