Dry Cracking Michelins

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Nick1994

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My grandma has a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer LTZ and it just crossed over 100k miles a few weeks ago. She bought it from her sister May 2009 and it had Michelin Cross Terrains on it that were put on sometime in 2005. Those tires had around 47,000 miles on them, still had decent tread, but were getting kinda dry and were separating from the sidewall, you could see something white in between the tread and sidewall. Being time for new tires we took it to Discount Tire in October 2011 and had them look at them. Despite being 6 years old, Discount Tire had no problem warranting out 3 of the tires (one wasn't separating yet) so we bought 4 new warranty certificates and purchased 1 new tire, once again Michelin Cross Terrains. It's Ben a little over 2 1/2 years since we got them and they're starting to get some cracks again. The car is partially shaded, but mostly in the sun. They have around 9-10,000 miles on them and still ride great. If they hadn't been able to be warranted out, it would have been almost $1,100.

What do you guys think? Should I have Discount look at them again? Also interested in hearing what CapriRacer thinks.

Tires were manufactured (2811) and are a little dirty since we've been having dust storms and a little rain.

Thanks

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Originally Posted By: Miller88
Wow! I would not expect that from a 3 year old tire!


I know! Especially from a set that would have been just shy of $1,100 OTD!

I will no longer recommend Michelin tires for anybody I know, and will not use them myself. The closest I get to Michelin is BFGoodrich off road tires, that's it. I've tried contacting Michelin a couple times and I never get an email or phone call back.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994


I will no longer recommend Michelin tires for anybody I know, and will not use them myself. The closest I get to Michelin is BFGoodrich off road tires, that's it. I've tried contacting Michelin a couple times and I never get an email or phone call back.


Surprising, because I have talked to them several times and gotten the answers I needed.
 
Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: Nick1994


I will no longer recommend Michelin tires for anybody I know, and will not use them myself. The closest I get to Michelin is BFGoodrich off road tires, that's it. I've tried contacting Michelin a couple times and I never get an email or phone call back.


Surprising, because I have talked to them several times and gotten the answers I needed.

I've only used their contact form on their website, and 1 year later from the first time I tried contacting, and 2 months later from the other time I have heard nothing.
 
Here's the picture I took of the date code, looks like 10+ year old tires.

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Looks like the Michelons I scraped from my BMW with 10,000 miles on them. These days I buy mostly Hankook. The 6 year old Hankooks on my Corvair look a lot better than that. (no cracks).
 
Last year, my dad had to scrap a set of michelins due to sidewall cracking. They were 5 years old, but still had plenty of good tread. Truck doesn't rack up a ton of miles, but it moves several days a week.

What's the point of a high tread wear rating when the tire won't last long enough to wear the tread out? He went with Firestone's this time around and seems happy.
 
A lot of Michelin tires do that, Especially when exposed to a lot of sun. The Michelin LTX A/S on my Suburban look worse than that at 10 years old & close to 100k on them, A set of XPS Traction/Rib ran for over 150k with the same cracking issues on my old Dodge dually.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, If it bothers you....Buy something else.

Michelins wear like iron & Keep their balance longer than any tire I have run. The MS/2's On my 2500HD do not show signs of cracking....Yet.

If anyone want's to scrap some good/cracked 265/75/16 "E" Michelins....I will gladly recycle them by running them to the Wear Bars!!
 
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Originally Posted By: clinebarger
...

I don't think it's that big of a deal, If it bothers you....Buy something else.


When they won't pass state inspection, you really don't have a choice wether it bothers you or not.
 
Originally Posted By: clinebarger
A lot of Michelin tires do that, Especially when exposed to a lot of sun. The Michelin LTX A/S on my Suburban look worse than that at 10 years old & close to 100k on them, A set of XPS Traction/Rib ran for over 150k with the same cracking issues on my old Dodge dually.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, If it bothers you....Buy something else.


Agree. The tires look like almost every set of tires I have ever owned. After a few years, they all seem to start developing the fine cracks shown here. The worst were a set of Hankooks... but they never failed...

I have never had an issue, but I also never go past about 5 years on a tire either...
 
Originally Posted By: 05LGTLtd

When they won't pass state inspection, you really don't have a choice wether it bothers you or not.


Each state & inspector are different, I imagine this is up to the individual inspector, Of course he is not qualified to make that assessment & neither am I, Just stating my real world experience with this issue.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
so we bought 4 new warranty certificates


So what's the problem? No need to contact Michelin. You paid already to have someone else fight that battle for you. Take them into DT and make them do their job.
 
Anybody ever watch "The Worlds Fastest Indian" with Anthony Hopkins...He used shoe polish to hide cracks in his tires to pass tech at Bonneville LOL.
 
Take it to discount tire. We had an explorer with michelin's on there with plenty of tread, but they were dry rotted exactly like that.

The fleet manager replaced them right away with a set of BFG's.

Pretty much it is 90+ degrees here for a good portion of the year, same deal in Phoenix. Rubber drys out.
 
I have a set of Primacy MXV4, date code of the 48th week of 2009, that look almost that bad. Have 53,000 on them and 7/32 of wear remaining.

I'll likely replace them around 65-70,000 or next year.
 
They look like my last set of Michelins. I replaced them at 70k miles even though they still had some tread. Not bad for 60k tires especially since they had cracking at 20k miles. Never had a problem with them and I still consider them the smoothest running tires I've ever had.
 
Every set of Michelin tires I have ever owned have dry rotted like that. I have never had the problem with any other brand. I will not buy Michelin tires because of this. They are overpriced for the lack of quality you get.
 
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