My Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 245/50R17 tires (original equipment) need to be replaced. Michelin no longer makes them–the replacement is another Pilot Sport A5 Plus which is VERY expensive. How important is it to replace tires with something as close to original equipment as possible?
It is important to get tires that are rated at LEAST to the minimum service description for the car - which is likely what the manufacturer used as the OEM tires. You might be able to go lower on the speed rating, but do NOT go lower on the load rating - that’s downright dangerous. But brand? Absolutely no need to stick with Michelin, unless you want to.
You’re probably still looking at $600+ minimum on this car… but then buying a Jag meant you were going to spend some $$$…
It’s personal preference, as long as the ratings are at least equal. Personally, I have always found Michelin to be overrated and overpriced. You might want to look at Toyo Proxes if they are available in your area.
No big deal with brand here.
Same size , yes, and that alone dictates a narrower field of choices.
In my Ford screen I see 8 tires from Continental, General, Dunlop, Pirelli, and Michelin. ( I stock none of them here in pickup country )
From $ 147.00 General exclaim uhp, all the way to $ 407.00 Pirelli pzero.
There are three Michelins from $ 230.00 to 271.95.
Since there are many choices, start with the tire store of your choice. Try to spend your money with people who spend money with you. Pick a place you feel comfortable doing business today and in the future. Someone who won’t hard-sell you alignmet and shocks. Maybe a place with mount, balance and rotations included.
Your driving style and need will aim you into the tires you’ll want.
I’ve been surprisingly happy with my exclaim uhps.
You could look at Tire Rack’s web site to see what the popular sellers are for your car.
The answer is “it depends”.
Go to tirerack.com and explore what tires you want there. They explain what “all season”, “summer tire”, “winter tire” mean and it is up to you to decide which is the one you want-depending on your driving style, where you live, budget, etc, etc, etc.
It gives you the option to choose by model year car, or tire size.
If I were you I would invest 2-3 hours and read as much as possible about tires. TireRack has a wealth of info about tires.
Tires are very important. They are the only thing that keep you in contact with the ground. Contact with the ground gives you control over the car-this is very important. You learn this very quickly if you ride a motorcycle.
http://www.tirerack.com/about/techcenter.jsp
.
You might also go to the Jaguar Forum and either read or ask what other owners have run on and how they like them:
http://jaguarforums.com/forum/
and remember with Tire Rack, they don’t carry every brand, so won’t have comments on brands they don’t carry (such as Toyo).
You do NOT need to replace the OEM tires with like tires, as long as the performance ratngs are the same or better. Visit www.carbibles.com to learn more about these ratings.
Or, simply visit www.tirerack.com or www.1010tire.com, enter your car’s make, model, amd year, amd let their filter system select a list of proper replacement tires for your car. They’ll give you a nice list to choose from.
Well, you’re driving a high end car, it’s going have correspondingly high end service costs. It just goes with the territory. What happens alot of the time is that people see a 3 or 4 year old S Class Benz, or 7 series BMW or a higher end Jag for a relatively low amount of money, but find out the hard way that such cars are expensive to maintain. Compared to the Acccord or Camry they had been previously drving. I’m not saying this happened to the OP. But it’s a very common scenerio.
But anyway, 245/50/R17 is not a very common size. Looks like you’re going to end up spending at least $175-$200 a tire for tires that are in the same ballpark qualitywise as the stock Michelins. Which is perfectly reasonable for the kind of car you have.
Tirerack lists 11 choices, but yeah, even the cheap ones won;t be cheap.
I suffer from the same problem.