The original tires on this car are the Michelin Primacy mxv4 215/55R17 94V. This winter I had enough tread remaining to get possibly to Autumn of 2025 but I decided, in trump’s 2nd week with a new tariff announced every few days, maybe I should get the tires now… Also the OEM tires were 5 years old and the rubber wasn’t as malleable leading to the tire spinning when bumping the accelerator and skidding when braking. It’s not all about tread!
We have these Michelin Defender2 tires on the wife’s Subaru and we’ve been happy with them, however Michelin only recently began offering them in the size needed for my car. Consumer Reports still presents them with a great rating and from our experience on the other car I decided to place the order. Costco called me the next day asking to schedule the install because they had been delivered!
It is a Low Rolling Resistance Tire, and also low noise on the highway. It has great traction on dry/wet pavement. Determining the effect on range is tough here in the winter as my range is more effected by my need to run the cabin heater at full blast! We’ve had 3 artic blasts this Jan/Feb and by artic blast I mean we could only wish for the normal 34 deg.. it’s been 2 deg to 12 deg. So as soon as I can drive the car without running the heater at full-tilt I can get some real numbers.
In terms of driving performance, these tires have significantly outperformed the original equipment Michelin tires. After just a few hundred miles, I feel much safer with these tires. They provide excellent traction during acceleration and hard braking, and they are just as quiet as before.
