Snow Tires & Rims

2 other things:
1. I still have snows on so I don't recall if the summer tires have a specified rotation direction, if they do you must follow.
2. Set the pressures after all done. I have always gone 2 psi over in the Fall, but since the pressures will go up as the weather warms I would stick to the 36 spec in the Spring.

 

Also, I believe there is a maintenance reminder for the tire rotation. Not sure how to reset that, but I'm sure someone knows where to do that.

 

The OEM low rolling resistance Michelins are non directional and therefore can be swapped side to side as needed. The Tire And Rim Association recommends the Forward Cross method for rotation.

 

For those interested, the Michelin X-Ice is no longer listed as available in the 235/45-18 OEM size. Bummer for me because I just damaged one in a pothole and can’t get a replacement. Come next fall, I’ll have 3 of the X-Ice for sale to anyone needing less than 4. It’s been my favorite winter tire for many years on many vehicles. It looks like it’s being slowly replaced in the Michelin line-up by the very expensive Cross Climate. I’ve heard that tire can be noisy on certain roads, so I may be in for buying my first non-Michelin tire set in decades.

 

I thought my Blizzaks were pretty good, fairly quiet, and inexpensive.

 

Oh, dear. Those are the winter tires I have. Not being able to replace one is a real bummer. Can you not find one in stock somewhere?

 

I have a really good local tire shop and the guy I know well there spent quite some time looking at supplier inventories. Nothing turned up. He says my only hope is to wait until October and check to see if anyone had some old stock squirreled away somewhere. A seller on Amazon claims to have 2, but is asking a ransom of more than $100 over regular price. I refuse to play those games with sellers who gouge folks.

Quick edit: I checked Amazon again just to make sure, and they are now out of stock too.

 

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. In addition to the list above, per suggestions, I marked the tires so I know where they came from; set the tire pressure after the car was down; and rotated per the Tire and Rim association(who knew there was such a thing?).

It went well. I would add only the following: be sure to keep track of the hubcentric rings which may be on the snow rims, they may or may not come off with the wheel.

(Also: Don’t let the lugnut lock driver roll, unnoticed, under the tire , where it becomes impossible to find after the car is lowered. Don’t ask me how I know).

Thanks all!


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That's quite too bad for those who bought them. But for those who haven't the 17" size makes much more sense for snow tires and is a lot cheaper.

 

Excellent! I see they are listed both there and on the Michelin site. I just ordered one. Thanks.

 

Did you hear, from Michelin, that this tire size was being discontinued?

Because if not then this is normal. Every year the tire manufacturers make a certain amount of tires for the winter season and when that stock is gone, it’s gone. Until next winter that is.

At least this is the baloney I’ve been fed a few times over the years when I go to buy snow tires late into the winter season.

I also have the excellent x-ice 3’s but in 17’s.

 

See my followup post 153. The X-Ice were not available from the Tire Rack, or my local tire shop (not even listed), or Amazon. Discount Tire still carries that size, so all is good. I do, however, think that Michelin will be pushing their new Cross Climate very hard and they do discontinue tire lines when new stuff comes out. At least the X-Ice is still available now.

 

I didn't see any mention of TPMS in this thread.

Her last car didn't have these, so a winter wheel/tire combo was an easy swap. But with TPMS, I'm not sure I want that wheel/tire/TMPS combo to sit for ~8 months of the year, even under a nice cover to keep direct sun from hitting the tire.

Am I making more out of letting the monitors sit for months than is necessary?

 

The Clarity doesn’t and cannot use tire based pressure sensors. It uses a system based on measuring the differential in the 4 tires rotational speeds. So it only tells you that one (or more) tires are at a lower (or even higher) pressure than originally measured. So it doesn’t tell you what the actual pressure is and it doesn’t even tell you which tire needs attention. The only advantage of this system that I can see, besides lower cost for Honda, is that we don’t have to deal with sensors and battery replacement in each wheel.

 

My mind is officially blown. I did not expect that.

Thanks KK.

 

But wait, there's more! Did you know that your Clarity's designers found a different way to make the wheels expensive? The OEM wheels have resonators meant to reduce road noise coming from the tires. Be sure to warn your down-the-street tire store about these wheel resonators because if they're not careful they can damage them when changing tires. On the plus side, the wheel resonators don't have batteries.

 

Does anyone know if this negates the use of run-flat tires? I don't know if the circumference of run flats changes when they lose pressure nor if the Honda system is sensitive enough to pick it up. Run flats rely on TPMS to notify the driver that they have a problem and only 50 miles or so to address it.

 

I'd bet on the tpms going off just fine when the run-flats go "flat". This thing is SENSITIVE. The effective diameter of the tire does not have to change much to set it off. If you want to be sure, you could put the run flats on, reset the tpms, then let 15 pounds or so out of one tire and see if it does. I believe it will work fine. You can also add an after market set of TPMS sensors to the wheels. They are sets available that use the valve cap for pressure testing and also ones that have pressure sensors inside the wheels just like OEM does. I don't think either type is very expensive.