Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives I’m mesmerized by a tire !

Well, I’m gonna have to take back what I said about the Michelins. I have used the Defenders exclusively on my trucks for 10 years, and have had stellar service and good life with them. Smooth ride, quiet and great wet weather performance. The updated MS2’s, not so much. Shortly after install, about 200 miles on them, they developed some shake at 40-65 mph. Back to the tire store. When spinning them up on the balancer, you could see some pretty severe lateral runout on 3 of them. I could watch the tread and shoulders move from side to side up to 3/4” on one of them, the others about 1/2”. Tire store owner ordered another set and we tried them. Had to index them multiple times to get road force values below 30lb, still some tread squirm visible on the replacements. I told him I would try them out, as I had to drive to Miami the following day to pick up an engine and transmission.
Same deal, initially they were acceptable, but not as smooth as the old Defenders were. As I got further down the road, the shaking got worse until my only options were to drive at 50mph, or above 80. You know which option I took.
Got back to Atlanta the next evening in a foul mood and went back to the tire store. Ken, the owner, called the Michelin rep and put him on speakerphone. I think Michelin knows there is a problem. The rep told Ken “Make your customer happy. Get him out of those tires and put something on that works, Michelin will compensate you for the tire work.”

On the store’s recommendation, I had a set of Nitto Recon Grapplers installed. I watched the road force balancing, and there was very little runout on any of the tires. The best one road force balanced to 11lb, and required no weight at all. I got the truck out on the interstate this morning and felt no vibration all the way up to 100mph, so I’m happy.

The Nitto’s are noisier (To be expected, more aggressive tread pattern A/T tire), and the Michelins had a much softer ride on irregular surfaces. But I’ll easily give that for the smoothness at any speed.

So, my confidence in Michelin tires (At least their truck line) has taken quite a hit. I have them on my BMW 5401 and my M635Csi (Sport 4S’s) and they are superb, but for me, no more on my truck.

Badger, How much pressure are you running in your tires? I had trouble w/2-ply sidewall (E-Rated) tires and running 65# or less. I have an ‘11 F250. The sticker on the door says 65PSI. I need to run 70#+ to keep the shimmy-shake down. We tried a new steering stabilizer @ 30K Mi, didn’t help, finally service guy asked me to run the tires up to 75#, smooth as glass.

2-Plu sidewalls were giving me too much “Sidewall-Flex” @ lower pressure.

Take it for what it’s worth.

70 front and 65 rear, unless towing. Then 70 front and rear. The truck was glass smooth with the Gen 1 Defenders at those pressures, this was immediately evident with the MS2’s. Same pressures now with the Nitto’s, and no vibrations. Both brands are “E” load range.

I can run Nitto Exo Grapplers @ 65PSI due to their 3rd sidewall belt.