Pitazorro

I have Pirelli Scorpion Verde tyres on my 20" AMG wheels. I found them silent, soft and very well for dry tarmac. I will see how they are in winter. These are new tyres from Pirelli with high mileage and economy for eco SUV's. Goodyear also has an Efficientgrip model as an eco tyre.

GregW / Oregon

That's what came on mine, as well. They seem pretty good, despite the Eco label.

Baloo588

Hello GregW.

Can you tell me how the Pirellis are? My 2013 Blutec came in today and it had the lower rated Dunlops and because of tirerack ratings and comments on this board, I had them switch the 19 inch wheels/tires from our Ml350 with another new Ml350 with the 19 inch wheels and Pirelli verde all season tires. I have the airmatic suspension options with dampers but not the on/off road package. I hope I made the right choice because of this. Hows the ride comfort over bumps and highways, road noise, wear, traction, and steering feel? My car is not done with prep so I could not drive it yet. I will be picking it up tomorrow.

GregW / Oregon

I'm pretty impressed with them for a "green" all-season tire. I've had Summers and Winters in the past. These are quiet and handle well (also with Airmatic + Dynamic Handling); time will tell about wear, but that's not my first priority.

Baloo588

I picked up our 2013 Ml350 bluetec today and had the chance to drive it around town and highway. I noticed immediately that there was vibration felt in my seat from the rear and in the passenger seat when I go beyond 75 mph and it increases as I go beyond 80 mph. I was upset at this because it happened before on a BMW with 1 defective tire and bent rims from factory last year and I did not want this to happen again. The vibration is not as bad as with the BMW when it was new, but its irritating and felt in the seat back and headrest. Our traded in 2010 Ml350 was smooth at this speed in the seats and steering wheel on the same highway. The ML has the Pirelli Scorpion Verde all season 19 inch and I had my airmatic in comfort mode. Tire pressure was correct at 38 psi front/rear normal load.
I know this is either a defective rear tire or the wheels/tires that need to be properly road force balanced. Its not a flat spot as I done 65 miles today breaking in the car a bit. Its smoother by a huge leap over the older one over the bumps and ruts around the town at speeds below 60 mph. I hope that the Pirellis are smooth at all speeds with no vibration when I get it checked out this week soon and properly balanced to find that defective tire if there is one. I am not sure how the factory missed this as it was built few weeks ago and it did not sit on the lot for a very long time before transport to Michigan.

GregW / Oregon

38/38 is way too high. Go by the pressures on the fuel filler door. That may not cure your issue, but will make it less severe.

Baloo588

Gregw,

My label on the inside of the gas tank shows 35/35 psi front/rear for my 19 inches vs your 20 inch rims. My older Ml was 32 psi F/R.

The 38 psi is when the tires are hot so it should be around 35 cold. I will bring it down a bit but I know it will not cure my problem but will soften it a bit. I found out that by looking at the balancing weights on the 4 rims, the passenger rear wheel had 12.5 ounces of weight That is way too much and beyond the specs of 6 ounces max for a good SUV wheel/tire assembly. The other wheels have 4 ounces and less which is perfectly fine. I bet that tire is the culprit and is "out of round" and will fail the road force balancing limits leading to my vibration in the seats from the rear.

GregW / Oregon

Yes, that amount of balancing weight is way too much. Could be a bad tire, wheel or a combination of both.

dougiebear

I was not happy mine came with Dunlops. But hey they are quiet handle great and seem to be wearing well with only a 200 rating from Dunlop.

GTscrub

On my 550 and 20" AMG are CrossContact LX Sport from Continental. Does anyone know how these tires are?

Baloo588

Update:

I had the dealer road force balance all 4 wheels/tires and they confirmed that the right rear was 35 lbs! Its too much and over the limit of 16 lbs for the SUV. They rematched it and got it down to 22 lbs but still a bit high. There is another front tire at 20 lbs of road force. The other 2 tires are 12 and 16 lbs which are fine. So I drove it today and its definitely smoother but still some vibration above 70 mph now. The dealer will get 3 replacement tires and mount/balance them at the end of this week. Goes to show how they are good at this and care about the customer's satisfaction. I hope to get all the wheels at 12 lbs road force balance and lower now like my older 2010 ML350. Occasionally new cars get defective out of round tires from factory that cannot be detected until they get to the dealers.

iankayem

Okay Baloo you got me. What is "road force balance" ?

Baloo588

Haha I knew someone was bound to ask me here. It happens on other forums with other brands but more and more people are getting to know this technology of balancing which is superior over dynamic balancing which you see in costco, walmart, discount tire, belle tire, etc. My Mercedes Ml350 SUV will have slightly higher tolerance of maximum road force numbers that is allowed or else it will vibrate on the highways.

The description is on the website:
http://www.gsp9700.com

Here is a description I gave on Bimmerfest for the 2011-2012 BMW 5 series:

Road force balance is so good that it helps detect bad tires. When you mount the tire onto the rim, the entire assembly should not exert more than 8-10 lbs on the roller or that will cause too much up and down motion as the tire/rim rolls along the pavement due to this high spot and it can cause vibration if greater than 12 lbs road force. So rule of thumb, anything less than 10 lbs is excellent and will give glass smooth rides on highway, 10-12 lbs is good and will not be felt if its in the rear but can cause minor steering vibes if that assembly is in the front, anything >13 lbs to 15 lbs and above is unacceptable and will cause vibration at certain speed. My BMW 535xi will vibrate in the seat when my tires were 15 lbs to 25 lbs in the rear when I had 2 defective tires. Now they are 4 lbs and 10 lbs respectively and its so smooth now.
The road force machine helps mount the tire onto the rim to get a better road force lbs, For an example, if it was 14 lbs and it was vibrating a bit, they can have the whole wheel and tire analyzed by the hunter machine and the machine will tell the mechanic to mark a spot on the rim (low spot) and mark a spot on the tire (high spot) and will tell them to remount the tire to realign those two spots to cancel out the hump or stiff spot in the tire to get a better road force lbs, so this way we can achieve below 8-10 lbs and get a smooth ride or else we need the tire to be replaced. If the rim is bent the machine will tell you or otherwise you might have to look at the way it is spun on the machine to see any bents if they are too small for the hunter machine to detect. I have had several cases of these bents that were said "pass" by machine but you could see the bents visually while it was spun. I also had 4-6 out of round tires (greater than 12 lbs that I find unacceptable to my standards as I want a smooth ride) so I refuse any tire greater than 10lbs. I aim for 8 lbs or below for the entire assembly on my BMW, Lexus, and Audi. BMW likes less than 15 lbs but that's terrible as it gives the BMW a shaky ride with small vibes on smoothly paved highways.

Baloo588

My wonderful dealer replaced 2 of the high road force spec tires and remounted the other 2 tires to get road force readings of RF, LF, RR, and LR (9, 5, 8, 8 lbs) which gave this Ml350 a butter smooth ride on the highways with NO vibration. I am liking these Pirelli Scorpion Verdes very much!

ciparis

My 4-day old '13 ML350 has enough seat-of-the-pants vibration on the highway to get me to do a quick search for "balance", leading me to this thread. Hopefully my Bay Area dealer has a good balancing machine.

Baloo588

Yes your dealer should and is required to the have the HUNTER road force machine. Tell your dealer that you want the chief mechanic to check the "road force balance" on all 4 tires/wheels and makes sure that none of them exert more than 15 lbs. Its best to have them lower 10lbs for glass smooth ride or else the suspension will bounce up and down and worsen with speeds with vibration felt in the seats on the highway. My car is very smooth at all speeds now that I got the 2 tires replaced. What tires you have? You are likely to have at least 1-2 defective tires which can happen.

ciparis

I have Continental CrossContact. I notice the vibration more when the suspension loading changes (bumps/dips, etc).

Thimee

They actually do surprisingly well in snow, I've driven them in whiteout conditions, slush and extreme cold (-10) already, I'm gentle with them since I don't quite trust them like the Blizzaks I had on a previous car, but they haven't let go on me yet, even though other "lesser" cars were fishtailing and crashing all around me. The dealer was telling me that this OEM pair will not have a high lifespan - probably only 20,000 miles or so. Next winter I'll probably get a second pair of rims/sensors/tyres, likely to run a $3000 bill though ouch.

Here's my car after driving 90 miles on snowpacked roads, why is she still so clean?! Some sort of magic slush repellent paint perhaps?

Attachment 449166

GregW / Oregon

My setup with 19s ran $2,086.

19" OEM takeoffs - $525 shipped (great deal)
Pirelli Winter 255/50-19s from Tire Rack - $1,206 shipped
Set of TPMS sensors from Tire Rack - $255 shipped
Mounting & balance - $100

https://mbworld.org/forums/5411633-post41.html

ciparis

I had a service appt. at my dealer this Saturday, and they measured the road force values as follows:

26, 17
25, 10

Afterwards it was:

16, 17
22, 10

It was a pretty big waste of time; they took 3 hours, and they failed to significantly improve on most of the bad values. The ride quality on smooth highways is still poor as well. I'll be taking it back next week and getting a loaner, and having them keep mine until they get the numbers where they ought to be.

Baloo588

Looking at your road force numbers, you need to get 3 of the tires replaced. Tell your service manager that you are getting vibration and you will not accept any road force assembly numbers greater than 10 lbs. Request that you have 3 of the tires replaced. Have them order it so that next time you go this week they will not waste their time on the existing bad tires and replace them. Its hard to keep remounting the same tires if they are not improving the road force numbers. They are bad as is.