Taking Michelin Premier LTX Tires For a Spin
Not sure about you but as I’ve gotten bit older my choices of how to spend money have changed and I’ve opt for a “safer” lifestyle all around (I’m so grown up). When I was in university I remember having a terrible car accident and totaling my car and it was likely preventable should I have replaced my tires regularly with something with a descent tread. However at the time I seem to have had more pressing needs, like dining out, or drinking wine. Now that I’ve now tested a variety of tires, though, and know how differently they perform, I wouldn’t play so recklessly with car safety. I’d be forced by my adult-like sense to completely skip the dinners out, stay home and eat some ichiban, and invest the money in tires.
Recently Michelin offered us a chance to try some tires, and we decided to give the Premier LTX a spin (pun intended) on the Honda Odyssey that my friend drives. These tires are Michelin’s crossover/SUV touring all-season tires that are great for Vancouver as they’ve got super wet grip when new and when worn. They’re known for their all-season traction on wintry roads, even in light snow, making them ideal as long as the car doesn’t need to take the Coquihalla or travel the backroads.
We chose Kal Tire to install the tires, as there’s many around, they’ve got a great track record, and their rates are good. Their service was excellent and when the tires had to be torqued, as they do after you drive on them for a bit, we were able to do it in Abbotsford on the way out of town instead of back at the original location; super convenient. The tires hugged the road and we all felt a lot safer driving the vehicle; you don’t have to know the technology to understand and feel the safety good tires make.
Premier LTX tires use extreme silica and sunflower oil enhanced tread compound to increase traction in wet and cold temperatures. The mould the compound into a light-truck-size-tuned symmetric tread design featuring a continuous center rib flanked by notched intermediate ribs and linked shoulder blocks to combine straight-line tracking with responsive dry-road handling. Michelin adds Expanding Rain Grooves around the tire’s circumference and Emerging Grooves across its shoulders, so as the tire wears, the Expanding Rain Grooves widen while Emerging Grooves open up, providing more traction in wet and wintry conditions.
While all-season tires are meant to keep you safe in occasional, transitional weather conditions, you need winter tires to safely ride through our Canadian winters. Winter tires feature unique tread compounds, like the flex-ice compound in Michelin X-Ice Xi3 tires, which allow them to remain more flexible in colder temperatures, providing better traction than all-season tires. All-season tires are less flexible and less effective when the temperature drops consistently below freezing, and especially when precipitation is added to the mix
*Sponsored by Michelin.
