Looking for advice on replacing Michelin tires which are no longer made for my car. They make uniroyal is that a decent all weather tire go from snowy mountains to coast of va

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Oh and another issue: All Weather tires. Those are a relatively new invention. They are All Season tires that have passed a snow traction test and carrying the Alpine symbol (aka 3MPSF). Those OE Michelins would NOT have had that.

But in some parts of the world, the term “All Weather” was used in place of “All Season” for many years BEFORE the use of the Alpine symbol. While Michelin does make an All Weather LT tire, Uniroyal doesn’t make LT tires. So there is some question as to what the OP is asking.

And an FYI: When Michelin bought Uniroyal-Goodrich, they did NOT equip those factories with equipment to build Michelin tires - which are done differently than any other tire. So a Uniroyal (and Goodrich as well) are NOT cheap Michelins, Uniroyals are built the same way every other brand is built and share more in common with other brands than with their owners.

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Here’s a good place to start. Tire Rack has comparison tests for a variety of tire categories. This one is Crossover/SUV Touring All-Season. If you want a different category go up one level in the menu and choose another category. Consumer Reports also tests tires and you can do a web search for tire tests. Owner ratings are not as good as comparison tests. I often wonder how someone can rate their tires if they don’t have other tires to compare them to.

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+1
Normally, when I replace my tires, I opt only for Michelins. However, since the tires on my current car will need replacement w/in a few months, and because it will take longer than that for my new car to be delivered, I am going to go with something cheaper–for the short term.

Hankook? Yokohama? Cooper? Uniroyal? General? BF Goodrich?
Whichever “cheaper” tire has the best ratings is what I will buy because of the fact that I won’t be riding on them for very long.

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My record was 110,000 miles on my Goodyear vectors I think they were, and the casing was still good. Never had a uniroyal or cooper tire actually wear the tread out before casing problems developed. I have had mich oem and have had no problems with them but I have switched to Goodyear happily. General are a good low cost tire that I like for the Pontiac.

I just rely on my local tire shop and don’t do mail order tires. Outside of the research provided, I have never seen a great advantage. Tires are pretty competitive.

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As always one persons experience may not match another persons . I have had very good service from Cooper tires . I also have Pirelli P6 tires on our Volvo and just may put the same on next time.

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When I first decided to start using Winter Tires, Costco didn’t yet carry them, and even the local tire stores had almost no inventory. I ordered a set of Michelin Arctic Alpine tires on their own steel rims from Tirerack, and I was very satisfied. They arrived w/in a few days, were properly balanced, and the price was better than the local guys quoted. Other than twice getting winter tires on their own rims from Tirerack, I haven’t had a need to buy from them.

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My experience with tirerack was similar. My first purchase from them was winter Michelins on steel rims, shipped to my workplace. I have bought tires from them maybe one time since, but I always research their (and CR’s) tire tests before deciding on what tires to buy, and where. Often the costs of buying in-town or from tirerack are pretty close. If I lived in a remote location, tr would probably be my favorite.

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Concerning the Tire in the Photo…

The tire was a Michelin BSW All Season Lt 265/75R16E. It was factory installed and it blew at about 12,000, and it was about 4-years old. I bought the Ram in Aug 2000, the truck was built in May and the tires were all 2000 year tires (I checked…).

The reason I checked was that I had just become aware of high-pressure valve stems. These tires are rated to a Maximum of 80 PSI. A friend, back then, had a Ford 250 with similar tires and rims. He had replaced the tires and valve stems at a discount tire store. After about a month, one of the valve stems blew out of the valve stem hole in the wheel. The discount dealer had installed standard pressure valve stems.

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I still have the truck and it has less than 51,000 on it, I filled it this morning, Diesel was $5.16 ($0.30 discount a gallon–Kroger Grocery reward…) and it took about $75.00; the truck is garaged in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

I did not hit any road debris, curbs, or potholes. When I felt the “thumping” starting, I knew right away what it was as I was one of those Victims of the Firestone 721 tire recalls back in the 1980’s due to the bias belts splitting and if your tire did not blow immediately, it “potato’d” and since I was stationed in with NATO in Italy, where it turned out that Firestone dumped a lot of those recalled tires, I went through 4 or 5 tires before the dealer caught on…

One member mentioned damage to the rim. The photo might make it look like the rim is damaged, it is not. It is just a flap of tire sidewall hanging over the edge of the rim. As I wrote, when it started to thump, I drone only a block or two to a local tire dealer and had him jack up that truck and swap out the spare. The tire, with the exception of the potato, was fine, we just should have let the air out. Since we did not, the air pressure continued to seep deeper and deeper into the body of the tire until what little rubber that still held back the pressure, just gave way and with the exception of the mess the air blast did to the bags of mulch in the back of the truck and blasting the mulch all over the garage, only the tire was damaged.

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According to my Tire Engineer FIL, Michelins are great tires largely because of their superior QC.

Aside from QC my experience has been that it’s always a trade off. Dry traction vs Wear, Snow traction vs. Noise, etc., which is why you should look at Tire Rack’s testing/ratings to find your own personal preference.

For myself on my performance car the OEM Continentals were amazing but they wore out at 20,000 miles and cost a forturne so since I rarely (never) went over 120 they were replaced by
the much longer lasting General tires also made by Conti.

On my other cars I’ve tried a wide variety General, Dunlop, Kumho, Goodyear, etc, found they all have their plusses and minuses and now I’m trying a Japanese brand at my local dealer, Sumitomo. My initial impressions are that handling, noise and feel is good but after standing for a week, the tires develop a “Five Mile Thump” until they warm up.

But since I’m pushing 70 and still haven’t won Daytona or the Mille Miglia, shoot me an email in 5 years and maybe I’ll or my Hatian “Nanny” will have a definative answer. :rofl:

i.e. Life is short so just go with what “fits your budget” and “feels right” and if it truely sucks, just change it. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Buy your tires wherever, but do your research on TireRack

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Excessive wheel weights are not a sign of poor QC.

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I’ve been mounting & static balancing my own tires in the driveway of late, and have definitely noticed some new tires are nearly perfectly balanced and need very little if any weights, while other tires of the same batch (from the tire vendor), not so much, and need some weights. Wouldn’t that tire to tire difference be related to QC? I’ve never run into any new tires that required a whole lot of weight, maybe that is what you mean. Rim issues could be the cause of needing a lot of weight too, even if tires are perfect, especially with larger rim diameters.

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I was a teenager in the 1960’s and a “tire buster” for Western Auto and even back then the tires were marked with a “white dot” that indicated that side of the tire was the “light” side of the tire and should be mounted next to the valve stem. I tested it and often won money proving it to the customers by mounting it “wrong” and having to load the tire up with weights to balance it and then bust it loose and rotate it 180 degrees and balanced with very little weight. Those same customers were the type to gun their engine before shutting to down in the winter to “pre-load” the cylinders with gas to make for easier starting in the morning…

Today, tire manufacturers use a Yellow Dot and a Red Dot for similar purposes…

The Yellow Dot indicates the light side of the tire and it should be mounted next to the valve stem and this is called the “Weighted Method.”

But the Red Dot is a “horse of a different color” (pun intended…) and it’s more complicated that I can easily explain. The popular Einstein quote comes to mind: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

And I freely admit that, but it is called the '“Uniformity Method” and it is based on the steering, the traction, the braking, and the load support capabilities all being dependent on the radial force variation in your tire (whatever that means…).

That’s it and I’m sure I’m right, but I do not understand it but the Red Dot is supposed to be mounted next to a “Dimple” on the rim…

For all intents and purposes, when I have new tires installed, I tell the installers to align the Yellow Dot with the Value Stem.

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During my apprenticeship, the trainers would have had something to say about that

Their philosophy was “one weight per side” . . . and I adhere to it

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Seems to me it was a green dot on some tires but I could be mis-remembering. I asked about the dot once and had no idea what it was for, new tires just seemed to have it.

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Read up on it here if you wish info about the colored dots…Are your "tire dots" where they should be? | Hollis Brothers Auto Repair

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Maybe I’m thinking of a dot on an actual wheel on a new car and not just the tire? No idea now, just remember asking the tire shop about it as I enjoyed my coffee.

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I use the yellow dot as a starting point. IIRC what I do is align it w/the heaviest part of the rim. Then, depending on where the bubble points, I rotate the tire a little to get it as balanced as possible with no weights. Then I’ll add weights to get the bubble right in the center. About half the time using this method I don’t need to add any weights at all.

There are other dots on most tires, but I don’t use them. I think one of those dots shows which part the the tire deviates (in the outward, radial direction) the most compared to a perfect circle.

I’d guess two weights are a reasonable compromise if you don’t have a single larger weight, as long as they are butted against each other.

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I Googled “Green Dots” and the Web Page “Tire Business” contained this information…

“If you see any blue, green, purple, white, pink or orange dots, just ignore them. They are “mystery” dots and are there for factory purposes. Once the tire leaves the manufacturing plant, dots of those colors have no use.”

When I saw these “off color” dots, I just assumed they were Quality Control (QC) marks like you find in your clothing “Inspected No. 9” (I think “Jockey Underwear” had a commercial a long time ago with a person with a No. 9 badge picking up a set of brief and saying, “They pass.”)

https://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20070813/NEWS/308139989/are-you-seeing-dots-those-color-coded-sidewall-markings-serve-a-purpose

As for putting a “ton” of weights on a tire, I tried to hide it, I never put all the weights on the outside of the rim and I would use two 1/2 ounce weights in lieu of a single 1-ounce and I put one on the front and one on the back.

Since I was never really that busy and a lot of the time the customer came back to see the work done and we had time to talk and if a tire was really off, I would rotate if a bit. Remember, not all that weight was used to balance the tire, sometimes the rim was off also.

And one final thought, I never balanced dirt, if there was a buildup of mud, dirt, debris on the rim, I cleaned it off. As I wrote, the customer often came back and watched and I often was given a tip and when you are only paid $1.25 an hour, a dollar tip went a long way…

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OK, It’s time I chimed on dots on tires.

First, there is no standard as to what the dots mean. Further, only 1 OEM is using the valve hole to mark anything. Plus the whole reason for the dots is NOT balance. It’s Uniformity (Think out-of-round and you’ll be close.).

As I said above, I only know of one OEM who requires the valve hole to mean anything and what that meaning is “LOW Spot”, not light spot. That low spot is supposed to lined up with the “HIGH Spot” of the tire to make the assembly rounder (less out-of-round).

Further there is no standard as to what the dots mean. Red dot for High Point is common, but not universal. Yellow dot for light spot is also common, but not universal. And since the wheels aren’t marked (except for that one case), it does no good to match the dots to the valve holes. OTOH, it doesn’t do any harm.

I know of no exceptions for OEM’s marking tires and wheels (by their suppliers, of course), but there isn’t a universal pattern. For example, red dots are common for tires for Japanese car manufacturers, BMW uses a white dot, Ford uses a removable green sticker. They use different systems for the wheels - but it isn’t the valve hole (with that one exception).

And NO OEM requires the balance points to be marked!!

In the aftermarket, there is no requirement to mark tires with either the high point or the light point. Many tire manufacturers don’t mark at all. Some the marking is different.

Aftermarket wheels are generally not marked.

So lining up the wheel valve hole to any dot the tire may or may not have any effect and, is basically a waste of time.

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