In europe, the tyre industry has been telling people that winter tyres outperform summer tyres in any condition at temperatures below 7°C.
That has been proven mostly [censored] in numerous tests. Most summer tyres are better than winter tyres even at temperatures close to or below freezing - if the roads are dry. (Wet roads around freezing quickly become icy roads, and then the summer tyre fails immediately. Winter tyres also tend to fare quite well in the wet due to their aggressive thread.)
There is, however, one exception: Michelin. On low-coeffiecent of friction dry or wet surface, Michelin winter tyres would start to outperform summers at the precise 7° mark.
From my own experience, I can concur. I've had Michelin Energy Saver, Energy Saver plus and Pilot Exalto an numerous Saabs. Even the ES, which would get beaten down in any test for their wet performance would handle wet really well - in hot weather. In cooler weather, not so much. The Pilot Exalto were wounderful tyres, too, nice handling in the wet and superb dry grip - but they also would loose any wet grip whatsoever when the temperatures drop to single digits.
This made me change to winter tyres as early as September and run them until May... consciously accepting a bit more wear and decreased dry performance on those occasional summer-like hot spring or autumn days.
This year, I stumbled upon some extremely cheap Uniroyal Rain Expert (Uniroyal Belgium, different company than Uniroyal US), advertised as "rain tyre", whith great test scores in the wet and abysmal scores in the dry. I originally intended to use them as an intermediate tyre for spring and autum, but given this summers propensity for precipitation have left them on.
I am expecting the Michlin to last for 50,000 to 60,000km. Even factoring in mounting and balancing, the Uniroyal will only have to last for 35,000km to break even. To this day (14,000km later with lots of tread left), this looks easily doable.
Of course the Michelins offer much better handling and better dry grip; but the 900 due to it's nice suspension setup handles well enough that I can cope with the enlarged steering angles and the less immediate response quite well. (Still fells better than many other cars.) But the difference in the wet is just astounding; the Uniroyals will just cut through any amount of surface water without any effort. 120km/h on roads completely covered in water with no issue, where the ES would have me reduce speed to 90km/h or else go avoid water skiing. Seems like a more than acceptable tradeoff for a daily driver and long distance commuter.
For the new car with it's wider tyres and consequently higher aquaplaning risk, I had considered doing the same. But I got an insane deal on Michelin Primacy 3 - some guy had orderes new tyres, and then spontaneously decided to trade in his C-class for an S-class while the tyres were already at his mechanics's. So I got brand new the Michelin for 30% under reatil price. That made them even cheaper than the Uniroyal Rain Sport 3 I was also considering. On a cost per mile basis, they would be unbeatably cheap, so my thrifty me could not not buy them. Even if I had not cought this occasion on the Michelins, the "cheaper" Uniroyals would have cost me more - regular prices for 225/45R17 94W were ~105€ for the Michelins and 80-85€ for the Uniroyal. So I would have ended paying a premium for wet performance and fresh rubber.
In the smaller size on the 900, and with the exceptional good deal I got on the Uniroyals then, it's basically a wash. I pay the same, but get better wet performance.
So this brings me to the point: Both strategies can work. Sometimes buying the expensive long lasting tyre (Michelin) is the cheapest way, especially for people that drive a lot (If you drive less, they will get hard and become horrible rather quickly, which means you end up buying new tyres anyway, even if you used just a fraction of the tread).
Sometimes, the cheaper tyre, even though changed twice as often becomes competetive, and might sometimes match your needs better.
It just depends - on how you weigh certain performance aspects, on market price structure in your particular tyre size and on which deals you get.
Note that in my example, I was comparing a premium tyre against a cheaper tyre by a B-brand, with well kown and documented characteristics, and not against a cheap tyre of dubious origins. The price difference between B-brands of the big maufacturers (Michelin, Conti, Goodyear) or quality koreans (Hankook, newer Nexen) and ultra cheap chinese [censored] is noticeable, but not big enough to warrant taking any risks. Often the B-brands are "specialist", that can keep up with the top in some aspects, but compromise on others. E.g. Uniroyal (Conti) is great in the wet and sucks at everything else, Barum (Conti) is decent all a around, but won't last long, Kleber (Michelin) last forever, but are ridicoulously bad in the wet etc.
tl;dr:
I too have left the "buy long lasting premium tyres"-camp - but have come back. And would leave again, if the numbers work out.
That has been proven mostly [censored] in numerous tests. Most summer tyres are better than winter tyres even at temperatures close to or below freezing - if the roads are dry. (Wet roads around freezing quickly become icy roads, and then the summer tyre fails immediately. Winter tyres also tend to fare quite well in the wet due to their aggressive thread.)
There is, however, one exception: Michelin. On low-coeffiecent of friction dry or wet surface, Michelin winter tyres would start to outperform summers at the precise 7° mark.
From my own experience, I can concur. I've had Michelin Energy Saver, Energy Saver plus and Pilot Exalto an numerous Saabs. Even the ES, which would get beaten down in any test for their wet performance would handle wet really well - in hot weather. In cooler weather, not so much. The Pilot Exalto were wounderful tyres, too, nice handling in the wet and superb dry grip - but they also would loose any wet grip whatsoever when the temperatures drop to single digits.
This made me change to winter tyres as early as September and run them until May... consciously accepting a bit more wear and decreased dry performance on those occasional summer-like hot spring or autumn days.
This year, I stumbled upon some extremely cheap Uniroyal Rain Expert (Uniroyal Belgium, different company than Uniroyal US), advertised as "rain tyre", whith great test scores in the wet and abysmal scores in the dry. I originally intended to use them as an intermediate tyre for spring and autum, but given this summers propensity for precipitation have left them on.
I am expecting the Michlin to last for 50,000 to 60,000km. Even factoring in mounting and balancing, the Uniroyal will only have to last for 35,000km to break even. To this day (14,000km later with lots of tread left), this looks easily doable.
Of course the Michelins offer much better handling and better dry grip; but the 900 due to it's nice suspension setup handles well enough that I can cope with the enlarged steering angles and the less immediate response quite well. (Still fells better than many other cars.) But the difference in the wet is just astounding; the Uniroyals will just cut through any amount of surface water without any effort. 120km/h on roads completely covered in water with no issue, where the ES would have me reduce speed to 90km/h or else go avoid water skiing. Seems like a more than acceptable tradeoff for a daily driver and long distance commuter.
For the new car with it's wider tyres and consequently higher aquaplaning risk, I had considered doing the same. But I got an insane deal on Michelin Primacy 3 - some guy had orderes new tyres, and then spontaneously decided to trade in his C-class for an S-class while the tyres were already at his mechanics's. So I got brand new the Michelin for 30% under reatil price. That made them even cheaper than the Uniroyal Rain Sport 3 I was also considering. On a cost per mile basis, they would be unbeatably cheap, so my thrifty me could not not buy them. Even if I had not cought this occasion on the Michelins, the "cheaper" Uniroyals would have cost me more - regular prices for 225/45R17 94W were ~105€ for the Michelins and 80-85€ for the Uniroyal. So I would have ended paying a premium for wet performance and fresh rubber.
In the smaller size on the 900, and with the exceptional good deal I got on the Uniroyals then, it's basically a wash. I pay the same, but get better wet performance.
So this brings me to the point: Both strategies can work. Sometimes buying the expensive long lasting tyre (Michelin) is the cheapest way, especially for people that drive a lot (If you drive less, they will get hard and become horrible rather quickly, which means you end up buying new tyres anyway, even if you used just a fraction of the tread).
Sometimes, the cheaper tyre, even though changed twice as often becomes competetive, and might sometimes match your needs better.
It just depends - on how you weigh certain performance aspects, on market price structure in your particular tyre size and on which deals you get.
Note that in my example, I was comparing a premium tyre against a cheaper tyre by a B-brand, with well kown and documented characteristics, and not against a cheap tyre of dubious origins. The price difference between B-brands of the big maufacturers (Michelin, Conti, Goodyear) or quality koreans (Hankook, newer Nexen) and ultra cheap chinese [censored] is noticeable, but not big enough to warrant taking any risks. Often the B-brands are "specialist", that can keep up with the top in some aspects, but compromise on others. E.g. Uniroyal (Conti) is great in the wet and sucks at everything else, Barum (Conti) is decent all a around, but won't last long, Kleber (Michelin) last forever, but are ridicoulously bad in the wet etc.
tl;dr:
I too have left the "buy long lasting premium tyres"-camp - but have come back. And would leave again, if the numbers work out.
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