This is a good one for the GM apologists in the crowd. The ignition switch ethos is alive and well at GM HQ. I have a 2011 Cadillac SRX with @ 22,000 miles. I had the tires rotated. The mechanic said that there was something wrong with the tires and I should have a Michelin dealer insect them. The Michelin dealers report stated that there was premature wear and splits between the treads. The prognosis was; the tires would blister and blow out. Michelin eventually gave me a 61% discount on new tires. There had been a voluntary recall by Michelin on these tires in 2013 and they had notified GM’s Warren Michigan 's engineering center of this fact GM management chose to ignore the potential death and damage from these defective tires. With bill data, VIN # and On Star info they had the names, addresses and phone numbers of every owner of a GM vehicle equipped with these tires.
I think Michelin gave you a great deal. I also don’t expect GM to guess that you would only put 22,000 miles on a set of tires in 7 years, and even properly made tires would be getting ready for age-based replacement at pretty much any time after 5 years.
If the tires on your vehicle were included in the recall they would have been replaced at no cost to you. Your tires needed to be replaced because of age/condition.
Yeah, driving around yesterday I noticed three wrecked GM cars with blown out tires and dead bodies laying around…
;-]
The problem with internet postings is there is no way to know if a poster is serious or joking.
My assumption is that this is a joke…
(unauthorized GM apologist)
I own several GM cars. 3 or 4 of them out in my driveway are subject to the ignition switch (ignition key) recall. I have never taken them in for it. I personally think it was blown way out of reason.
I have a couple of GM cars that are subject to the front valve cover gasket recall and they haven’t gone in for it. I’m actually too embarrassed to take a 17 year old car with 300,000 miles!
All these hungry lawyers and easily riled consumers are creating a situation in which car manufacturers are expected to warranty things forever. It’s no wonder half the population can’t afford to buy a new vehicle. The costs of all these recalls gets passed on to the customers.
Those Michelin tires are too old to be safe. Any tires I’ve had that are that old have cracks.
Hey, take a look in your glove compartment. Any car I’ve ever purchased comes with a registration card for the tires that were installed on the car at the factory. Owners are to fill out the card and mail it to the tire manufacturer. That way when there’s a recall those owners will be notified.
CSA
You have no idea of tire longevity,as a member of the SAE I can tell you have Vey little understanding of modern tire formulation.
Tell us about modern tire formulation, why do modern tires only last 4 to 7 years? I have tires on non operational car that I purchased in the late eighty’s that are not as bad as some of the tires I see on customers cars that are 6 years old. I believe they use the minimum amount of additives to prevent weather cracks to limit the life of the tire, this assures that people replace their tires on a regular basis.
Yeah, you’re gonna have to prove that one, slick. Of course, I suppose if you had a student membership as a freshman engineering major your tire confusion might be understandable, but otherwise…
But here, you can add this to your lab notebook for future reference:
1- Keep five years in mind
After five years or more in use, your tires should be thoroughly inspected at least once per year by a professional.
2- Ten years is a maximum
If the tires haven’t been replaced 10 years after their date of
manufacture, as a precaution, Michelin recommends replacing them with
new tires. Even if they appear to be in usable condition and have not
worn down to the tread wear indicator.
To the OP, I can confirm this from real world experience…my grandmother had to replace all of her tires on her Subaru at inspection late last year because they had aged out. They still looked ok, but they were 10 year old tires so they had to be replaced.
Yup!
Anyone can claim almost anything as a result of the nature of the internet.
About 20 years ago, The New Yorker published this cartoon as a result of the way that people tend to misrepresent themselves on dating websites:
And, just to keep this on an automotive-related footing, I will quote a friend who set up a date with a woman who represented herself as being “a petite, well-proportioned woman” on an internet dating site.
When I asked my friend about his initial meeting with that woman, he frowned and his first statement was, “She weighed almost as much as my Buick”.
Tires continue to cure from the moment they are removed from the molds until they end up in a landfill. As the tire cures, or ages, the rubber gets harder and harder losing traction, especially wet traction, as it ages. The tire may not show cracks at 5 years but it may be unsafe. I’ve had tires that were undriveable on damp roads in as little as 3 years but still had “legal” tread depth.
Tire rubber formulation is a trade-off. You want great traction? You need soft rubber. You want good wear? You need harder rubber. Trade-off!
Just a realist, not an apologist, but every car I ever got had a separate tire warranty card along with the owner’s manual. All of them said for tire problems, you need to deal with the tire manufacturer and not the car manufacturer. They all pretty much wash their hands of any tire issues and it would have been up to the tire manufacturer to send the letters out.
A 2011 Cadillac has 6 or 7 year old tires on it. Depending upon the environment it’s entirely possible for those tires to dry rot in that length of time.
Here in hot and dry OK I’ve seen tires start the rot process in 3 or years; much less half a dozen or more.
As a member of SAE you should know this…or not.
IMHO a very, very bad joke. Serious safety issues known and ignored by a manufacturer in the hopes that their liability will “time out” are not something to joke about. And neither is death.
We owned a Ford chassis Class C motorhome, bought new with Michelin tires that developed splits even wider than those shown in the photo between all of the treadblock rows. We took it for many miles and several years that way with no problem; finally replaced the tires at around 7 years with treadlife remaining. When I finally discovered the splits, they were apparently there for an unknown time so I kept going for a few short and then longer trips. There was no recall nor anything in the news. We had a subscription all the while to a motorhome magazine and nothing about it was mentioned there. In our experience, the splits were harmless.
Of course it’s a joke
Can’t you see the “wink” symbol just below the text . . . ?
You are very brave . . .
All my buddies that are SAE members check their own tires.
Thank you but not really. Michelin is a quality brand and I did not think to mention it but instinctively may have thought that they would not permit tires with cracks between the tread rows to remain in use without effective publicity to get them out of customers’ hands. If these tires would fail and Michelin had no recall in place, then Michelin would have their reputed quality significantly damaged.