mbenjamin

I have had these tires on my car for the last year. it has been the worst set of tires ever. since I bought the tires I have been back to discount tire 6 times to have them repaired or replaced. after I first bought the tires I drove the car for about a month. then I parked the car for about two months when I came back all four tires were flat. I filled them up and had them checked at discount tire. they said my rims must be bent or damaged. I checked the rims for visable damage and nothing. I have never hit any curbs or severe pot holes. I'm always careful to straddle or steer around sewer lids in the roadway. and this wasn't a problem with my pirellis. a few more months go by and again i wasn't driving my car for about a month and what do yua know the tires are flat again. This time they said there were nails in two of the tires and that my rims must be corroded. They replaced the damaged tires and back at it again. I started paying very careful attention to my tire pressure and I probably spent $35 at the gas statioins to keep the pressure up in all the tires. then one night on the interstate my right rear tires blows out. I nearly flipped my ccar trying to regain control. Now I know the blow out was caused by the run flat circumstance, but it seemed these tires could never hold pressure unless I was driving the car. last week I had another flat due to a puncture. I told them to show me the corrosion on the rim, well there was none. and of course this time there was a pucnture. I will never buy this brand again. Maybe my issue was due to road hazzards, but never in my life have I ever had this much trouble with tires, even when I had a jeep and went offroading all the time. I don't understand it seems like the actual material was just too thin and any little tiny piece of metal in the road would puncture my tires or the tires were defective. I understand my situation is a little different then some of the others here but, I'm not surprised to see these complaints. These tires are crap!

Mercee

Wow I came to this forum tonight to upload these picks of my Riken tires and here is this thread! I was driving to work yesterday and the car started to rock side to side. Got home and looked at the tire and this is what I pulled off this morning...

unbelievable. I was doing triple digits on the freeway the other day thank god it didn't blow!!

wally AMG

Mercee for some reason your tire look like MISALIGNMENT I use about 3 set of Riken tires on my c class, got some confidence due to they are made by Michelin... never have a problem before... but your tire look that you have alot of wear just in one side, chech your aligment when you replace the tire

PkrCkr

My BMW had original tires and one had a sidewall puncture and needed replacement. The tire dealer in the area recommended I replace the tire with a Riken Raptor, 205-50Z R17 because it was less expensive than the original tire. Did that. Then 3 months later, replaced the other 3 original BMW tires because they needed replacement d/t wear and tear, and I've had nothing but problems with these Riken tires ever since.These tires ALL LOSE AIR. It's not a problem with the rims, unless no rims work with these tires! Never had ANY problems with my original tires or the rims. I was doing 65 mph and changed lanes and my relatively new tire with less than 5000 miles on it blew. I was on a bridge. Lucky I was able to pull over rather than driving off of it! My dealer told me it was probably low on air because the sidewall was ripped to shreads circumferentialy on the tire, but that's BS because I was so on top of the constant air leaks that I was inflating them constantly. With my first tire, the sidewall all of the sudden blew. Just like that, destroyed. I was told I was running it flat which is BS because I've been checking them, and my car has a sensor for abnormal inflation/deflation in my tires, it's super sensitive, and it didn't go off. But, I replaced the tire still. Then I needed some mechanic work done on my car and within 48 hrs as the car sat in a lot, both rear tires went flat. Just from sitting there!!! I took them to a tire dealer who said they then had to be replaced because the sidewalls were no longer any good. Only 6 months on these tires and I commute 10 minutes back and forth daily every day..that's it! These now have to be replaced!!!These are NOT CHEAP TIRES! They cost me $155 a piece!!!! As soon as I finish this response, I'm calling Michelin. If they don't reimburse me for these tires(and I'm gonna get other brand tires now), I recommend we start a class action lawsuit. I'm 55 and have been driving for 40 years. Plenty of tires in that time, including the spare on me, but that has better dependability than any of these tires do. Stay tuned. In NYS we have a governor that used to be the AG and I think our NYS AG office will certainly pay attention to this and the poor response Michelin has given all you people out there. Keep in touch. Maybe we can stop this

mbenjamin

I think we need to file a class action lawsuit against michellin/riken. these tires are absolutely junk and should not be on the market.

JohnMX-3GSR

i joined this forum just to add my 2 cent i actually found this cause i was trying to research the riken raptor zp its a run flat tire but its kinda funny cause i bought my 92 mx3 and it came with 2 sets of rims 17" and 18" heres a pic to help explain the front is 17 kumhos only have the 2 or i would have them all around the back are 18 riken raptors the other 2 are in the cargo area of my truck (shed lol) and they both look just as bad as the pictures here befor i viewed this forum i thought it was just from abuse or something from the previous owner and i know the ps rear tire looks pretty bad but its more of what is called cupping kinda like Mercee's tire i will have to get some pics when i have a chance to show exactly what i mean

bmcmahon

I am absolutely down for a class action suit. This is BS. My roomate was borrowing my car the other night and coming down out of the canyon, the inner sidewall blew on the rear driverside tire, in the middle of a 75m mph turn. It caused him to completely lose control spinning a full 360 before finally getting the car stopped. Luckily he wasn't injured, because he was only feet from smashing a guardrail, that seperated him from a 200 ft drop. He took it to a michelin dealer and the guy gave him a hard time from the start. The tires have less that 7 thousand miles on them and i had just checked the pressure a week before because of coldfront that came through. So if anyone knows how to get the ball rolling im am absolutely interested, because not only could my car been destroyed but my roommate could have been killed.

JoD

Just found this thread and signed in. Have four 225/50/17 Raptors on a 2000 Maxima SE - on stock 17 x 7 rims.

12k miles on them, pretty good tread left - but putting air in every other day here in the NE winter. Not so bad if I keep it in the heated garage, but 2 tires leak quite fast, one not so bad and the last slightly. Now I don't want to rotate the tires because that would put a fast leaker up front.

DO NOT BUY THESE TIRES!

BryanUnder

I bought my 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT last December (2011) and the previous owner had put Riken Raptor 245 40R18 tires on it. A couple of weeks ago while rotating the tires I noticed that two of them were short on tread ( I suspect my son my have been burning them off since they were both on the front) and one of them had cracks around the sidewalls. So, not wanting to mix tire types I bought two more just like it from Summitt Racing and had them installed on the back by a local tire store. From the moment I drove away from the shop the car handled really bad. Turning corners or switching lanes caused the car to sway around like the sidewall wasn't stiff enough or something. My Prius (with 276000 miles and totally worn out shocks) handles much better than the Eclipse with the new tires! I tried increasing tire pressure to the max but got the same results. I had the tire store to check it out and they they agreed there was a problem but couldn't find any cause other than the tires must be defective. I called Summitt and they pointed me to a Michelin dealer in my area. I called the Michelin dealer but they told me Michelin no longer has anything to do with Riken. Called Summitt back and they are supposed to be looking into it but I haven't heard back from them. Anyway, just wanted to throw this out in theis thread for those who might be interested and see if someone had any good advice for me.

Update: Summit sent me two new tires. The car handled much better especially at low speeds but at highway speeds the car still wanted to "walk around" with me. So, Summit agreed to take them back and give me a refund. Unfortunately they won't reimburse me the $100 I spent having them mounted and balanced twice! What a bummer! At least I am done with the Rikens, I will be replacing them with something else.

snaresamn

Just registered to this site to add that my 4 month old Riken Raptor blew out in exactly the same way as the original poster. I am all for a Class Action lawsuit as well at this point and I'm on hold with the BBB currently to talk to them. The tire also damaged my fender and I'm trying to get Michelin to pay for it but they are denying that the blow out was caused by manufacturer error and that it was my fault for running on a low tire (which is not true). Here's a couple pictures of my tire that I got real quick before I put the donut on and drove to Raben (one of Michelin's authorized retailers).

http://imgur.com/a/RzhZX

Oh, and the Raben guy is the one who tried to tell me it because I was driving with the tire low on air, which I was not doing. But it was Michelin customer service representative that is denying that I should get anything in the way of payment for damage to my fender/bumper or even a replacement tire.

Car_Chick

I know the last reply was sent back in Sept 2012 but count me in for a lawsuit. I had the same exact thing happen to me in 2007 while 6 months pregnant in Houston rush hour. Got the same bs story from Michelin that the tire was low. Funny that, my husband aired up all the tires the night before. While doing our own investigation, we discovered the original tire shop had a pile of these same tires that had done the exact same thing from other customers.

Can someone update if the lawsuit becomes a viable option?