Defective Michelin Tires

Not strictly tow vehicle related but thought you tire gurus may be interested in this. I just put a set of Michelin’s new Premier all-season tires on DW's Magnum. These are the tires they are advertising that don’t lose their wet weather grip when they are worn. They actually mold the rain grooves like dovetail slots, so that as the tire wears the rain grooves get wider as they get shallower, so they still channel the same quantity of water away from the tread.

The guys at the local Tire Discounters have been great, I have been using them for all my alignment work, but this is the first time buying a set of tires there. Out the door including the free alignment the set was $920, plus a $70 rebate by mail for a net price of $850. Pricey, but ironically less expensive that Goodyear. Unfortunately not many brand choices in the size they put on the Hemi R/T Magnum, P225/60-18.

So I take the car in to buy the tires, they tell me the right inner tie rod is shot, and so the alignment is not exact. They agree to give me coupon for another free alignment, since I wasn’t having them do the repair work. I get it home, jack it up, and I was able to confirm that the right inner tie rod was in fact shot, so at least I feel good that they aren’t selling me bogus work.

I order a set of inner/outer tie rods from Rock Auto and put them on the following week (the way Chrysler designed the front end on the Magnum/Charger/300 LX chassis these things eat tie rods, but that’s another story…), go back and get the car re-aligned, and I’m thinking all is good. We take the car to Indy for Thanksgiving and it was like riding in a blender…the steering wheel was dead calm, but there was a bad vibration in the seat that started at about 65 mph and got progressively worse with speed.

Back to Tire Discounters on Friday, they tell me that the LR tire was not balanced correctly, they re-balanced it and said all was good. I took the car out on the bypass and all was not good, it was still a blender with a steering wheel. Thinking it’s not the tires I decide to start my diagnostics yesterday. I put the car on jack stands in the garage to check it out. The vibration was definitely coming from the back, so I am looking at wheel bearings, CV joints (car has a live rear axle), U joints, driveshaft carrier bearings, anything that might have some play in it. I decide to start the car and let it run in gear at idle on the jack stands while I observe the drivetrain in motion.

Once the car was running, I immediately found the problem…it was the tires. I recorded a video on my phone with a ruler taped to a 2x4 next to the tires as a reference scale. Here is the video on YouTube. The first few seconds are the left rear tire, note how bad the runout is, almost 1/8” both radially and laterally. When the scene shifts that’s the right tire, which wasn’t as bad radially but actually worse laterally. The last part is a square next to the left rim showing that the rim is true and not bent. I did the same on the right rim, but accidentally saved it as a separate video.

So now on my 4th trip to Tire Discounters, I show the manager the video and he agreed that the tires were defective. They replaced the rear two yesterday and now the ride is smooth again. I’ve never gotten a defective tire like this, let alone a Michelin. The manager said they had a another customer who bought these tires and then switched brands after complaining about a harsh ride, so he wondered if it may have been the same issue….hard to believe that the tire tech balanced the LR not once but twice and never noticed the runout. I’m having mixed feelings about this….while I am glad they resolved the issue without giving me an argument, they never should have installed those tires to begin with.

Anyway, thought you guys might be interested in case anyone is tire shopping.