My Michelin Continental 4x4 contact tires, at 30,000 mi, had 2 right side tires wear out on the edges, well below the expected warranty. I need seasonal tires to replace them and have loved during the past years how the Continental handled on my 2012 AW Rouge. Should I purchase these tires again that I like the handling or what other brand type would you suggest I look into? I an retired and usually put about 4000 mi on the auto a year driving interstate and around town.
Your retired so that means you should have time to search online for tire reviews . Tire Rack . com is a good place . At 4000 miles a year any tires you buy will need replacing by age before they wear out . Apparently you had those last tires on for 7 years . It also sounds like you did not rotate them as often as you should which is really important for All Wheel Drive vehicles .
I say this a lot ( People buy tires while they shop at Sams and Costco so it is not Rocket science ).
1 Like
Very good timing. Car Talk has actually employed me to do a series of “Best Tires For…” stories. The Rogue was the very first one I did. Watch for it here at the site, but I can give you this info if you find it helpful:
Budget 17” and 19”: Continental TrueContact. At about $115 this tire is a brand and model well known to crossover owners. It has a rating of UTQG: 800 A B which means top scores for all categories. Hybrid owners take note: In this size, the tire is also rated EcoPlus
Budget 18”: Riken Raptor HR. At around $100, it may surprise you that this tire earns our minimum 4-start overage for owner reviews. This is not a brand name you may recognize, but when you tire is half the cost of the brand names, do you care? This tire features good overall specifications and a UTQG code of 520 A A. That means it has top scores for traction and temperature and an expected lifespan of more than 50,000 miles.
Moderately Priced 17”: Yokohama Geolander G055. One of the OEM picks by Nissan is this Yokohama with a UTQG rating of 740 A A. That means long life and great traction and temp ratings.
Moderately Priced 18” and 19”: Goodyear Assurance ComforTread. The Assurance ComforTread is a middle-range tie in terms of pricing from a brand we all know very well. Ih has aUTGQ code of 740 A B meaning long life, great traction and a good temperature rating. This tire does well in every category, but will likely be quieter than most of its peers.
Apparently, your tires were manufactured by Continental.
Where did you get the idea that Michelin made your Continental tires?
If you mean that they wore out on both edges of the tread, that is a sure indication that they were chronically under-inflated. If they wore out on only the outer edge or the inner edge, that is an indicator of bad wheel alignment.
No matter what brand of tires you wind up buying, make sure that you buy 4 tires because of your vehicle’s AWD mechanism, and also be sure to have a 4 wheel alignment done right after purchase, lest your new tires also wind up with those uneven wear patterns.
1 Like
John, this seems like a waste of time and money . Of course it is good for you . The way I read your post you are going to say the a certain vehicle will do best with certain tires . Good Grief , there are so many tires on the market a survey like this could take years . And you might miss some very good and serviceable brands.
1 Like
I have to admit, when I first took on the assignment it seemed daunting. However, we are screening out any tire that does not get an overall 4-star review average (out of 5). That still leaves a lot of options. Then we filter out all the bad choices, like “summer-only ultra-high performance tires” for a Rogue. We only look at the appropriate type of tire for that vehicle. In this case, touring crossover tires. Then we filter by three price points. It takes a few hours to complete the task, but when we are done, we have made good progress toward a few solid choices in the sizes for that specific vehicle. The way I look at it now (having done a few) is that it will save the shopper a few hours of searching. Ask me after I’ve done a dozen or two models how I like the job 
2 Likes
I have spent a LARGE amount of time on line researching tires before sending out this question. Every one does that after getting names and prices from sellers and that leads to more searches. Tire Rack.com only had 1 review for a 2012 Rogue. The present tires were rotated with every oil changes dead on schedule and the PSI has been checked at least once a month since purchasing in 2012 to prevent under and over inflation. I asked for suggestions, but I already know what you offered up.
You only need to review tires in the size that your vehicle calls for . Forget what vehicle it goes on . If your vehicle calls for 235 55 18 then just look at those tires . You seem to be making this way to difficult.
1 Like
Since you rotate the tires at every oil change, wearing on the edges on the right side means “on the right side” is a red herring. That means it has no value in determining why. You rotate so often that you don’t know where the tire was when it got worn like that, you only know where it is now.
Most likely you need a front end or possibly a 4 wheel alignment. You don’t necessarily need 4wd or AWD to need a 4 wheel alignment, so if the rear tires are adjustable, you should get the 4 wheel alignment.
As for the tires, lots of opinions here on those and few will match. If you like what you had, then those are what you should get, but I would suggest a trip to the library to check out back issues of Consumers Reports and do an online check of tires at TireRack.com Tire Rack not only does surveys, it also does testing. Sometimes the testing tell a different story than the surveys.
I see that in the surveys, Michelin tires always seem to come out near the top. When I was checking the actual test results, I noticed that General RT43 tires came out just a tick below the Michelin Premier tires in all tests but snow and ice where the RT beat the Michelin by a pretty good margin, yet the General tires tend to do poorly in the surveys.
Oops, I made a typo. not Michelin. I had a long list of tires and this was the tire above Cont tires. The 2 tires,both on the right side of the Rogue, wore out on outer edges, not outer and inner edges. Every rotation was done with scheduled oil changes since 2012 at dealership and psi checked every 2 weeks at least and corrected if needed. No driving indication of bad wheel alignment,pulling,even now. I am asking for tire brand recommendations from other Rogue owners. Thank you for your answer.
I just don’t understand why you care what other Rogue owners put on their vehicle . Maybe they bought some on sale or had a rebate . Maybe that was all they could afford at the time .
I put Pirelli P6 on our Volvo and could care less what other people put on their V70.
Thanks for the information,Keith.
A non normal tire wear pattern is an indication of an alignment issue. Pulling is another indication but just because you don’t get any pulling, doesn’t mean the alignment is good. You can have two alignment factors that offset each other so the vehicle feels good, but it is heck on the tires.
As VDCdriver mentioned, if the tires are wearing on both edges that is a sign of under inflation; TPMS or not.
Outer edge only means excessive positive camber or toe-in. Inner edges means excessive negative camber or toe-out.
Make sure to at least have the toe-in checked both front and rear. I expect however the edge wear is just normal tire wear pattern for that vehicle. Taller, heavier vehicles tend to lean more than sedans during turns, and this causes the outside tire edges to wear. the reason it only happens on the right might be b/c you are doing more of your sharper/higher speed turns to the left. Do you make a lot of left and u-turns?
Can’t speak to your specific tire brand issues, but I recently installed Michelin Defender LTX tires on my 4wd truck and they are working out pretty good. They are really tough beasties, that’s for certain. I think there’s different tread patterns available for that tire, less aggressive all-season vs more aggressive mud and snow, etc.
Even if you don’t feel that it is pulling to one side, the wear pattern that you noted is definite evidence of bad wheel alignment. No matter what new tires you wind-up buying, you will rapidly ruin them unless you have the alignment corrected.
1st, the tires that wore badly did so because of the alignment.
2nd, these tires are the OE tires (4K per year X 7 years = 30K), and OE tires frequently don’t achieve very good wearout mileage. And even though the name maybe the same, tires on the market today with that name very likely have been converted back to replacement specs - meaning they would be quite different. (Did a quick look, and they aren’t available any more.)
3rd, you should be on a schedule to replace by time, not by wear. In hot states (AZ, CA, NV, TX, and FL) replace every 6 years and in cold states (MN, ND, ID, MT, and WI) to replace every 10 years - and states in between are … ah …… in between.
4th, you can save quite a bit by going with a lesser brand - even an off brand. I’m sure you will find one that suits your needs. Use Tire Rack to help in your search.
1 Like
This person tried Tire Rack and for some reason he is fixed on what tires go on a Nissan Rogue and what other Rogue owners use . Why he can’t grasp that tires can go on many different vehicles is beyond me.
The “same” tires on different cars can perform differently, especially from a comfort perspective. I, too, care what tires other people who drive my car are happy with. On my last car, the Bridgestones I got at Costco had great reviews. On my particular car, they sucked. The ride was harsher and the noise levels were much higher, and I regretted not springing for the Michelins I’d been happy with before.
It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
While the 800 UTQG rating is good for folks that drive 25,000 miles a year it is not an appropriate number for the OP. Why? To get the rating, the tires’ harder rubber compound will sacrifice traction, especially in the wet. Also, the tire will age out far earlier than the tread will wear out for short mile drivers. That will encourage owners to keep driving on very old tires because the tread depth is OK. The OP could use a 360 or less treadwear tire that would wear out closer to the 7 to 9 year age-out time.
Just an additional perspective about tire use.
1 Like