Initial review - Michelin Latitude X-ice Xi2

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OVERKILL

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Today was our first snowfall since the winter tires were installed on both vehicles, so this is more of a baseline impression, which will I'm sure evolve as the winter progresses.

It was only slightly cold this AM, at -2C, we got a solid 6-7" of snow last night, and the result was significant patches of ice at higher traffic areas like stop signs and back roads where the melted snow was given a chance to re-freeze. This resulted in the typical scatter of people on summer tires ending up in the ditch, including one about 50ft from my work.

I had some running around this AM, including dropping one of our trucks off at Rust Check to get sprayed, so we had plenty of road time with my wife behind the wheel. The Durango didn't spin a tire the entire time we were out, and was entirely un-phased by the ice patches. Heading back from picking up the truck, which was still rolling on its Cooper Discovery summer rubber, the performance on the same surface, between it and the Durango was remarkable, with the truck sliding around a bit on the ice patches and getting pulled by the snow. Of course this can't be entirely chalked up to just the tires, given these are two different vehicles, but having driven the Durango a few weeks ago on its Goodyear summer (all-season) rubber, the difference in performance was massive.

My wife remarked as to how confident it felt on the various surfaces and couldn't believe how well the X-Ice tires gripped. I stressed that she needs to watch her mirrors, as just because she can stop, doesn't mean that the person behind her can.

Overall, she is extremely impressed with her purchase thus far and is giving them a glowing review. I will follow up in a month or so once she has some more experience with them. They are smooth, quiet, and balanced with little weight as well.
 
Michy make some very good winter tyres, so I'm not surprised they seem so good. It's worth remembering that with any winter tyre the tread needs to be a minimum of 4mm to be good in snow, The initial tread depth varies between 8mm for most winter tyres and 10mm for specialist snow tyres.
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Useless tire review. Truth: You can't tell without a carefully controlled test.

He's reviewing tires and giving his impression, not 'testing' them.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

My wife remarked as to how confident it felt on the various surfaces and couldn't believe how well the X-Ice tires gripped. I stressed that she needs to watch her mirrors, as just because she can stop, doesn't mean that the person behind her can.


Quoted for truth. One can chest thump about any AWD/4WD/locking diff/snow tire combo they want... But if the idiot behind you, or the idiot turning perpendicular to you is out of control...
 
My experience with the Xi2 was far different. I installed a set 2 winters ago on my wife's car. After the first snowfall, she asked me when I was going to put on her snow tires! I drove on them for a while and agreed with her. They seemed no better than all-seasons. They had god-awful grip in snow and slush. This should have not surprised me, though, as I had bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins when THEY first came out and experienced the same thing. They were also horrible in snow and slush. The Xi2 might be great on ice and hard pack, but for snow and slush, they're marginal.

In my area, the deep lug open tread pattern on studdable winter tires work better. I ended up wrenching them off after 2 snowfalls and installed a set of General Altimax Arctic tires with which both my wife and I noticed an immediate improvement in grip.
 
I put a set of these on my wife's RAV4. That same storm that dumped snow on you only dusted our yard across the lake. We're still waiting for our chance to test them out.
 
Originally Posted By: lyle
My experience with the Xi2 was far different. I installed a set 2 winters ago on my wife's car. After the first snowfall, she asked me when I was going to put on her snow tires! I drove on them for a while and agreed with her. They seemed no better than all-seasons. They had god-awful grip in snow and slush. This should have not surprised me, though, as I had bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins when THEY first came out and experienced the same thing. They were also horrible in snow and slush. The Xi2 might be great on ice and hard pack, but for snow and slush, they're marginal.

In my area, the deep lug open tread pattern on studdable winter tires work better. I ended up wrenching them off after 2 snowfalls and installed a set of General Altimax Arctic tires with which both my wife and I noticed an immediate improvement in grip.

On the roads here today it was ideal ice tire conditions, with hard packed to almost icy snow. So once I was on the road my ice tires did fine, but coming up the hill of my driveway in untracked snow my 7/32 ice tires were just adequate.
 
Originally Posted By: lyle
My experience with the Xi2 was far different. I installed a set 2 winters ago on my wife's car. After the first snowfall, she asked me when I was going to put on her snow tires! I drove on them for a while and agreed with her. They seemed no better than all-seasons. They had god-awful grip in snow and slush. This should have not surprised me, though, as I had bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins when THEY first came out and experienced the same thing. They were also horrible in snow and slush. The Xi2 might be great on ice and hard pack, but for snow and slush, they're marginal.

In my area, the deep lug open tread pattern on studdable winter tires work better. I ended up wrenching them off after 2 snowfalls and installed a set of General Altimax Arctic tires with which both my wife and I noticed an immediate improvement in grip.

This is precisely what most of people in Rockies are saying about Xi2 and 3. I was thinking about Xi2 next year as Front Range is very tricky with temperatures, one day is 60, next day is -10 and 2ft of snow.
However, it is constant complain about those X-Ice that they are seriously underperforming in deep snow and especially in slush. On other hand, I make trips to Southern California in winter, so having X-Ice would be good since apparently they do not wear out fast.
I wanted to see what Overkill is saying about them but in this report there is nothing about deep snow and slush. if I cannot hit slush 50mph, drive over 12,000ft pass while there is at least foot of snow on road, that is not winter tire for me:)
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
if I cannot hit slush 50mph,


The intelligent drivers don't hit slush while going 50 miles per hour.
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Useless tire review. Truth: You can't tell without a carefully controlled test.

One can most certainly tell the difference between the performance of an all-season on ice versus a dedicated ice tire like the X-ice. Thanks for your contribution to my thread though
thumbsup2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: lyle
My experience with the Xi2 was far different. I installed a set 2 winters ago on my wife's car. After the first snowfall, she asked me when I was going to put on her snow tires! I drove on them for a while and agreed with her. They seemed no better than all-seasons. They had god-awful grip in snow and slush. This should have not surprised me, though, as I had bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins when THEY first came out and experienced the same thing. They were also horrible in snow and slush. The Xi2 might be great on ice and hard pack, but for snow and slush, they're marginal.

In my area, the deep lug open tread pattern on studdable winter tires work better. I ended up wrenching them off after 2 snowfalls and installed a set of General Altimax Arctic tires with which both my wife and I noticed an immediate improvement in grip.


Were yours the latitude Xi2 or the original Xi2? These are the latitude, which are geared for light trucks, crossovers and SUV's. My buddy had the original Xi2 on his Jetta and his opinion was similar to yours.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: lyle
My experience with the Xi2 was far different. I installed a set 2 winters ago on my wife's car. After the first snowfall, she asked me when I was going to put on her snow tires! I drove on them for a while and agreed with her. They seemed no better than all-seasons. They had god-awful grip in snow and slush. This should have not surprised me, though, as I had bought a set of Michelin Arctic Alpins when THEY first came out and experienced the same thing. They were also horrible in snow and slush. The Xi2 might be great on ice and hard pack, but for snow and slush, they're marginal.

In my area, the deep lug open tread pattern on studdable winter tires work better. I ended up wrenching them off after 2 snowfalls and installed a set of General Altimax Arctic tires with which both my wife and I noticed an immediate improvement in grip.


Were yours the latitude Xi2 or the original Xi2? These are the latitude, which are geared for light trucks, crossovers and SUV's. My buddy had the original Xi2 on his Jetta and his opinion was similar to yours.


With awd I prefer the ice tires because you wont get stuck in snow. Now if I had a rwd low sports car you might need more to get up a hill on snow.

I've had blizzak ws70, ws80, xice xi2 and xice xi3 and for most people I think the michelins are the tire to get. That being said if you have to go through 12" of powder and unplowed roads.. mountains I'd probably get hakka 8's.

Some cars are better than others. A low HP subi with blizzak's is a tank.. unless you are driving offroad on 18" crusty snow.. its hard to do better.
I actually had xice xi2's and returned them on my 2011 forester.. DTD was great about the return.

They performed fine in the snow.. but their cheapo lugcentric steel wheels had issues.

The first gen michelin alpin were terrible winter tires, the 4th gen ones pretty good.

Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Useless tire review. Truth: You can't tell without a carefully controlled test.

Useless post. A review is by definition at least partially opinion. As someone who has driven a wide variety of vehicles on different types of tires I find overkill's "useless tire review" to be useful.
 
I have these mounted on a BMW 328i with X drive, drove from Michigan to Wyoming (Jackson Hole) and back in January of 2016. My observations:
- Excellent Stopping capability, exceeds all season by wide margin
- very quiet
- No loss of fuel economy
- Traction was excellent on ice, high wind, light snow
- Great ride quality
For anything less than very deep snow I believe these to be excellent. My experience is that with deep snow and wet slush conditions are generally prohibitive for travel. All other "Normal" winter conditions, snow, ice, packed snow, rain (just above freezing point) these are very good.
 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Originally Posted By: edyvw
if I cannot hit slush 50mph,


The intelligent drivers don't hit slush while going 50 miles per hour.

Really? Intelligent drivers buy tires that do not have problem with it.
If I drive behind Toyota Camry (usual suspect) and there is a pile of slush between two lanes, I need tire that will not throw my car off the balance.
When there is a blizzard going on, it is best skiing time, so no time to joke around with something that is half winter tire.
 
Last edited:
Follow-up:

Last night we got a pretty decent dumping, probably 8-ish inches? It has started to snow again now. We were out in the Durango to go grocery shopping and there was 3 or so inches of slushy snow on the roads with slick intersections. We had no issue getting going from a stop, you had to actively try to get wheelspin with significant throttle input. Stopping was equally good. Changing lanes, I expected it to tramline a bit but it did not. There was basically no slush pull, which was surprising. The Sobeys parking lot was unplowed, so the accumulation was several inches of heavy wet snow and again, no wheelspin whatsoever.

This AM, unfortunately we were not out before the plows, so no chance to try it in deeper snow as of yet.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Follow-up:

Last night we got a pretty decent dumping, probably 8-ish inches? It has started to snow again now. We were out in the Durango to go grocery shopping and there was 3 or so inches of slushy snow on the roads with slick intersections. We had no issue getting going from a stop, you had to actively try to get wheelspin with significant throttle input. Stopping was equally good. Changing lanes, I expected it to tramline a bit but it did not. There was basically no slush pull, which was surprising. The Sobeys parking lot was unplowed, so the accumulation was several inches of heavy wet snow and again, no wheelspin whatsoever.

This AM, unfortunately we were not out before the plows, so no chance to try it in deeper snow as of yet.

Thanx man, that is encouraging. Xi2 would really fit my needs since I know it is good dry, wet and ice tire. I mean, here on Saturday was 65 degrees. I was driving from Colorado Springs to Denver, and we could see that mountains are getting pounded. So weather in the city stayed warm, mountains got 18+ inches overnight!!! So you basically go from full blow blizzard in the Rockies to Denver in 45 minutes and it is 65 degrees.
 
I've almost always used Blizzak's, many different models over the years with one set of performance winter Goodyear's. I currently have a set of Michelin Xi3's on my Cruze and do not really like them. Great on ice and hard packed snow. I think they are even okay in deep cold snow. It is the slush that you really need the right tread pattern and voids to cut through it. The Michelin's just don't work on slush or sloppy snow. I slide around, have trouble negotiating corners, etc. I'm getting Blizzak's next time. They do wear really well, I wish they would wear faster. I've got between 25-30k miles on them now and they don't look very worn but I haven't measured them.
 
Originally Posted By: WishIhadatruck
I've almost always used Blizzak's, many different models over the years with one set of performance winter Goodyear's. I currently have a set of Michelin Xi3's on my Cruze and do not really like them. Great on ice and hard packed snow. I think they are even okay in deep cold snow. It is the slush that you really need the right tread pattern and voids to cut through it. The Michelin's just don't work on slush or sloppy snow. I slide around, have trouble negotiating corners, etc. I'm getting Blizzak's next time. They do wear really well, I wish they would wear faster. I've got between 25-30k miles on them now and they don't look very worn but I haven't measured them.

That is kind of agreement that they are bad in slush.
 
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