Does anyone have any good experiences with these tires? I'm sold on the upgrade to 16 inch rims, but I'm not doing it to put Vrated rubber that wears out in 20k miles on the car. I want a decent long lasting touring tire. It seems that Michelins get most of the praise on this forum, but what about these Dunlops?

Thanks in Advance
Russla
91 300e 4matic

You obviously do not want to buy Michelin Pilots! I got 17,500 miles out of the originals on my 1998 C43! I bought Yokohama AVS Sports and do not expect much better than 20k. After looking around I decided to put sport tires back on. I can certainly appreciate what you are striving for here! I think it may be hard to find a high mileage tire in a 16" or larger! You may have better luck in a 15"!

I had a set of D60A2 that I had to replace after only 6000 miles because they were out of round. They have a light, easy handling characteristic and good traction in snow. Otherwise the D60A2 is a very good middle of the road 4 seasons tires.

I would suggest newer designs and much better tires like the AVS S4, Avid V4, and P7000 SuperSport for about the same money. I would stay away from Pilot XGT Z4 that I found to be imprecised, noisey, and expensive - I took it off my car after 9000 miles. Good luck.

The Michelin Pilot's are generally the hardcore handling tires. (especially in MXX3, SX GT, or Sport designations) Treadlife is not what they do. For ride, quiet, treadlife, snow traction, etc get the Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus. The MXV4 Plus tires are the best touring/grand-touring tires you can buy period. If you want ultimate handling then the Pilots are your better bet. The XGT V/Z4 are a good tire, but as anything designed with many compromises in mind you can say they either do nothing well or many things adeptly. I've driven a E420 with a set of Pilot XGT's and they handle pretty well given their semi-all season nature. But compared to a dedicated performance tire they are simply outclassed. It all depends on what your priorities are.

Since it doens't snow much in GA I choose to stick with the Pilot's (or their competitors). For some models, the only tires in OEM sizes are the max or ultra-high performance. As in C43's, C36's, E55's, and pretty much a necessity given the 500E's prodigious torque (all you 500E owners out there know what I mean). As they say, just about everything your car does depends on those 4 contact patches...make the most of them. If you have a car designed for touring, get a touring type tire. If you have a more performance biased car (or want to try and get similar handling out of a touring type) just get the performance style tires that are specialized for the job.

The latest generation of tires have overcome many of the previous downsides of older performance tires. They ride better, quieter, do MUCH better in the wet, and all things being equal (which they pretty much never are) they do last longer than the generation they replace. In my experience, driving style influences treadlife more than anything else. Matching a tire to a car/driver combo is equally important. If you have an aggressive type car or driving style a performance tire may actually last longer than a touring tire in the same application.

Hope this helps...Lee