Given
74%
while driving a
Nissan Elgrand e52
(235/55 R18 W) on
a combination of roads
for 25,000
spirited miles
Fitted to replace the previous Michelin Latitude Your HP. Great improvement in dry traction, the Michelin would slip very easily when setting off. Wet traction is also better, and under hard braking abs never came on.
There was plenty of dry grip, a welcome improvement over the previous set, much the same for wet grip which was very reassuring. Steering feel is more direct and intuitive providing a higher level of feedback from the road, but ride comfort overall was still on the softer side, not much changed here, except for how these tyres make no squeals or scrubbing sounds when driven on painted parking lot surfaces like the Michelins did. The tyre is also very predictable and stable at higher speeds.
Overall tread noise stayed roughly the same level but with a slightly hollow tone compared to the gritty rumble from the Michelin, generated mostly from the contact to our rough roads, on smoother freshly paved sections there isn't any noticeable difference.
These didn't last as long as the Michelins (25k miles vs 30k miles), but they were being driven much harder in comparison thanks to the improvement in handling and grip. I was forced to keep them on the car right down to the tread wear indicators, due to a tyre shortage in our area caused by the pandemic. The tires did suffer from higher wear on the outer shoulder blocks, more severe on the tyres mounted at the front (I tried to keep the tyres inflated at 39-37 psi).
However, I was very disappointed when one of the tyres started causing steering vibrations. The problem slowly developed and got worse over time, and I ended up visiting the tyre shop several times to rebalance the wheel. Finally found out that the tyre was not wearing round; a section nearly two hand widths on the tyre had worn down noticeably closer to the bottom of the tread grooves than the rest of the tyre, which was clearly visible when the wheel was off the car at the time we identified it (the vibration leading up to that day was particularly severe). I doubt it was caused by a lockup. As mentioned earlier this tyre handles hard braking just fine, especially with the rather undersized brakes on this car and on top of this there was a decent reduction in vibration which lasted temporarily with each balancing. So with the tyre shortage we had to mount the tyre back on the car after balancing, this time on the rear. There was no bulge in the actual carcass of the tyre, even when inspected from the inside, and by the time I finally replaced this set of tyres it had worn back to being round again. As far as I know, I am the only person who has had this problem with this tyre in my area and I cannot find anything about this issue online. The tyre mechanics said they hadn't seen anything like it, which was why they didn't suspect this as the culprit of the vibration for so long. I was previously considering the Continental MC6's for our Volvo S60 but decided against it since they are manufactured in the same location.
On another note, I ended up replacing them with a set of the new Bridgestone RE004's (had no idea they existed until I visited my local Bridgestone distributor) and would like to leave a review of those as well, but they are not on the site yet and I've yet to receive an email response for the past 3 months now after using both 'suggest a tyre' and 'contact tyre reviews' (also had an inquiry about the Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2 tyres which ended up on the aforementioned Volvo S60, as their tread pattern does not resemble any of the images found online).