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Michelin Pilot Sport

2K views 16 replies 6 participants last post by  chikoo 
#1 ·
last night was a rainy night after many days in Dallas.

My car has 225/45/18 tires and has about half life left on them.

The reason for my post is to express my "scary" experience driving that car in normal rain. It felt like it kept sliding around and on one of the uphills on the freeway, I swear I felt the front tires lose traction at the speed of 55mph.

Is this how Summer tires behave at half life?

So I called many stores to see if I could sipe these tires, with no luck. In fact one guy at the discount tires recommended not to sipe the Michelin pilot sport as they would fall apart. wtf :swearin:

So what should I do? My trust in summer tires is kind of shaken at this point and almost all summer tires come without any deep sipes. just big ass rubber blocks.

Any opinions / thoughts? / 2c?

 
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#2 ·
I'm not an expert, but I don't think sipes help water traction at all. They're supposed to be useful in gripping ice and maybe snow. The way those tires look, they should be fine in the rain. Is it possible that your alignment is out? I ran 75 mph on the stock Bridgestones on my Speed 6 with less than 4/32 left (less than 1/2 tread) and didn't have any problems and they have NO sipes at all...
 
#4 ·
I wouldn't categorize all summer tires to be behave the same just because your Michelin summer's aren't doing well in the rain.

But back to your question. You said it has about half life, what is half life? 5/32? 4/32? Once they get to a certain depth, their ability to evacuate the water from the tire area decrease. Just imagine the channel area getting smaller and smaller as there is less rubber on the tire.

Also, check you air pressure. If they are underinflated, you won't be maximizing contact patch area.
 
#5 ·
Is this how Summer tires behave at half life?

Any opinions / thoughts? / 2c?
[/b]
In theory, a summer (three-season) tire should outperform an all season tire under such conditions, and not by just a little bit, either.

As for your "how Summer tires behave at half-life" question, there are two aspects to wet-weather performance. The more important is wet traction: the ability to stop on wet pavement where there is no standing (or flowing) water. That quality is all about the chemical composition of the tire's tread, whether it retains a film of water on its own surface, insulating the tread from the pavement, and whether the tread has a high coefficient of friction.

The less important is resistance to hydroplaning. Hydroplaning is essentially a speed problem: the worst tires at a lower speed will outperform the best tires at a higher speed. As water depth on the road and vehicle speed each increase, there comes a point where nothing in the world can prevent hydroplaning. Therefore, reducing your speed is better than improving your tires. Tread design and depth are completely ineffective against wetness artifacts other than those where the water on the pavement can be moved. The advantage of a deep tread is that the voids between blocks provide a temporary storage space for water that has been moved off the road; if there is no water on the road to be moved, tread depth is irrelevant.

I have never been a fan of Michelins for wet traction and, living in the Pacific Northwest, I have never purchased a Michelin tire. I did purchase a Mazda6 with its OEM Michelin Pilot MXM4 tires this year, however, and have not been "disappointed": the tires have lived down to my expectations for them in the wet. (Fortunately, some Yokohama ADVAN Sport tires are on their way to me now, and will be installed before the weekend; I can hardly wait.)
 
#6 ·
I have never been a fan of Michelins for wet traction and, living in the Pacific Northwest, I have never purchased a Michelin tire. I did purchase a Mazda6 with its OEM Michelin Pilot MXM4 tires this year, however, and have not been "disappointed": the tires have lived down to my expectations for them in the wet. (Fortunately, some Yokohama ADVAN Sport tires are on their way to me now, and will be installed before the weekend; I can hardly wait.)
[/b]
fyi, i completely wore down the stock OEM MXM4 that were on my car and in all honesty they performed better in similar condition till I finally replaced them with these summer tires.
 
#7 ·
#8 ·
fyi, i completely wore down the stock OEM MXM4 that were on my car and in all honesty they performed better in similar condition till I finally replaced them with these summer tires.
[/b]
Better than the Pilot Sports? I am mildly shocked.

I must say that after we purchased the Mazda6, I was pleasantly surprised at how adequate the MXM4s aere in dry conditions: they are much better in the dry than I expected them to be. But as soon as the autumn rains came to Portland, replacement of the MXM4s became a priority.

I am no drag racer; I pull away from stoplights at a moderate speed when the light turns green, no jackrabbit starts for me. But if I have been stopped pointing uphill at the light on wet pavement, I spin the MXM4s a quarter revolution or so almost every time I accelerate from the green. I never spun the tires with the Toyo T1-Ss or the Dunlop SP Sport 01s (both "summer" tires) that at various times were mounted on our previous vehicle, a Nissan Maxima, despite the Nissan's greater low-end torque and lower first-gear ratio compared to the Mazda6.
 
#9 ·
I spin the MXM4s a quarter revolution or so almost every time I accelerate from the green. I never spun the tires with the Toyo T1Rs or the Dunlop SP Sport 01s (both "summer" tires) that at various times were mounted on our previous vehicle, a Nissan Maxima, despite the Nissan's greater low-end torque and lower first-gear ratio compared to the Mazda6.[/b]

same experience here. the pilot sport don't even spin when I accelerate from a dead stop at 2000 rpm when the road is dry. But wet is a different story.
 
#11 ·
Interesting read.....
Performance tires are often called summer tires, because they sacrifice wet weather handling, by having shallower water channels, and tire life from softer rubber compounds, for dry weather performance. The ultimate variant of performance tires has no tread pattern at all and is called slick tire.[[/b]
http://www.thetiresguide.com/
[/b]
I disagree with part of that assessment, because not all -- in fact, very few -- of the"summer" (three season) tires sacrifice wet weather handling, and if they perform well, I would call those tires "performance" tires. Granted, there are three season tires that do not perform well on wet roads -- such as theBFGoodrich KD (KD stands for "killer dry," and acknowledges that the tire is not a wet weather tire), but all of the best wet traction tires will be found in the "summer" tire category.

I did like this statement in the article you cited:
The all-season tire is therefore a poor compromise, and is neither a good summer tire, nor a good winter tire.[/b]
:D
 
#12 ·
:yesnod: :yesnod:

Improved traction up to 200%! An independent company tested the siping effect on starting, stopping and driving traction while driving on medium snow pack.

Repeated tests proved that siping increased starting, stopping and driving traction by as much as 200%!

The Goodyear Eagle LS (all season tire), and the Michelin Pilot Sport (high performance tire), were chosen for testing. The traction of the industry-standard all-season tire (the Uniroyal Tiger Paw) was also measured to set a base amount for comparison.

The unsiped Goodyear Eagle LS traction measured 101% of the base tire; the siped Goodyear Eagle LS measured 134% of the traction of the base tire.

The unsiped Michelin Pilot Sport read only 35% of the base all-season tires' traction. Siped traction improved by 200% - surpassing the traction of the 'All Season Tire'.

For complete technical data regarding these tests, please visit http://www.sipers.com/sipers/siping_tests.asp.
 
#13 ·
So I got my tires siped today at Discount tire during lunch.
Driving back home today on the uneven backroads to my house, the ride comfort was amazing and the steering kickbacks that occured due to tramlining/camber thrust on those bumpy, uneven roads was very minimal due to the more flexible contact patch as a result of the siping process.

WoW!!!!

and the steering response is just as good.

now I just have to wait for some rains to see how much it helps there.......
 
#17 ·
Seriously Chikoo, sipping alone will increase the comfort ride that much more dramatically? Or is it your wallet telling you it's feels that much better?
[/b]

It is simple science dawei. The UHP tire is very stiff with no flexibility. The siping process segments the tires in to 1 inch patches which allows the tread to flex over the rough roads objects. The siping is only on the contct patch. Not on the shoulder blocks, thus keeping the sidewall as stiff as before.

and I paid $10/tire.
 
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