Time for tires

[mrnextel]

Anyone else have more ideas?

 

[pingbling23]

I haven't seen much talk about what tires people are switching to. I just ordered some Pirelli scorpion verde all season plus 255/50/20 for my wife's explorer. Cheapest I could find them was $812 shipped from a distributor on eBay, second cheapest was tire rack at $932 shipped. Also, Pirelli has a promo if you buy four tires you get a $60 prepaid card. I won't be having the new ones installed yet, as the stock hankooks have some life left at 34K miles. What's everyone else switching to and how do you like it?

After 2 years and over 20K miles, I would recommend these tires to anyone. Im so glad 182RG was wrong about the tire, ofcourse he did have factory non plus with the old tread on a different suv. After 2 winters, my wife says she hasn't felt the tires lose traction yet. They seem to be wearing well and no noticeable road noise to speak of. now any claims of better fuel mileage would be wrong with our experience. she has stayed steady at 20 mpg.

 

[VinceL]

We are going to need tires soon and are looking to replace the OEM tires on our Limited (the wet traction is fading fast and the winter traction just stinks to high heaven). I have narrowed it down to the Parada Spec-X and the YK580. The YK's should have the benefit of better mileage, longevity, and can be rotated any which way. The Paradas look to have better wet and winter traction, but might not excel at MPG or longevity (the directional thing is a mild negative).

Overall, how would you rate the Paradas, now that you own them yourself? How's the ride, noise, and efficiency of that tire (compared to the OEMs)?

So the choice is burn a little more gas (maybe, I would hate to decrease the Ghosts already meager mileage) and get better winter/wet traction, or go for longevity and better MPG (maybe) with not quite as good winter traction. I have the YK580's on my Legacy and have liked them a lot. At this rate, those things are going to last forever on my car and I did notice a slight bump in MPG's after putting them on.

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

We ended up getting a set of Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season PLUS tires to replace the OEM Hankooks. The scopions ride very nicely and are much quieter than the OEM tires were but all is not awesome in tireland. The main problem for the new tires is the fact that they have much worse grip than the originals. They howl in turns with little provocation and the engine easily overwhelms them when you put your foot into it at a stop. We got them based on reviews for winter traction and then had a warm winter! Overall, I preferred the original tires for handling and traction alone. With any luck the new tires will last another 35,000 miles to get us to the end of our extended warranty on the Ex and we can finally dump the thing. That should be about a year and half to two years from now and we find ourselves already getting excited at the prospects of getting out of this Ford and into something worthwhile.

 

[peterk9]

We ended up getting a set of Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season PLUS tires to replace the OEM Hankooks. The scopions ride very nicely and are much quieter than the OEM tires were but all is not awesome in tireland. The main problem for the new tires is the fact that they have much worse grip than the originals. They howl in turns with little provocation and the engine easily overwhelms them when you put your foot into it at a stop. We got them based on reviews for winter traction and then had a warm winter! Overall, I preferred the original tires for handling and traction alone. With any luck the new tires will last another 35,000 miles to get us to the end of our extended warranty on the Ex and we can finally dump the thing. That should be about a year and half to two years from now and we find ourselves already getting excited at the prospects of getting out of this Ford and into something worthwhile.

5+ months between posts. Glad to see you're still around Vince.

Peter

 

[VinceL]

5+ months between posts. Glad to see you're still around Vince.

Peter

Peter my man, how have you been? I try not to think about the Explorer anymore, lol. I have basically washed my hands of it and my contact with it is limited to when we go somewhere together we end up driving it for convenience but she gets to worry about the rest. Worked out well so far. The thing has almost 89,000 trouble prone miles on it as of right now and by either the end of year six or 125,000 miles it is gone!

I hope you are well and your Lincoln is treating you well.

 

[Halwg]

I live in south Georgia so I have no need for winter tires. My 11 limited has almost 50k on the clock and I am in need to replace the Optimos soon. My questions is, what everyday mall crawler/long trip tires do you guys recommended? The OEM replacement hankook Optimo (spelling?) Tires seem to rum around $170ish on tire rack the Bridge stone Dueler Alenza are around $200 the pirelli scorpion around $240 and Michelin latitude around $300. are the Michelin tires really that much better? what have you guys used in what seems to ride well?

Tires are a very personal thing, and you will never get a consensus. But I had the Michelins on my'14, and they are also on my '16. They are just very good tires. If I had to pay for them myself I probably wouldn't get them, but id you have the $$$, then don't hesitate to put them on the EX.

 

[Mildot]

These are my next ones

Do these come in P245 55R 18 size?
And wheres a good source? can they be sourced through your FORD dealer?

Thanks

 

[peterk9]

Do these come in P245 55R 18 size?
And wheres a good source? can they be sourced through your FORD dealer?

Thanks

According to tirerack.com they do not come in that size. They do have 245/40ZR18 and 255/55ZR18. The latter would be the one to chose between the two sizes.

Peter

 

[Mildot]

According to tirerack.com they do not come in that size. They do have 245/40ZR18 and 255/55ZR18. The latter would be the one to chose between the two sizes.

Peter

Thanks bud, did a "quick" tire comparison and the difference in the dia is about .4", so the P255 would be very close. I"m guessing I wouldn't have any issues going up to the P255. The reviews sound great and the "price is right" compared to the Goodyear RSA'a or the Firestone Firehawk GT's.

 

[mrnextel]

I liked the ATRs i had with the exception of winter performance, Which it honestly seems most All season Tires Kind of lack in the Winter Conditions compared to dedicated winters. Like i said I love the Michelin's, they were probably comparable to dedicated winters but they had way too soft of a ride, i lost the steering response and feedback that i love, the truck just wallows around with them. I have kind of a bad taste in my mouth on Bridgestones from the OEM tires that came on this when i bought it

This is going to make some crazy, Michelin is offering 50% on my tread-wear warranty and i have to stay with the Michelin/BFGoodrich Line of products.

Im going extreme here and going to install the BFGoodrich All Terrain Ko2's. http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/tire-selector/name/all-terrain-t-a-ko2-tires#

 

[Mildot]

Just a "heads up" troops, my dealer told me that Continental is coming out with a $65 pre paid credit/rebate for March 15th? That should cover some of the cost of the alignment, Cheers

 

[WJGreer]

These are my next ones

I've had those on a BMW 5 series and a Volvo XC70. Excellent tires, though the heavy Volvo ate through them in about 20,000 miles.

 

[jrgoffin]

Nice that the new DWS06 comes in 255/50-20. That has been a big limiting factor, so glad there are more tires in this size hitting the market. Continental makes a great tire - have the Extreme Contact DW on my '03 Cobra and love them, so I wouldn't hesitate to seriously consider these when the time comes.

 

[Jimmy-B]

Had the Yokohama Parada Spec-X installed a couple of months ago as the OEM Hankooks had very little life left and we were in line for some snow. 64k on the Hankooks, which is pretty good.

I shopped around a little and in the end the Yokohamas were such a good deal the choice was made for me. If they wear more quickly than the Hankooks I'm not overly concerned.

Initial impressions are that they're a little quieter, but that could just be me imagining things.

J

 

[champco]

I live in south Georgia so I have no need for winter tires. My 11 limited has almost 50k on the clock and I am in need to replace the Optimos soon. My questions is, what everyday mall crawler/long trip tires do you guys recommended? The OEM replacement hankook Optimo (spelling?) Tires seem to rum around $170ish on tire rack the Bridge stone Dueler Alenza are around $200 the pirelli scorpion around $240 and Michelin latitude around $300. are the Michelin tires really that much better? what have you guys used in what seems to ride well?

I live in south Georgia so I have no need for winter tires. Famous last words.

Michelin baby for the highway. Been using them for 20 years now on 5 vehicles and will till I die.

 

[Rubberhead]

I ripped a hole in the sidewall of the original Hankooks at 37,000...ugh...Well, since it's basically AWD and the tires only had another 13k or so left. I didn't want to buy a new one only shave it down only to replace the whole set in the fall so I got a whole new set just a little earlier than I planned.

Being 200 miles out of town and riding on the stupid doughnut tire so I really didn't shop around. $1071 for a new set of four Michelin Premier LTX 255/50/20s. No complaints on the price of the new tires but I hate that Ford has gone to a doughnut tire for the Explorer platform. I've had Explorers with full sized spares for nearly 20 years and never needed to use the spare but when I had to it was the stupid toy tires...

I've always had Michelin LTX M/S tires on my Explorers and have gotten over 100,000 on every set so I'm basically a Michelin guy. I'm not expecting 100,000 miles but I'm hoping to get more than 50k.

The Michelin's are definately quieter than the Hankooks and do seem to handle better but I really haven't done anything but Interstate driving. But, I expected that. What I didn't expect is that the gas mileage is better. I was north of 20 mpg at 75 where the pervious tires were slightly less at those speeds. So far I'm happy with the new tires.

 

[orangesoda123]

Glad to here the Michelin LTX's have been good to you. I'm looking at the Micchelin Defender LTX M/S which I believe replaced the LTX M/S. TireRack reviews look to be quite good for the new ones. Anyone else have any opinions on this tire?

 

[Alex_D]

I almost went for the Pirelli Scorpion Verde, but after reading some of the comments, I decided to go for the Michelin Premier LTX instead. I believe they're cheaper too.

 

[tangowhsky]

Can anybody chime in on a set of Toyo Proxes STII?

I had a set on a car and they were excellent.

 

[peterk9]

Can anybody chime in on a set of Toyo Proxes STII?

I had a set on a car and they were excellent.

Welcome to the Forum.:wavey:
Seems like a good tire with a good rating. If you were happy with them before why not stick with them. FYI, there is only one other post in this thread that mentions them. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3369563&postcount=134

Peter