I need advice on a good set of tires for my '92 300SE. Here's the full story:

When I got my car, I put a set of Yokohama AVID V4S tires on the car. Got the front end aligned at my local indie, and within a few thousand miles, I noticed severe wearing along the inside of the front tires.

Took it back and they realigned and the wear seemed to stop. The car would occasionally drift to the left, but not always, so I chalked that up to different road conditions.

The other day, I got a flat on the right-rear.

Took it to Discount Tire, where I purchased the tires to get the flat fixed.

A machine screw had somehow pierced the sidewall about 2" up from the edge of the tread. Scratch one tire.

Then the service writer tells me "Your left front tire is showing steel on the inside, and the right front is nearly as bad" - scratch #2 and #3. Either the front end was still out-of-whack, or the original wear was bad enough that when the tires wore down to their current level, steel was exposed in the heavily worn areas.

I got about 22k out of the set in about 13 months.

I don't believe in roadhazard warranties, but in the name of "customer service", they warranted all 3 tires. I got the equivalent of about 1.5 tires value back against the purchase of 4 new tires.

I went with the same tires again - boy have prices gone up. I paid $89/tire in Nov 2006, and $115/tire in Jan 2008.

ANYWAY - to make sure the front end was aligned properly, and after reading so many posts that indicate MB is the only place to get an MB alignment, I took it to the dealer yesterday.

They told me that the alignment was definitely off, but that all front-end components are nice and solid. When they set the alignment properly, it still drifted to the left. When they swapped the tires front-to-back (the tires are uni-directional), the pull went away.

So - I've got a bad tire (or more) - shifted belt. The service manager told me that I should seriously consider ditching the Yokohama's for a good set of Michelin or Continental. He told me that his experience (28 years for the same dealer) with the W140 chassis is that they work best with just a standard set of passenger car tires - no fancy uni-directional tread.

I'm a moderately aggressive driver, and having a good wet traction tire here in Houston is an absolute MUST.

Any suggestions?

you never go wrong with Michelins.... you pay upfront...but you can get tires that will last 40k miles easily

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1989 300ce 129k
( facelifted front,updated tail lights, lowered suspension,bilstein sports, lorinser front spoiler, MOMO steering wheel, remus exhaust,stainless steel brake lines). (Gone)

1997 s320 154k (what a ride). Sold with 179k miles. Replaced with Hyundai Equus

1994 e320 Cabriolet 108k



1972 280se 4.5 153k Owned for 12 yrs, sorry I sold it


[/SIGPIC]

I have always been a Michelin guy but the last set of tires I put on my 300SDL were Bridgestone Potenza G009s. I bought them because they were well rated on Tire Rack. You can get ratings on any tire there. Put them on your car and you will think that someone fixed the roads.
They are 50,000 mile tires and for your car the tire rack price is $83 a tire. You can go to Sam's Club and special order them for close to that price. If you want to buy them from a tire store you can get a printed quote from Sam's and use it to bargain for a better price.

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Tom Hughes
St. Louis
84 300SD
92 300D
86 300SDL

Stay away from Continental:

There have been numerous cases where belts separate and where the tread completly separates from the tire: and . . . .

Continental did not honor the workmanship of the tire.


I will never have Continentals again; NEVER


Ed C

went in yesterday, and as per their "satisfaction" guarantee, they swapped the Yokohamas for a set of Michelin's - I don't remember the "style", but they're a "double A" (traction & temp) tire with a 60,000 mile tread-life warranty and a non-directional tread.

Drift is gone - car drives straight as an arrow.

Seems also to be a bit smoother, too - less harsh over expansion joints, etc.

I've had Michelin before on other cars, and was always satisfied. I only switched to Yokohama when I couldn't afford Michelins back in the day. Back then, Yokohama's tread life warranty was something very handy, as I never got as many miles out of the tires as the warranty implied I would get.

Total cost for me was only the difference between the tires, which was about $18 each.