Michelin Tires

travelnutz wrote:
How is Michelin at fault in any way? Their warranty covered nearly the exact % it should have. Sidewalls cracked in approx 3 years??? Tells you aging was not the cause but rather underinflated operaton caused extreme flexing and rubber fatigue and/or a lot of hard cornering or both. Even some of the tire shine coating products on the market causes tire rubber compound to prematurely harden which creates premature cracking. Research it!

Of course, the OP will deny "anything" was ever done to or happened with the tires and they just simply cracked for no reason at all. He was even the driver as it was his daughyer's car. He lives in the same geographical area of the country as I do and I've never had any of the more than 2 dozen Michelins on our vehicles developed any cracks in even 7+ years of daily use including our HD pickup trucks. The front tires on our 2004.5 Chevy D/A were put on in 2006 and are still on with over 90K on them with an average of 4-5/32 tread left as of last week and not a single crack is on the sidewalls. They will be replaced this summer due to tread wear. The same tire rears were replaced last late fall before our Florida trip as they were down nearly to the wear bars and had no sidewall cracks either.

I also do not see what the OP is trying to tell us!!!

Could it be Freddy Kruger slashing tires on L_gan?

Hate to disagree, but Michelin is a difficult company to deal with on warranty adjustments. Had them as OEM tires on a new '95 Corolla and despite twice a year balance, rotation, and alignment (with receipts to prove it), the tread was shot at less than 45000 miles; tread was also cupped. Dealer inspected them and said out he was sorry, but they couldn't make a warranty adjustment because of tread depth, yet this was a supposedly 80000 mile tire. I replaced them with a Japanese brand that performed without issues for its rated tread life.

My only other experience with Michelin has been with my '05 Ram. Truck had 20K miles on it with Michelins (OEM tire) when I bought it in '08. Had to replace all of them because of severe sidewall cracking in '09 despite plenty of tread remaining, and again meticulous maintenance (rotation, balance, alignment and air presssure). The answer I received from a Michelin dealer this time was "Michelin doesn't warrant for weather cracking". Those tires were replaced with the same Michelin tire (because I didn't have time to wait for a special order of another brand, we were leaving on a trip the next day), and they are cracking like hell too. Never used a tire dressing on any of them........ever. Michelin seems to have an issue with weather cracking and it's a shame they won't acknowledge the problem or fix it, because at least with their LT tires, the tread wears like iron.