New Tires (3rd set)
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:24 am
Got new tires today for my Kizashi. I took advantage of the Black Friday deal at Pep Boys to get myself 4 new Falken Ziex ZE950 tires. The deal was essentially buy 2, get 2 free which is a very tire way of saying 50% off. While I personally think the MSRP listed by Pep Boys was inflated to give the illusion of a stellar deal, the tires were a good price and undercut everyone else selling the same product of the same size that I could find. They came out to $91.50 each which is a good price for name brand High Performance All Season 235/45 R18 tires. I got them installed plus an alignment for a tad over $600 which was about $400 less than I paid when I got my last set of tires installed and aligned. Those old tires were the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's which I want to talk about:
Overall, great tires and I really liked the Michelins. I put roughly 50,000 miles on them and by the wear indicators, could have gone a bit longer. However, at the last tire rotation (I do them myself), I noticed that they were chunking. I wasn't sure what it was at first but I did some research to determine the issue was tire chunking; when small bits of rubber come off the tire in chunks. The most common cause is tire fatigue from stress and wear, especially in hot conditions. Tire chunking is most commonly seen in track use, but can occur in normal driving too. Given this issue, I realized I needed to replace my tires sooner than later so when I found the Black Friday deal, I jumped on it.
While I wish I could have gone further with the Michelins, they were warranted to 45,000 miles and I exceeded that. Tires are wear items that don't last forever so despite the chunking, I was okay with moving on to new tires at 50K in tire mileage. The customer rep at Pep Boys was surprised to hear that my Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's were chunking given the caliber and reputation of the tire but he also was surprised I got 50,000 miles from them too. He stated most Pilot Sport A/S 3's don't last that long.
Why did I go with the Falken Ziex ZE950's? Two main reasons consisting of the special deal and high ratings. The buy 2, get 2 deal only applied to certain tires and fortunately the Ziex's were part of that. The tires (in prior iterations) have also received praise here by folks like Woodie and others. Consumer Reports liked the older models and praised the new ZE950's as even better. Most places selling them online have at least 4/5 star ratings for them. The ZE950's seemed to be a highly rated tire at a good price point... and on sale.
I've only driven them several miles but they do already feel highly responsive. Noise seemed like the biggest issue on reviews but I've noticed nothing concerning thus far. Once they are broken in a bit, I'll report back.
Anyhow, here's a photo of my Michelin's tire chunking. It was taken this morning. All four had some sort of unusual wear in this position on the tire with the pictured tire being the worst of them.
As a reference, my tires were rotated at every oil change and in a diagonal pattern. This meant every tire served both front and rear roles on either side. Alignment wasn't an issue for tracking on the old tires but the tech did make adjustments after installing the Falkens.
Overall, great tires and I really liked the Michelins. I put roughly 50,000 miles on them and by the wear indicators, could have gone a bit longer. However, at the last tire rotation (I do them myself), I noticed that they were chunking. I wasn't sure what it was at first but I did some research to determine the issue was tire chunking; when small bits of rubber come off the tire in chunks. The most common cause is tire fatigue from stress and wear, especially in hot conditions. Tire chunking is most commonly seen in track use, but can occur in normal driving too. Given this issue, I realized I needed to replace my tires sooner than later so when I found the Black Friday deal, I jumped on it.
While I wish I could have gone further with the Michelins, they were warranted to 45,000 miles and I exceeded that. Tires are wear items that don't last forever so despite the chunking, I was okay with moving on to new tires at 50K in tire mileage. The customer rep at Pep Boys was surprised to hear that my Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's were chunking given the caliber and reputation of the tire but he also was surprised I got 50,000 miles from them too. He stated most Pilot Sport A/S 3's don't last that long.
Why did I go with the Falken Ziex ZE950's? Two main reasons consisting of the special deal and high ratings. The buy 2, get 2 deal only applied to certain tires and fortunately the Ziex's were part of that. The tires (in prior iterations) have also received praise here by folks like Woodie and others. Consumer Reports liked the older models and praised the new ZE950's as even better. Most places selling them online have at least 4/5 star ratings for them. The ZE950's seemed to be a highly rated tire at a good price point... and on sale.
I've only driven them several miles but they do already feel highly responsive. Noise seemed like the biggest issue on reviews but I've noticed nothing concerning thus far. Once they are broken in a bit, I'll report back.
Anyhow, here's a photo of my Michelin's tire chunking. It was taken this morning. All four had some sort of unusual wear in this position on the tire with the pictured tire being the worst of them.
As a reference, my tires were rotated at every oil change and in a diagonal pattern. This meant every tire served both front and rear roles on either side. Alignment wasn't an issue for tracking on the old tires but the tech did make adjustments after installing the Falkens.