It sucks for steering response though, that's why Goodyear has traditionally been superior in UUHP summer tires for steering feel over the others. Sure they don't ride nearly as well but they feel much sharper

 

If sidewalls are too rigid, though, they will not keep all of the tread on the pavement as the tire camber leans in or out in turns..and that will also affect steering response.

 

Thats crazy...I drive all over the place including to new home construction sites and I rarely ever get nails, and when I do they are always reparable.

In any event, if you buy from TireRack the tire is 100% covered.

 

Not true, that's the job of the suspension. If you have a high end multi-link that hopefully is all forged aluminum the wheel will always remain in perfect contact. Using the sidewall deflection was/is a tactic used in cheaper/less complex designs that can't ensure correct wheel/road contact throughout the entire suspension stroke/steering angles. That's one reason once you try a multilink car you will be hard pressed to return to anything else.....other systems just feel primitive by comparison after you have lived with a multilink car for a while.

Best way I can simplify it is that multilink cars just keep gripping at all times, it's very apparent when you drive two cars back back to back with similar weight and distribution as well as body roll amounts and how the multilink just keeps somehow holding the road with the A arm car starts to rotate.

 

Oh yeah. I totally forgot about that, I was just referencing the factory warranty package lol! You also get roadside assistance and towing for free so right now I effectively have AAA on 5 of my cars since they all have Michelin tires sets on them.

 

And they are great about it, you'll have a tire the next day

 

Plus I'm thinking rigid tires may ride like crapola and less cushy -BUT- I don't know a lot about tires so just spitballing...

Clearly you never drove over a broken pallet and got a nail in your sidewall. lol
Or a handful of roofing nails, oh joy, that's a fun day... haha

 

That kind of thing doesnt happen often though lol

 

You may or may not already know this, but, with radial tires, a puncture can be repaired as long is it is low enough on the sidewall to be embedded within the tread itself. Anything higher up on the sidewall than that, and it's time to buy a new tire (or get it replaced free, if you have a road-hazard warranty). Most tire shops go by that policy.

The reason for that is what Striker and I have been discussing....flexible sidewalls in radial tires. Since radial-sidewalls flex, they can put too much pressure on tire-patches and make them fail.

 

OK, I'll at least partially agree with that. A sophisticated suspension can help lessen the virtually inevitable camber-change on cornering. Mercedes and (at least older) BMWs were both superb at suspension design.

 

You can get it near/effectively zero with advanced suspension, if you add on active anti-roll bar systems like the newest Audi products have or to some extent a really good air suspension setup with a look-ahead camera system like Mercedes/Audi have the car can remain totally flat body wise and that allows the suspension to work "perfectly" BMW is a bit behind those two in terms of active systems but they also have a system that corrects roll.

 

I am excited for this new tire, honestly. I wonder if it will be available before I burn through the tires on my IS 500? They are pretty lackluster. I had Pilot Sport 4 S tires on the 350, which were great. The steering response was just lovely.

 

Nice tires to cars are like good quality speakers to audio system. Why have a nice system but buy cheap speakers?
It's funny I was driving my wife into these areas the other day. I told her, "I hope I get a few nails so I can have my tires replaced." Interestingly enough I didn't get any.

 

I have stopped buying Michelin.

 

That makes sense if you never leverage what they offer, if you don't need cutting edge performance then it doesn't follow to use them for a highway all season since the others are good enough for less cost. 2/3rd rate options don't matter much on a daily back and forth sled and honestly they don't really offer a god product for that job.

I prefer Goodyears cheaper likes for that or Kumho etc.....it's just so much cheaper and for something like a common SUV it makes nearly no difference anyway!