Michelin Primacy LC Tyres..

Was planning to replace the tyres of my Optra Magnum since last few days. My frnd who is a Tyre and Accesory Dealer in Nerul, New Mumbai, ordered Michelin Primacy LC 195/60R15tyres for me 2 weeks back. Reading about the positive review of tyres in Autocar India as well as Overdrive, I promptly agreed for them. On Thursday I suddenly planned to drive to Pune and then To Aurangabad on Friday. The whole journey was going to be of 800kms. So insead of driving on old tyres, i decided to get them changed. A single tyre costs Rs. 4900 and I was handed over a bill of Rs. 19900 including wheel alignment. Naturally, I was excited about the drive. The moment I left, I was instantly surprised with the comfort of tyres. We have soo many cars, our running is considerable and we hav changed the tyres of our cars soo many times. But never in my life i experienced such a drastic change in the car after change of tyres. Ride was extremely comfortable and tyre noise was at minimum. Michelin claims reduction in Rolling resistance and I could actually feel that while accelerating and even while driving down the slope in neutral. I touched Mum-Pune express Highway and soon, i started pushing the car. i just crossed one Octy 1.9TDi and the driver's ego was hurt. He soon started chasing me. On one instance he even overtook me from Left taking considerable risk but his joy was shortlived as i soon Overtook him again within a min. I was cruising at about 200kmph and then came a slight turn to right. I was pretty excited and tried to negotiate the turn at the same speed (Turn was not a sharp one at all). The moment I turned, the tyres flexed. A current passed through my body. I never had such horrible experience in my life. I have turned my car before at 200kmph and never experienced such non-sense. What I want to tell is, the side wall of these tyres are soo soft that they flex easily while cornering. This makes my bad handling Optra Magnum even worse. The tyres felt drastically good for first few kms but I wasn't prepared atall for this drastically discouraging experience. I called dcargod to share my experience and he advised me to replace them as they arn't safe. I hav spent such a good amount of money on tyres and now its just impossible to replace them as nobody in my family will agree for it. Henceforth, I got to drive very carefully especially while cornering.
What is even more frustrating is the Auto mags have just pointed out the positive features of the tyres. Maybe the track on which Michelin allowed them to drive didn't gave any scope to judge its handling ability. Now I am keen to see the performance of tyres in wet. My fingers are crossed......!

Shall keep you all updated.

These tyres are not meant for our types of roads..... as you said sidewalls are super soft, just imagine if sidewalls are damaged by some object, it would be a very scary scenario.... Also, you will notice higher wear on these tyres at an earlier than usual period of time specially if you corner at high speeds.... these tyres are good for roads abroad, not for our deadly indian roads!

-2nd Post-

Abhi, if you are a regular on the expressway, you would have noticed that certain sections of the road surface are very abrasive & give you a certain 'current' as you described irrespective of which tyre is fitted to your vehicle, have experienced it on number of occasions in different cars.... The expressway itself is also at fault, so don't get so disheartened, I know exactly how you are feeling at the moment

MOD's Note : Please use "EDIT" Feature (under 15mins.)Instead of multiposting.

Called up Michelin and informed them about the problem. Concerned person is out of station. He said he'll look into matter after 8-10 days.

I think that there should be no compromise with safety. I am aware that an Optra magnum diesel is very hard to drive slow. I just couldn't keep the car under control while driving and had to brake hard a considerable number of times. Abhi bhaiya is a very old and expert driver and its natural for him or anyone like him to go fast. plus it isnt always possible to keep speed under check on expressways. so the best thing to do is change the tyres. Safety should never be played with, especially in India.

And as for what Michelin has done, as per Abhi bhaiya's words, manipulated the truth. Such tyres should never be allowed by anybody.

primacy tyres are designed for speeding and comfort, cornering at 200kmph with these tyres may turn into a disaster sometimes, if you need more safety at those speeds, try the PP2 from michelin(http://www.michelin.in/car/car_cat_pp2.jsp), these tyres can surely provide more performance and safety compared to primacy :winkthumb:

I know Primacy tyres are more comfort oriented. But comfort can't come at cost of safety. Right? I agree that I drive hard. But Primacy handles poorly even on those situations where normal tyres like Bridgestone / Appollo Accelere handle well. It is not the 1st time that I hav touched 200. But before this, I was never worried about handling and safety. I know my car's abilities and limits very well. Somebody can have a drive with me to experience the problem I am facing.

did you test these tyres on any other car?? if yes then these set of tyres which you go tmust be hvaing some problem, if no then primacy isnt good for high speeding

No, I didn't check Primacy tyres fitted to any other car.

then i guess all the primacy's are like this only at that speeds