drummerdimitri

Hey guys,

I have recently purchases a used GLK 350 with the sport package (20 inch rims) with Pirelli scorpion tyres but they are cracked and squeak on the soft surface of the underground parking with little tread depth so I want to change them.

I am looking for a quality tyre that offers the best performance in the overall.
Not going to be driving in the snow so a summer tyre should be fine.

Let me know what you guys think.

Cheers!

Wankafella

From what I remember when I had to replace my tires, I don't believe there are many options for 20 inch tires for our GLKs. If you're looking for something better performing than the Pirelli scorpions, you might consider the Pirelli P Zero. Hope that helps.

rlbawk

Look at Tirerack or Discount Tire for a 245/45 instead of the factory 235/45 and there are a lot more choices available and the difference in size in minimal. We just installed a set of Nitto Motiva in the 245 size and they are super quiet and ride well. Made my wifes GLK ride almost as quiet as my ML, I have been impressed so far but only had them on for a short time so we will see.

Mr. JLT

245/40/20

chuckmahon

Quick question - I just replaced front (2) tires on my 2010 GLK 350 - Dunlop 235/45R20 "MO" - at a staggering price of $850 US installed. Now it was not a planned replacement - my front tires were already well worn but I was not planning on replacement until April. Rear tires replaced a year ago.

I was puzzled by the $850 bill to replace two tires - but was told "MO" tires were the only authorized tire on a GLK 350 - the dealer rep said a tire not labeled as "MO" on my vehicle would void warranties, cause death and destruction, etc.

So whats up with the "MO" labeling on tires and is it worth it - or next time should I just go to Costco?

Thanks for the opinions!

volkvin

I tend to trust people that i consider 'professionals' as well. God do i ever get mad at myself for trusting these morons.

All MO means is that it is Mercedes Only tire. Typically will run you anywhere from 20% more expensive then the same tire without MO nomenclature. It is a better tire, but this statement is only valid during first year of production, as the MO qualification is not revised yearly.

Regardless, the purchase is made and there isnt much you can do about it. Next time shop around. Also i would never buy tires from a dealer tbh.

chuckmahon

Amen. I had encountered road damage during winter storm here last weekend. Drove to my nearby dealer. I was "easy pickings" as they say

Costco has this identical tire for $260 installed. Sigh. A good lesson.

Diabolis

It's usually the self-professed experts like youself and everyone else that has commented here that pose a danger to public safety and are the morons at the end of the day.

The meaning of the MO is not Mercedes Only but rather Mercedes Original. The differences are not only in price - the MO tires are in fact made differently from the equaivalent non-MO tire. MB's stanadards are higher, and the MO tires have a diferent tire carcass construction and a higher load rating than the non-MO tire. There is a good reason for the 20% price increase, but it's not just dealer profit.

Unlike Ford who took off-the-shelf Firestorne rubber a few years ago and put it on their SUVs - and I trust we all know how that ended - Mercedes goes a little bit further to make sure that the tires themselves are made to their spec. Same goes for the tires on my C63 or my Porsches that also have a special Porsche designation (P0, P1, etc). As for the revisions, while Porsche updates the tire spec revision with the number after the "P", Merceds does the same thing except that they are always labelled MO and the new spec or design simply supersedes the old one.

Yes, there are aftermarket tires that you can safely use on the GLK (or for that matter most other cars that call for manufacturer-specific rubber), but it's not quite as simple as just buying the cheapest tire you can get your hands on that wil physically fit on the rim. So - by all means, go right ahead and run the cheapest tire you can get your hands on on YOUR car, but please refrain from giving people advice unless you actualy know what you're talking about.

volkvin

Dealer butt-hurt detected? Also, bro, im an immigrant and dont pretend to right properly in english, but holy, grammar much?

A) no advice was given
B) would never suggest cheapest tire
C) the fact that glk250 and e550 that are in my family did not come with MO tires just suggests how dealer would package your vehicle.
D) running dunlop on anything, with any manufacturer specification is retarded. funny that you mention firestone... north american garbage, both... And MB going further for higher standards? Please, start using clear lenses on your glasses. Anything to make larger profit, slogan of every company.
E) please read up on how many MO tire qualifications are ran per each production year of the same vehicle.

And thank god you brought any valid points to the conversation?! Not...

Diabolis

You want more advice? Fine. Here it is.

First, there are only three 235/45-20 tires that will support the load of the vehivcle. Going to a car-based tire (even of slightly different size) is not an option unless you are willing to take chances with a blowout. You need something with the right load rating, and I am afraid yoru choices are indeed VERY limited.

Second, my experience with Dunlops has been quite good - even surpassed my own expectatioins I must admit. I've corded
many sets of Dunlop Sport Maxx Race R-comps on a C63 Black Series, and even ran them on my 928GT track rat. It's the Pirellis that suck, not Dunlops. I am affraid you've got the two mixed up.

Third, since 1988 Firestone is wholly owned by Bridgestone, so they're Japanese, not American. And, the tires themselvses were not faulty - it was only the north-american gabage Ford (no disagreement there whatsoever) that decided to put unsuitable tires on their trucks that made them occassionally blow out, with catastrophic results.

Fourth, I don't wear glasses so there's nothing to clean, althogh at least one of us does appear to have a somewhat myopic view of the the world which I am afraid is not that easlity correctable. If you were really concerned about getting the absolute best-bang-for-your-buck in purely objective terms, you should be drivng a Kia, not a MB. You bought a premium car and you're b!+ch!ng about the 20% premium you have to pay on gettign the proper tires for it? You paid a 20% premium to drive a luxury brand instead of a Kia in the first place, and the maintenence and operating costs are going to be proportionately higher by the same percentage. It comes with the territory. The whole "stealership" and erroneous jacked-up profits concept amont the vast majority of the USA masses never ceases to amaze me. The big three (well, the tiny, failed-and-bailed-out three now) used to work on a 30% profit margin so the concept certianly applied to them. Audi now makes aroud 18-20%, and BMW is a little lower aroudn 15%. Do you know what MB makes on their cars? 7-8%. In other words, for a 100K Cadiallac, you get no more than 70K worth of car. For an equivalent BMW, you get about 85K worth. For a $100K MB, you get 93K worth of car. They haven't always been that low and they're slowly starting to make cheaper cars again, but that's what it has been for the last decade or so since the divorce from Chrysler, who insisted on their 30% so the only way you could compete in any particualr market segment was to make the car itself 20% cheaper, which made early 2000s MBs no better than American pieces of junk. Same thign happened with Volvo when it was acquired by Ford - quality went down the drain, and Volvo is now a Chinese company. Instead of selling out though, MB took a different path and instead chose to rebuid their reputation and win back their customers - by making better cars at the expense of their short-term profits. So - please get your head out of the sand, and stop makign generalizations that in this case are simply not true.

Fifth - I am not a MB fan boy, nor do I have any affiliation with MB or a dealership (althogh in the interest of full discolsure, I do have a small ownership in an indie P-car-only shop that works on my P-cars at a reduced rate). I am just a car nut who has easly had some 30+ vehicles over the last 20 years, a track junkie so I see how well they hold up at the track, and an engineer that among other things understands math, science and economics 101. That's all. Unlike the vast majority of people on this board, I don't pull things out of my a$$ or repeat "what I have read on the Internet".

So - you want actual tire advice? Here it is. If you want to run the OEM 20" sizes, you're stuck with the Pirelli Scorpios or one of the other two inferior tires in that size. 245/45s will throw the speedo too far off, and besides, they're mosty car tyres that don't have the 102+ load rating for a 4500+lb curb weight vehicle. If you wnat somethign cheaper - and I would recommend this for other reasons as well, you need to step down to 19" wheels where you do have a few more decent choices in the 235/50 size. I supose you can go up to runnign a 255/30-20 square setup (lower speedo/odo error than with 245s), but you'd need wider 9" rims with the proper offset to fit them on a GLK.

Is that specific enough for you, Mr. Expert?

volkvin

I will avoid all the flaming that i can talk about forever and go straight to that 'unsolicited' Engineering advice.

First off, Dunlop 235/45/R20 MO tire has load rating of 100, so do the Pirelli. I am not sure why you need 102+ load rating. Curb weight on GLK250 is 1925 kg, maximum gross is 2500 kg. MO tires rated at a 100 only support 800 kg per tire. So for most people, rating of 100 should be fine. If you want to be bulletproof, at 101 load rating you are taking no chances on blowouts.

And on that whole essay you wrote you again put words into my mouth: i do not like OEM pirelli scropions, and im not complaining about MB and their pricing.
All i suggested to the poster i replied to, was to shop around since 425$ per installed Dunlop 235/45/R20 MO is very steep. Considering TireRack price on them at 271$. Giving local shops an ability to make profit vs TireRack, those tires should be around 310-325$ locally. Which would have saved him 150$ at most.

Diabolis

The only catch with the tire loads is that the actual load rating printed on the sidewall for an XL tire is calculated at 42 psi, which is not the cold tire inflation pressure that people actually use. Yes, the maximum gross weight of the GLK is 2500 kg; but the MO tire with a load rating of 100 can only support 800 kg at 42 psi. If you run them at 33 psi F/R (the recommended "light load" inflation pressure), each tire can only suppport 625 kg, which adds up exactly to the 2500 kg GWR assuming a perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Now, if you run them at 30 psi, which is not at all uncommon seeing as over 90% of the vehicles on the road are driving with under-inflated tires, each of your 100 load rating tires can only carry 572 kg for a total of 2228 kg (again assuming a perfect 50/50 weight distribution, which is actually not the case), or on a vehicle with a 1925 kg curb weight, you can now carry 363 kg which is less than the weight of four adults with no additional cargo. That's exactly how you end up with a blowout at high speed.

I am completley in agreement with you about getting the RIGHT tire at the best possible price. Now, tire prices at Tire Rack don't include mounting and balancing or taking the wheels off and putting them back on the car, so someone - whether it's the dealership or your local indie tire shop - still has to do the labour, which is going to add up to about an hour or another $100-$150 (that's CAD $ - it may be a bit chaper in US $) depending on where you get it done. Not really that much of a difference after all as you're still loooking at $750-$800 minimum at a local tire shop that has them at $325 each.

NYCGLK

OEM Pirellis are great all around tires, I would not get anything else. I just went 80 miles on snow covered highway, and I get caught like this once a year (hence I don't own snow tires). I've gone through 1-2 feet of snow in parking lots..etc.
For all-seasons, they did very well. No problem on snow or slush with pretty good traction. I've never had problem with squealing in dry - check your tire pressure. I've also hit some bad potholes with these tires and no damage to the tires. The only downside is 35-40k mile life.

Diabolis

They're great in terms of grip. What I don't like about Pirellis in general is inconsistencies in manufacturing and their tendency to harden, crack and dry rot much more than the competition. If you put 15K miles annually and actually wear them out in two or three years, they're a great tire. If you only drive 6K a year, they'll start to crack, delaminate and bulge way before you actually wear out the tread.

erlomd

I second that! Pirelli is by far the best tire Ive ever had...going on my 2nd set I loved them so much...excellent grip and you can find them online at half the price...I even heard of of some delerships price matching the online competition

NYCGLK

Yea, I paid slightly (10-20 bux per tire) more at dealer for MO spec Pirellis. One thing to be careful with the "deals" is to make sure that tire wasn't made more than 1 year ago. Also on my second set.

NYCGLK

That's the case with many tires. Tires only supposed to last for 5 years.
Even at 6k per year, you should get them pretty worn in 5-6 years.

My original tires lasted 4 years with no signs of cracks. I still had some thread left, but I replaced them right before winter. I wonder if MO tires are better made. Also you have to pay attention when the tires were made - check DOT stamp.