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I promise I'm not trying to ask a question that has been answered 1000 times (at least to my knowledge). I'm looking at replacing my tires for my GLS 450. Previous threads have suggested a range of tires with no conclusive answer for the best noise/ride tires. I see CrossClimate 2 recommended a lot, but on Tire Rack they are noted for having more road noise than the competition.
I'm moving to Florida where I won't have to worry about winter conditions at all, so really if I can get better comfort forgoing all-season, that would be my preference. Has anyone had experience with this same criteria? My current tires are the Pirelli Scorpion Verde, and they're the only tires I've had on this vehicle so far as they fitted when I bought it. I have the 20" 275/50 size code fitted. My priority in order from most important to least is comfort (noise/feel), wet/dry performance, aesthetics, wear, and price.
As I recall, the general feedback on Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tend to be quiter vs CC2 from when I was shopping CC2 tires. The PS4 cost a little more and don't last as long as CC2 though.
If noise and comfort are at the top of your list, then you wanna shop in the Touring category. Those tires happen to be all-season as well, but most all-season tires are really mostly 3 season tires. They offer comfort, low noise and great wet performance. The latter is still very applicable to Florida. It gets wet there. Your current tire is specifically a Crossover/SUV Touring tire. The CrossClimate 2 is not specifically designed for heavier vehicles. It's a Grand Touring tire and probably still one of the best if not the best in the category. I have it on my wife's hatchback. Great handling, quiet and comfortable. I live in NorCal, so like Florida I don't have to deal with winter conditions unless I head up to the mountains, but it still gets very wet in the winter and the CC2 has excellent wet performance.
Summer only tires will be performance tires and they will overall be less comfortable and more noisy for the benefit of much better handling and steering response. The CrossClimate 2 is a good balance between great handling and steering response in the dry while still offering lots of comfort and low noise, but I only have experience with it on light vehicles.
If you do mostly highway driving, there are also the Highway All-Season, This category of tires is focused on longer tread life, but they don't have great dry/wet traction, but offer good ride quality and low noise. They have a bit of a harder compound which aids tread wear, but takes away from the comfort and nose level a bit.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 18, 2024 at 03:59 PM.
When I bought my 2020 GLS (19” wheels) w/20k miles, it had CrossClimates. At 28k miles I caught a puncture in the sidewall and went ahead and bought new tires, a little sooner than planned. My criteria were comfort first, then traction (safety on wet roads and in snow). I always have music playing (have the high end 3-D Burmester so usually crank it up), so noise was not a big factor for me. Most of my research was on TireRack
I went with the Conti CrossContact LX25, a Touring All Season tire. I have 10k miles on them and have been pleased. As an added bonus, they are cheaper than the other big names in the Touring All Season category. I’ll also say that, as mentioned on several threads, tire inflation has a huge impact on comfort. Use the criteria on the gas door.
Thanks for everyone's input. I settled on the CrossClimate 2 and had them installed today. So far I am pleased with the ride and frankly, the appearance is cool.
I was leaning towards the Pilot Sport 4 SUV originally but the lady who works at my tire shop really recommended against them, saying I'd be lucky if I got 14K out of them from her experience.
Last edited by Bobertsawesome; Jul 23, 2024 at 06:05 PM.
Thanks for everyone's input. I settled on the CrossClimate 2 and had them installed today. So far I am pleased with the ride and frankly, the appearance is cool.
I was leaning towards the Pilot Sport 4 SUV originally but the lady who works at my tire shop really recommended against them, saying I'd be lucky if I got 14K out of them from her experience.
How is the noise? I was contemplating getting CC2s for my winter set but opted for Alpin 5, which I haven't used yet.
You can't go wrong with Michelins imho...they've been my favorite brand ever since the mxx/pilot's came out in the late 80's/early 90's.
With respect to wear...just check the wear rating on the sidewall...the #'s are the numbers.
I certainly only wanted to go with Michelin. I'm sure there are other manufacturers with competing performance but their reputation proceeds them for a reason.
Originally Posted by wildta
How is the noise? I was contemplating getting CC2s for my winter set but opted for Alpin 5, which I haven't used yet.
Can't really compare apples to oranges as my prior tires were already getting low on tread in the rear when I bought the car, but these are so much more quiet and comfortable than the Pirelli Scorpion Verde I had on. Ride is smooth and there's hardly any road noise even on the highway, but I do have the comfort package with additional sound dampening. Aesthetically I really like the look of the tread pattern coming to the sidewalls. It gives the car just a slightly more rugged look.
The key to noise compliance over time is as the tires really start to wear down - when new most are reasonably quiet, but as the miles accumulate the noise worsens at an exponential rate. What I luv about pilots - in addition to the ride, handling, braking etc is as they wear they tend to remain quieter and more comfortable than most, even in their max perf versions.
We've been Michelins for 50k miles now. Replaced the original Pirelli's at 25k when the rears were done (staggered 21's). Have zero complaints on the Michelins. We're now on the second set for the front (got about 48k out of the last pair on the front) and 3rd set on the rear (staggered, only last 25k miles, regardless of brand). They're also easily available to get too. Costco has them, Tirerack, etc, and priced fairly relatively speaking.. We're at 75k on the clock.
We've been Michelins for 50k miles now. Replaced the original Pirelli's at 25k when the rears were done (staggered 21's). Have zero complaints on the Michelins. We're now on the second set for the front (got about 48k out of the last pair on the front) and 3rd set on the rear (staggered, only last 25k miles, regardless of brand). They're also easily available to get too. Costco has them, Tirerack, etc, and priced fairly relatively speaking.. We're at 75k on the clock.
nc211, thanks for this post. I was under the impression that all four tires had to be replaced at the same time on a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Obviously not the case given your experience. Good to know as the rear tires on the GLS wear out so fast.
Not at all, but per axle, yes maybe so. Our third set of Michelins are also due to a bolt into the questionable area of repair in the back tire. Probably could have gotten another 5k or so on them, but ultimately decided to just replace both rear's at the same time. You want the differential to turn as easily as possible, but I also think I could have been fine with just replacing the damaged tire on it's own and not have put much if any real strain on the rear differential, since its not a locking differential.
But front to back? Not at all. That would be awful to have to replace all 4 every 25k miles or so! The rear's at nearly $1k when all said and done is bad enough! But also, ours is staggered (275 front / 315 rear) and certainly believe that accelerates the rear wear. Michelin's have a 50k mile tread warranty, but when you read the fine print, that warranty is cut in half for staggered set up cars. So they clearly know the GLS likes to eat the rear tires.
nc211, thanks for this post. I was under the impression that all four tires had to be replaced at the same time on a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Obviously not the case given your experience. Good to know as the rear tires on the GLS wear out so fast.
Originally Posted by nc211
Not at all, but per axle, yes maybe so. Our third set of Michelins are also due to a bolt into the questionable area of repair in the back tire. Probably could have gotten another 5k or so on them, but ultimately decided to just replace both rear's at the same time. You want the differential to turn as easily as possible, but I also think I could have been fine with just replacing the damaged tire on it's own and not have put much if any real strain on the rear differential, since its not a locking differential.
But front to back? Not at all. That would be awful to have to replace all 4 every 25k miles or so! The rear's at nearly $1k when all said and done is bad enough! But also, ours is staggered (275 front / 315 rear) and certainly believe that accelerates the rear wear. Michelin's have a 50k mile tread warranty, but when you read the fine print, that warranty is cut in half for staggered set up cars. So they clearly know the GLS likes to eat the rear tires.
It depends on the technical implementation of AWD. If it uses a center differential, then there is an allowed tolerance between the wear level of all tires. Too much difference and the center differential is constantly balancing the rotation speed between the axles and can overheat. Same happens on a per axle with the differential constantly dealing with difference in rotational speed. Audi quattro is a good example for this. The allowed difference in wear is 4/32". Depending on which version of 4Matic you have, it doesn't have a center differential. Instead it's mostly RWD under normal conditions and a clutch at the front differential engages to send torque to the front axle as needed. Because there is no center differential between the front and rear axle, there isn't as much of an issue, but the clutch still may engage when it shouldn't if it thinks there's a traction issue due to the difference in rotational speed between the axles and the clutch could overheat. There are however thermal protections, and if it gets too hot, it simply goes 2WD until it cools down. That of course means if you overstress the system you could temporarily lose AWD.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 27, 2024 at 03:50 PM.
It depends on the technical implementation of AWD. If it uses a center differential, then there is an allowed tolerance between the wear level of all tires. Too much difference and the center differential is constantly balancing the rotation speed between the axles and can overheat. Same happens on a per axle with the differential constantly dealing with difference in rotational speed. Audi quattro is a good example for this. The allowed difference in wear is 4/32". Depending on which version of 4Matic you have, it doesn't have a center differential. Instead it's mostly RWD under normal conditions and a clutch at the front differential engages to send torque to the front axle as needed. Because there is no center differential between the front and rear axle, there isn't as much of an issue, but the clutch still may engage when it shouldn't if it thinks there's a traction issue due to the difference in rotational speed between the axles and the clutch could overheat. There are however thermal protections, and if it gets too hot, it simply goes 2WD until it cools down. That of course means if you overstress the system you could temporarily lose AWD.
Doesn't Audi use a torsen style center diff thus the requirement that things be somewhat close? I was under the impression that most AWD systems have historically used open differentials. An open differential won't care about a small rotational difference no matter how long it is present. In theory the clutch based systems should be able to learn the standard difference between front & rear axels and adapt accordingly but that of course means someone had to design a good software algorithm to go with it.
Doesn't Audi use a torsen style center diff thus the requirement that things be somewhat close? I was under the impression that most AWD systems have historically used open differentials. An open differential won't care about a small rotational difference no matter how long it is present. In theory the clutch based systems should be able to learn the standard difference between front & rear axels and adapt accordingly but that of course means someone had to design a good software algorithm to go with it.
AWD systems don't use open differentials. That would completely defeat the purpose of AWD. An open differential has two issues. It always sends 50% of the torque to one side and 50% to the other side, but more importantly if one side loses traction all the power gets wasted on the spinning side and the other side receives little torque. That's the famous one wheel spin you get in vehicles with open differentials. That's completely the opposite of what you want with AWD. If one axle loses traction, it needs to send the torque to the other axle. So all AWD systems use some form of a locking mechanism to force torque to the other axle. Either via a multi clutch pack or a limited slip type differential such as a Torsen differential. Audi these days uses a T3 style self-locking center differential. You are thinking of 4WD or a very cheap AWD systems that uses the brakes to simulate a locking differential. But a good 4WD system has the ability to manually lock the differentials in order to force torque to the wheels with traction when offroading. Some of the newer 4WD systems use a combination of limited slip differentials and manual differential locks.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 28, 2024 at 12:51 PM.
AWD systems don't use open differentials. That would completely defeat the purpose of AWD. An open differential has two issues. It always sends 50% of the torque to one side and 50% to the other side, but more importantly if one side loses traction all the power gets wasted on the spinning side and the other side receives little torque. That's the famous one wheel spin you get in vehicles with open differentials. That's completely the opposite of what you want with AWD. If one axle loses traction, it needs to send the torque to the other axle. So all AWD systems use some form of a locking mechanism to force torque to the other axle. Either via a multi clutch pack or a limited slip type differential such as a Torsen differential. Audi these days uses a T3 style self-locking center differential. You are thinking of 4WD or a very cheap AWD systems that uses the brakes to simulate a locking differential. But a good 4WD system has the ability to manually lock the differentials in order to force torque to the wheels with traction when offroading. Some of the newer 4WD systems use a combination of limited slip differentials and manual differential locks.
Right, but outside of the Torsen I don't see any of them having an issue with minor wheel speed differences due to tread depth on different axels. Now the ESP on the other hand I'd believe could be an issue depending on how sensitive it is and how it's been programmed. Again, good software should be able to learn these differences and account for them. It wouldn't be that difficult to come up with an algorithm that checked the wheel and output speed sensors while traveling at a consistent speed with the steering wheel strait ahead and making that the baseline.
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