Is Michelin the "Bose" of tires? (1 Viewer)

I've always been under the impression that Michelin tires were among the best, which is why I ponied up a handsome sum for four Michelin tires on my Nissan Maxima a couple years ago.

Even though I am not a very aggressive driver and have kept the tires rotated regularly, my Michelins have worn out after only 20,000 - 30,000 miles - far short of the 50,000 mile warranty (yes, I plan to seek compensation from the dealer who sold me the tires).

My question is: are Michelin tires the equivelent of Bose speakers? Are they overpriced and overrated? If so, what are better brands of tires to consider?

Steve

I have owned several sets of Michelin tires, and have had only good experiences -- long wear, good traction in snow, etc. In all cases except one, the Michelin's were replacement tires for the original equipment tires that came with the vehicle.

Are your wheels properly balanced, is the tire pressure at the recommended level, do you rotate them regularly and is your vehicle's front end aligned properly? Any of these issues can cause premature tire wear.

www.tirerack.com has LARGE summaries of user reviews for basically all the tires they sell... it's a pretty useful resource...

My experience w/ Michelin is limited to Pilot Sports, which are some of the best street tires I've ever had. They cost a lot but they're worth it.

Unlike Bose, I've always gotten what I've paid for with my Michelin tires. I've always gotten more miles than the warranty was for.
It's the only tire I will buy...........

BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche don't use Michelin for no reason. They are a quality brand.

Michelin are unduly expensive though. The Pilot Sport A/S are probably "too expensive", but they are good tires.

I can't think of another Bose in a different area.
The preception of Bose by 90% of the public is that they are the Best speakers for the money.
The other 10% who are audio nuts think they pretty much suck.
Maybe Jaguar in the 70s & 80s is close. The public remembered the XKE of the 60s but car nuts knew their quality went down the tubes

I believe Michelin spends far more on research and development than any other tire manufacturer, in contrast to Bose, which spends more on marketing than any other manufacturer.

Thanks for the feedback. I've always been very pleased with Michelin tires in the past, so I was very surprised by the short life of my current set. I guess it's possible that the particular model of tires I have is subpar for Michelins. One clue is that the manufacturer's warranty has been reduced from 65,000 - to 50,000 - and now to 40,000 on these tires (MX4 Energy, I think they're called).

The new BMWs come with Pilots on some, My E36 came with Bridgestones Turanzas...

All I know about Michelin is they make pretty good road cycling tires, the Axial Pros. The wildgrippers MTB treads are supposedly decent if you like green tires.


Jay

snap on makes great products, broken many upon many craftsmen and some mac on tools but never a snap on.....

What about Monster Cables? Aren't they the Bose of cables?

I just put on michelin arctic alpins as snow tires, they do very well at it. I had bridgestone turanzas that came with my car and they were awful. I run falkin azenis as street tires, although you can't expect them to last more than a year =p I might run the advan(yokohama) noevas next year, although they are a bit expensive

Monster Cable, unlike BOSE speakers are not total crap. They just cost way too much. In this regard they are similar to Harley-Davidsons business model (Not a terrible bike, but certainly not worth the price/product difference of a similar foriegn model).