re11's

Darwins Child

Our '14's tire sizes are 245/40/19 in front and 275/35/19 in the rear. Rather than 275/35 for the rear, I was thinking 285/35. The latter are relatively close to the OEM dimensions, as shown in the photo of the tire-table below. Only about a 1% difference in speedo reading.

Good that the 285 will go on there without hitting anything.

Forgive me for going even more OT here.

Although our vehicle does not need tires at the moment, it will in one or two more summers. I've been going back and forth in my head between the RE-11 and, believe it or don't, the Michelin Pilot A/S 3+, which I understand are tremendous all-round performers for all-season (but no snow) tires. Michelin does have some nice propaganda about these tires
Pilot Sport A/S 3 Plus

I understand that summer tires aren't very grippy below 7 C, so that's one of the reasons I'm considering the Michelins. Tonight in Edmonton, for example, we are forecast to go down to +2 C, or even lower. Also, we'll be taking the occasional trip via the Icefields Parkway and the weather on that road can turn very cold and very wet very fast in any month of the year.

Another reason I'm considering the Pilots is that they have an asymmetrical tread design which I believe means that they can be rotated at least side to side in the rear without removing the tires from the wheels. Please tell me if I'm wrong on that.

The final reason is that I think that there's a good chance that the Pilots might have a good tread lifetime. The Pilots have a 70,000 km expected tread life, but I understand this changes for tires that have limited options for rotation. But I'd rather get 40,000 kms out of a set of tires than 20,000.

Attached Images

tires.jpg (35.0 KB, 4 views)