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Torque News maintains a wide network of friends and family who turn to us for tire advice. Recently, SM, the owner of a 2024 Honda Pilot we previously spotlighted, needed tires for his daily driver. His dealer gave him bad advice, and we think we know why. Fortunately, he continued his research and ended up with the perfect tire. Let’s examine this Honda Pilot Owner’s story to see what we can learn about tire shopping and tire research.
Read Our 30,000-mile Review of the CrossClimate 2 Tire
Needing New Tires After Just 17 Months After Buying a New Vehicle
SM is an on-the-road medical supplies salesperson who drives over 30,000 miles per year in his SUV. He purchased a new Honda Pilot back in March 2024. “As soon as 25,000 miles, the OEM tires were vibrating and loud, and the dealer could not get them to balance.” SM pushed through the lack of dealer support and the lousy OEM tire experience until he reached 49,000 miles. Not able to take it anymore, he opted to buy new tires. While 49,000 miles isn’t bad for OEM tires, he is just 17 months into his new vehicle experience, and it’s been made less than ideal by tire issues. SM has the budget to buy any tire, he just wanted to get the best and not deal with noise and vibration anymore.
Tire Shopping 101 – Never “Just Let the Dealer Do It”
Many car dealers offer great prices and great service on tires. Unfortunately for SM, his dealer could not help him when his tires had problems after 25K miles. After 49,000, he threw in the towel and said, “Just put on new tires of a different brand, what do you recommend?” The best advice that the dealer gave SM was to consider Michelin. However, the dealer suggested high-performance tires for his SUV, which primarily drives on highways. We think they may have offered the only tire that was in stock. Luckily, SM called me to ask about the pick.
“Great brand, bad model choice.” That was my opinion on this. I suggested instead that he consider Defender2 tires. However, the “Dealer didn’t have those.” Out of time, he left without buying new tires rather than settle for the wrong model. This ultimately turned out to be a very good thing.
High-performance tires offer great cornering and stopping distances, but they can be a bit firm, and they are not the quietest or longest-lasting type of tire. The Defender2 is a great tire with a long lifespan and good highway manners. Despite my pick, I think there was another that was even better.
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SM listened to his wife. She also has a lot of experience with tires and has also been a worker on the road covering a lot of miles. She suggested that SM try an independent tire shop she had used, and said, “Get Michelins, but get the right ones for your needs.”
After arriving at the tire installer, SM spoke to the helpful folks who asked him questions about his driving style and the conditions in which he drove. They also asked about his priorities for tire features. When I heard this, I was pretty happy. All tires are good at something. Many tires are good at many things. None is best in every category.
After the shop worker heard that SM has to drive even in bad snowy and icy weather, and that he does not want the hassle of owning dedicated winter tires that would need to be swapped on and off twice per year, the tire retailer suggested Michelin CrossClimate 2 tires. This is a great pick, based on our own testing.
“These tires remind me of that feeling I had when I was a little kid and I’d get a new pair of Converse All Star sneakers,” said SM. “Like walking on clouds. They are smooth and quiet, and I like that I will have better traction in winter conditions than with a standard all-season tire.”
It’s now been over 3,000 miles since the tires were mounted. We checked in with SM, who gave them two thumbs up. “This is what I remember the Pilot being like on the first day I got it,” SM told us. “Smooth, quiet, and my MPG hasn’t changed a bit.”
What do you think of this tire pick for a Honda Pilot? Is it the right one, or would you have chosen a different model tire? Tell us in the comments below.
Report Notes: This tire story was not sponsored by Michelin. The tire transaction was private and not one of our own formal tire test reports. Images courtesy of SM.
John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
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Source: torquenews.com
