94 Accord - tires?

I have a whopping 54K miles on my 94 Accord LX, and it's finally
time to change the tires. And by the way, isn't 54K miles
reasonably good for original equipment tires? They are Michelin XGT
4, and have treadwear rating of 320.

I've been to one store which carries mainly Bridgestone, Firestone
and Dayton, with some Michelin and Yokohama. The guy there
recommmends:

Bridgestone UNI-T Insignia SE200 WS $85.63 each installed.
Yoko Avid T4 S308 BL $84.50 each installed

Those prices include $9.15/$9.00 road hazard, which I may decline.

I go pretty easy on my car. About 90% of the miles are city
driving. I don't know how much longer I'll own the car, but it will
probably be quite a while - it's just barely broken in.

I'm in Oklahoma, and we get occasional ice and snow, but not enough
for that to be a major factor in this decision. It looks like
anything I get will have better treadwear than what I have now. I
think the main thing is just how the tires feel in everyday driving.
Ideally, I guess I shouldn't really notice them.

The Michelins have done ok for me. The only downside I've really
noticed is road noise on the highway, but I'm not on the highway
enough for that to be a major factor, and in any case, I'm not sure
that's the fault of the tires.

I was hoping to find something a little less expensive than the
recommended tires. Actually, the pricing is just like cellphones.
The Yokos, for example, cost $60 each, but the addons bring it up to
$75.50 without the road hazard, and before sales tax.

I would appreciate any comments on the recommended tires. And if
anyone has other suggestions for relatively inexpensive,
moderate-performance tires that I should look at, please post your
ideas.

 

These came with my '04 Civic when I bought the car 2 months ago (the tires
were brand new, replacing the original Firestones). They're average at
best, and likely not a long lasting tire. I currently have my Toyo Observe
G-02 Plus winter tires on it now, but maybe in a year or two, I will ditch
the Insignia's for something better, perhaps Falken Ziex 512's.

For your Accord, I would consider the Toyo Spectrum or the Bridgestone
Turanza LS-T.

 

Check out the web site www.tirerack.com and refer to their survey
results. These are comprised of customer ratings and are very accurate
so long as the "Total Miles Reported" column has a substantial number
(anything over 250,000).

Once the Tire Rack's system knows what size tire your car requires you
can find your way to their "Consumer Survey Results by Category." The
tires that fit your car will be highlighted and you will be able to see
how they stack up against other similar tires. Your easy driving style
allows you to concentrate on the Passenger All-Season, Standard Touring
All-Season and Grand Touring All-Season categories.

With that information you should be able to make an educated decision
at your local tire shop.

(FWIW: I have an older car that is used for in-town shopping/commuting.
Based on low cost I put Kumho (Touring Plus 732) tires on the car and
have been entirely satisfied with their performance.)

 

i disagree.

1. their selection is limited and has notable omissions like toyo. to
me, that looks like the "pay to play" that may super markets exercise
with shelf space.
2. their ratings are afaict, /not/ based on customer feedback, although
they sure do seem to want you to believe that.

example 1: i bought a set of michelin hydro-edges a few years back.
impeccable ratings all across the board, including ride comfort. but
ride comfort was /not/ a feature of their ride. not in a civic anyway.
in fact, they were so brain-jarringly rough, i had to change them out
again after less than 1000 miles because of passenger complaints. [not
that i needed much persuasion they were so bad.]

example 2: in civic tires, dunlop sport sp2 a+ tires score "7.9" for
tire rack wet traction, yet have a utqg rating of "aa". michelin pilot
exaltos have a tire rack rating of 9.0 wet, and utqg of only "a", which
is entirely inconsistent. declaration: i am running these dunlops right
now and can vouch for exemplary traction in line with utqg.

example 3: my previous tires were continental ch95's. they scored
"excellent" across the board with notable exception for tire wear.
after nearly 40k miles, mine still had 40-50% tread life remaining.
they're also rated 6.6 "excellent" for wet traction, but are frankly,
more likely to send you into the barrier in the wet than any other tire
i've ever driven. fine when new, but abysmal when slightly worn.

example 4: the photos used are photoshopped. this may sound trivial,
but the little rubber "hair" things that a lot of tires have are
studiously removed on tire rack pics. that concerns me because one of
the ways you can tell between a silica rubber compound and a carbon
rubber compound is presence of the "hairs" - carbon generally has them,
silica generally doesn't. personally, that has a significant impact on
my buying preferences, but tire rack's "evidence" is misleading in that
regard.

conclusion: tire rack's rating is based on some subjective system
they've come up with in-house. it's a system that's wide open to "pay
for play", and based on my experience, one that's fully exploited by
tire manufacturers.

 

High Tech Misfit says...

I'm somewhat limited in the choice of tires I can buy
locally. I haven't run across the Turanza yet, but have
found the Toyo Spectrum on sale (at Hesselbein) for $65
before tax, including mounting, balancing and even a brand
new air valve. And they even throw in road hazard at
that price.

I didn't find anything on Toyo on Tirerack, but found a
number of Spectrum reviews on 1010tires, and was amazed at
the variation I found there. Some said it worked great in
light snow, but others said it was terrible. Some said it
handled well and was very quiet, while others said it
"wandered", didn't center well, or was the noisiest tire
they'd ever owned. It's really hard to know what to
conclude from that. The reviews were just all over the map,
from "great" to "awful".

The OE tires on my car are Michelin XGT-4's, which were
87S, 320AB. Is there any way to know how the Spectrums
would compare with those with respect to ride, handling,
noise, and mileage?

Anyway do the Spectrums seem to work well for Accord owners?

 

I didn't claim the Tire Rack's list was comprehensive.

In my experience, their ratings are quite accurate. I've purchased a
LOT more sets of tires than you using their ratings. However, I also
read the customer comments which frequently indicate different
experiences depending upon vehicle weight and driving style.

snip

So the tire manufacturers bribe The Tire Rack to put up phony ratings
and customer comments? What, you think they don't make enough $$ from
the tires? Imagine the legal exposure from a single irate former
employee.

 

About 1.5 years ago I put a set of Michelin Pilot Exalto A/S tires on my
95 VTEC Del Sol. For my needs, they are the best tire I've even had on
that car and possibly the best tire I recall having on any car.

I can't speak much to road noise because the car in general is pretty
noisy on the highway and I rarely take it out of town anyway. But it's
dry traction is good and wet traction as well... I can blow through deep
puddles without feeling like my car is going to get yanked off the road.
I am in TN and like you snow is so rare as to not even be a factor.

I also can't speak to mileage yet because I have a really short drive to
work and so don't accumulate miles fast enough to know yet.

I previously had some Yoko Avids of some model on the same car and they
just beat me nearly to death. Just hard as rocks and not very good in
the wet.

I can't now recall what I paid for them. They weren't cheap but also not
really pricey either... may have been in the $60-80 range each. I
bought them through NTB locally but they were not stock items so I had
to get them to order them for me. (took less than a work week)

 

ACAR wrote:

it's "pay for play". you witness this every time you walk into a
supermarket. ever wondered why there's so much more shelf space for a
certain shampoo or a certain beer than all the others?

do supermarket's not make money from sales too?

what legal exposure? it's not customer ratings. they can set any rank
by any criteria they want, just like a supermarket can allocate shelf
space however they want. as for customer comments, i've been approached
by a manufacturer on a different forum to post reviews if a certain
product - provided my review agreed with what they wanted of course.
similarly, past employers of mine have published research and have
"weighted" results to assist sales. no legal recourse whatsoever. i
have no grounds for belief that this situation is any different.

 

It seems to bother you that a company can pay for shelf space. Why?

Off The Tire Rack's web page explaining Consumer Survey: "In addition
to The Tire Rack team's new tire tests, we have maintained an
independent consumer survey to help drivers help each other by sharing
their long term tire experiences."

That sounds like "customer rating" to me.

 

shelf space doesn't bother me. telling me that one thing performs
better than another in the absence of real data bothers me.

the difference is, there's no published science to these ratings - it's
all subjective. therefore, product can easily be ranked any way they
like, including manufacturer incentive.

read that wording again. they do their own rating. then they say they
have customer feedback. there's no declaration of acceptance of
customer feedback that does not agree with their ranking.

you've got to be very careful when trying to interpret this kind of
marketingspeak. example: mobil say "The world's leading synthetic motor
oil, it features a proprietary SuperSyn anti-wear technology that
provides performance beyond conventional motor oils." [further reading
is at http://mobil1.com/USA-English/MotorOil/Oils/Mobil_1_FAQs.aspx#FAQs1]

given that "supersyn" is poly alpha-olefin [pao], would you assume that
this "synthetic motor oil" is /based/ on pao or merely /contains/ pao?
have you any way of telling what the relevant proportions might be? i
ask because i happen to know the answer and am interested in the answer
you give based on reading the above.

 

Do you know this answer in the same manner that you know The Tire
Rack's ratings are manufacturer incentive driven? (Can you find PAO %
on any manufacturer's web site?)

Since you claim the survey results are incentive driven, please point
out the "pay for play" pattern in the survey results scores.

 

i know from reading the site that rankings are subjective and that this
is a business, which like many others i know from personal experience,
are "open" to "sales enhancement".

they don't publish it directly to the web, but they publish that info
for public record and i /can/ cite a copy of that.

dude, i'm not trying to catch you out - i'm trying to illustrate that
there is a difference between what the marketingspeak tries to imply and
what it actually says. it takes scores of lawyers carefully craft
wording so that while it's technically accurate, it's still sending a
message easily misunderstood to mean something much different.

so, i ask again, from reading the marketingspeak, what composition do
you think that oil has?

 

Yes, we all know this.

and that this

i.e., you have no proof.

super. not pertinent to the current discussion re. tires but something
many folks would like to see. why not post it to the newsgroup under a
new topic that someone besides you and me will read...

obviously, because you can't make a case via the survey results scores.

- i'm trying to illustrate that

and I'm trying to point out that other than The Tire Rack not posting
data for tires they don't sell, you can't prove your point that the
consumer survey ratings are somehow influenced by the various tire
manufacturers.

 

with respect, i think i have more experience in this kind of thing than you.

with respect, i don't think you read my last post. simply put, the
question is, "what facts can you learn from a marketing piece". i have
a fact i can share that illustrates the point, but you're not addressing
that.

if you address the point above, maybe i can illustrate by example?

 

I'm not doubting your experience. I'm doubting your ability to draw a
definitive conclusion without proof. What you have is conjecture.

Sure, I'll play.
The information contained at the Mobil 1 web site provides zero
information re. % PAO in any of their products. Given the 1999(?) court
ruling re. what constitutes a synthetic motor oil, it would not
surprise me to learn that the amount is now zero. If, as you say, their
Super Syn is PAO, I suppose their oil contains some amount given the
Super Syn label on the package. Of course, the web site does not state
that Super Syn = PAO, I have only your word on that.

 

dude, what do you want me to do to spell this out more clearly for you?
i have direct personal experience of companies fudging results in
order to affect sales. and i have direct personal experience of that in
several companies in several industries. it is par for the course
absent some form of legal consequence, and here there is none. now
/you/ go ahead and show why, for some apparently altruistic reason, this
would be an exception.

very good. that's not what i asked since you introduced the castrol vs.
mobil council of better business bureaus ruling, but you got the
position right. but i doubt most people would infer what you say from
reading only the mobil web site, what i'd asked.

http://msds.ogden.disa.mil/msds/owa/web_msds.display?imsdsnr=194095

 

Yeah, well I worked for a company engaged in a similar practice many
years ago.

and i have direct personal experience of that in

Your assumption is that the company is attempting to push a particular
product. What if the business model does not rely upon any single
product but volume sales? These guys are into moving units. The
particular unit is less important than sheer numbers.

Does The Tire Rack attempt to get buyers into higher-priced, more
profitable tires? Yes. They do that by using tire categories with
catchy names like "high performance" and by listing tire search results
by tire category, not price, by default. When you speak with a sales
rep. they will always push the latest, greatest and most profitable.

On the other hand, their user comments are not edited. I have submitted
comments intentionally recommending tires not sold by The Tire Rack and
those comments appear just as I wrote them. Their rating tables by
category show all the manufacturers represented on the site in the top
10 on one or another of the categories. Bias, other than to the brands
sold by The Tire Rack, is not in evidence. Individual tire ratings do
not suddenly change. The number of written comments closely matches the
claimed number of customer ratings. Simply put, for a business model
based on volume, its not worth their time to mess with these data.
Furthermore, for a volme-based business, bad press is a killer. Should
someone reveal that the consumer data has been falsified, the bad press
would kill their internet-based sales.

Risks outweigh rewards. Let the consumers have their fun. In the end,
it means more internet traffic and greater sales volume.

I think you're selling most people short. I think most people figure if
there was a good story to tell (lots of good stuff in the product) the
manufacturer would be happy to tell you all about it. No data = no good
story.

just how long should I wait for a response from this place?
if you already have this data, why not just post it in a new topic? I'm
sure others would be interested.

 

finally got into this server and if I'm reading it correctly it says
that Mobil 1 10-30 contains 5% PAO. But I don't see a date associated
with the spec.

Apparently, lots of info. type sites now reference the MSDS info., for
example
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Synthetic_oil

The information re. Amsoil is also interesting.

 

how is anyone ever going to find out? back-dating stock options was
rife for decades, despite the thousands of people involved, auditors,
lawyers, etc. but no one "found out" until an academic started doing
analysis based on logic, not the "accepted truth". it's naked emperor
syndrome writ large.

 

that site's a word-for-word rip from wikipedia!

indeed. [i provided the msds references to the wikipedia entry.] what
interests me more is what the msds's /don't/ contain and how reluctant
manufacturers are to reveal. [so much so in fact that the msds link i
provided to wikipedia "disappeared" for mobil, with the redline and
amsoil entries remaining! that's since been reverted.] as pointed out
before on this group, they're not keeping secrets from other
manufacturers - lab analysis ensures they know what their competitors
use - they're scared silly about consumers having information though.
if you go to amsoil's own msds's, all content is "proprietary" and they
just give a medical emergency phone number. to my way of thinking, if
they had something special worth talking about, they'd talk about it.
like dupont with kevlar for instance.