Michelin Rocks!
 

I have to give Michelin a shout out

Our 04 Targa has Pilot Sport A/S-3 tires and the rears are worn down to slicks after only 11k miles. They have a tread life warranty of 45k and since it is staggered sizes, they cut that in half.

Now the warranty is only to the original purchaser and since I bought the car last year with those tires I should be SOL.

I called Michelin and spoke with their warranty dept. Excellent cust service skills. I told them the situation and I was asked if they could put me on hold for a minute or 2 so he could check and see what they could do for me.

He came back and told me they would do the adjustment just like I was the original purchaser! WooHoo. I just need to pay 40% of the replacement cost. Great deal

Now the 2nd problem, the size I have 275/30/19 are on nationwide backorder and wont be available until mid to late Jan 2016. Ok, I can go with 285/30/19 and those are at the local warehouse. Only problem, they are $35 more per tire :mad:

I call Michelin again, tell then the situation that bigger available tires have a 10% higher cost and after a brief hold, they adjusted the adjustment and now I have to only pay 30% of the replacement cost. Frickin incredible!

Now that is what I call customer service and a company that obviously cares about customer retention and goodwill. :dance:

I may have to rethink what tires I go with next time I need new tires

This is good to hear. I am about to buy a set for my boxster, whenever I talk to other Porsche owners at my Indy mechanic they swear by the michelins and won't use anything else. I've put a good amount of miles on the sumitomos I have now but they are becoming harsh and noisy as they wear down.

As someone from Greenville. I can confirm they are an outstanding company. They are great to their employees and have outstanding policies. Their involvement in the area has been detrimental to our growth and I may personally have a job with them some day.

Hrmm... Why do I have p-zeros on my car lol!

I have to say I have not been a big fan of Michelin as I find them to be a little overpriced and there are better performing tires for less $$, but outstanding cust service is a huge plus

As far as the Sumi's, you can probably buy 2+ sets of tires for the cost of 1 set of Michelins.
They are OK for AX and can be tracked, although they are not the strongest performer for those applications. I have tracked and AX mine and they were OK

That's awesome of Michelin.

I have the Sumi's too and they are a good value but agree for track work they are okay. On warmer track days they get enough heat in them in the 20 minute session that the last few minutes they start getting slick. I'm leaning towards getting different tires next time and maybe it will be Michelin's. Just don't tell them you track the car and they can help subsidize the tire budget? Haha.:p

Michelin was just good to me too. The Michelin Latitude Tour HP tires on my wife's MDX were worn out after 33,000 miles, although they were warranted for 55,000 miles. Our tire dealer's Michelin rep said we were entitled to a 22% discount on our new tires. A call to Michelin customer service and they immediately offered us 40% which was a very fair straight pro-ration.

On my '03 S, I've had good luck with the 18 inch Michelin Pilot Sport N3. When I got some 17 inch wheels, I bought Toyo Proxes Sports. The car can't be driven above 60 mph without an annoying steering wheel vibration, even though the wheels and tires are balanced and true, and I don't have the issue with my 18 inch wheels and Michelins. The Toyos are going in the garbage and I am probably going to get 17 inch Michelins for those wheels as well.

Michelin to me is kind of like buying a Sony tv. They are by far the best, but you will pay dearly for it. For as fast as these things eat tires, I'll try the sumis before I spring for Michelin.

I am however glad to hear about your customer service experience. It seems this type of encounter is an anomaly as most companies treat their customers like scum of the earth. Glad to see Michelin is doing it right.

I had never used Michelin tires on my Boxster but had always read good things about them as a tire and a company. Recently I won a set of PSS in a PCA Facebook photo contest and got a certificate in the mail for a set through Jackson Motors. Both Jackson and Michelin were top notch in helping me choose the right tires for my car but got them to me almost immediately after I contacted them even though the certificate said 4-6 weeks depending on availability. Even though the tires were won and not purchased Michelin gave me the same warranty. For this kind of customer service they have won my brand loyalty. The tires are superb on my Boxster both in ride quality and handling.:cheers:

Frankly, it surprised the heck out of me.
I expected a fight and was prepared to be a very squeaky wheel.
Instead I had a very pleasant pleasurable experience

I did just buy a set of Dunlop Dreizza Start Spec for my 17" wheels that I will be using mostly for AX and track. I will now consider Michelin for my 18" daily driver wheels

Out of curiousity, what do you think of the pilot sport a/s 3's? My boxster came with brand new ones on the rear but some falkens that are just about worn out on the front. I'll most likely end up getting a pair of the a/s 3's for the front to complete the set.

I got 30k front / 15k rear miles out of my PSS. Given the performance and grip of those tires - I'd love to see any tire beat it for tread life as a performance tire.

I have PSS and they are unbelievable! we have a big storm hitting us on the west coast and I was driving in it yesterday.The rain was just pouring! Our roads have very poor crowns so there are a lot of pools of water on the road. I was able to maintain highway speeds and i could barely feel the wheel tug when going through puddles not bad for a summer tire in December

well I have mixed feelings, especially after Michelin standing behind them

For an all season tire they do preform really well. The biggest complaint I have other than tread life is they are really really noisy. So noisy that I thought I had bad wheel bearings,.
I will reevaluate the noise issue later this week when I have a brand new set on the rear. Maybe the noise was due to worn tires

I have heard good things about the Continental tires for all season

Interesting. I haven't read much about them but I don't recall seeing anything about excessive noise. Let us know what you think of the new set though.

I have Pilot Sport AS/3s and I don't find them particularly noisy. I went to them from PSSs, and while they are not as nice on dry pavement, they work surprisingly well on wet/cold/a little snow.

Glad to hear that they did right by you. Early in my Boxster career I bought PS2's because they were wonderful tires but way too expensive to replace every 6,000 miles. Hello, Mr. Hankook, I'd like to date your daughter, Ms. R-S3!

det·ri·men·tal
ˌdetrəˈmen(t)l/
adjective
adjective: detrimental

tending to cause harm.

Yeah, I was wondering why Jake chose that word. Didn't seem to fit the rest of the sentence :rolleyes:!

I think he meant instrumental.

That is good too know. I have the pilots all around on my Boxster, got them last year.
I have the M/S 2 on my Xterra. They are a couple of years old.
They are both great tires. Ride great and track really well.

I'm surprised our newest grammar troll has not commented yet

We have a new grammar troll?

I have been using the Hankook V12's and had them on the car for 3 years already with a Performance driving school, 3-4 Auto-X's, and 2 years of daily driving and the things still have good tread and great traction.

I was hoping to get rid of them by now so I could go to the next stickier version for better Auto-Xing but they are just lasting far too long.

They handle extremely well in the wet as well as I found out during the Performance driving school as it was a little hard to get the car to spin out on the wet sudsy pavement in the parking lot. The instructor had to pull some hand brake at the opportune moment to get her to spin out.
The 60mph braking and dodging a cone in the wet was far too easy as well...very short stopping distance surprised me and the instructor...impressive.

The V12's are a fantastic daily tire for the dry/wet and I feel they were decent on the track but could benefit from more stickiness.

I like doing high performance takeoffs from a light and I have noticed this year that I'm getting a little slipping in the colder weather and actually even squawked the tires the other day instead of them just hooking up solid and launching the car forward with high G's, so perhaps they are starting to reach end of life.

Anyone have a recommendation for a Auto-X / Daily tire thats stickier than the V12's in the dry?

(Probably should just get another set of rims for Auto-X)

Michelin Rocks!
 

Lol. Oops. I meant highly involved. Can't think of what I was going to type to get that point across though, I know what detrimental means but seem to have substituted it for something else.

Blame it on auto-correct. :D

I had V12's and they were great for street driving and I found them OK for AX. They could not handle the heat on the track at all. Once they got hot, very greasy. Mine were toast in about 10k miles

From my research, Hankook RS-3, Dunlop Direzza Star Spec and Bridgestone RE-71 are very popular for sticker tires that are still very streetable.

The RE-71 is definitely the "hot" street tire for AX and track right now, but they wear really fast. Even though they are rated 200TW, they are probably more like 100 TW. Think "cheater" tire, but legal. You just won't get long tread life

RS-3 has been the "hot" tire for a while and is a very good performer. If you are tracking them, they will probably heat cycle out before the tread wears out. A solid choice in any case.

The Star Specs are very popular, maybe slightly less sticky then the RE-71 and last and last. They heat cycle better than the RS-3 and will last longer. the only bad thing I have read about them is they can be noisy. I do know several people running them and they have not complained them being noisy and they are simply great performing tires.

I am putting a set of Star Spec on my AX/track 17" wheels today and will be using them as DD for a few weeks. FYI, 17" tires are a lot less $$ then 18"

Jay, why run an all season tire on a sports car 911 in California with great weather? Buy something like the Michelin Super Sports.

I don't track or AX the Targa and we do take it on trips. even in Ca, temps do go below 40 deg, so having all season works out well. Also, the car had them on it when we bought it Oct 2014 and they were virtually brand new.

the fronts have about 75% tread left, so when the new rears wear out, It should be time for a full set. I will decide then what to buy

Frankly if I was going to put summer tires on it, right now I would go with Sumi HTR ZIII
They are 50% the cost of PS2's

Noisy ? Cant be as bad as my BFG TA TWR. They set the bar for noise. I love the grip though. They came with the car. Next year their coming off.