New tire question?

Unless you have special requirements, I would suggest whatever your dealer recommends. The company has spent a lot of time and money on these kinds of questions. Often it's surprising how competitive the dealer's prices are for such items - they like to keep customers coming around (may be able to tempt them into the showroom).

So, you are suggesting I buy from the Ford dealer as opposed to Pep Boys, Big O Tires, Sears. etc?

Locally, Rich Ford does have Rich Ford World of Wheels which sells tires. I'll stop in and price shop.

Thanks ~

I think that might be a slightly naïve view of the decision process behind specifying tyres. You'll probably find a large reason behind the choosing of a standard supplied tyre is down to the purchasing/marketing deals offered at the time by the tyre manufacturer. As far as I'm aware, Foci from the factory have been supplied with tyres from Goodyear, Continental and Pirelli over the years.... now you can't tell me that the chassis/suspension geometry/etc. has changed that much to warrent switching suppliers???

I work for a well-known car manufacturer-backed Formula 1 team who use Michelin tyres on the F1 cars. That car manufacturer also specifies Michelin tyres for their new passenger cars, and I know for a fact that that was purely a marketing decision related to the F1 operation, and nothing to do with the merits of the tyre itself on their passenger cars.

I reckon your best bet would be to do a search on this forum for tyre choices. I personally would recommend the Michelin Pilot Premacy for the Focus.

When I got my Focus 2.0 Zetec in 2001 (new), it was fitted with Michelin Pilot Primacy tyres and I have found them to be excellent. Good grip, and I got 25000 miles out of the fronts before I had to replace them. Quite hard driving too. The rears are still going strong.

I now have Dunlop SP tyres on the front (they didn't have Michelins in stock) and so far they seem fine, though I don't know what they will wear like.

Tim

I agree.

Incidentally, my 2001 US Focus came equipped with Firestone tires. Yetch. Putting Michelins on it was a significant upgrade.

I'm at 51,000 miles with Firestone Firehawks that came on my '01 ZX3. From the tread left, I'm guessing about 60,000 will finish them. Did you find the Michelins to be superior in traction, noise, or what? I'm about to begin shopping...

Ron

Traction and hopefully, life. I didn't get anywhere near the mileage you're getting. Maybe I drive harder.

"Dave Mulvey" wrote

Less so for aftermarket, where the dealer is relating directly with the customer. I know that my own dealer here in Eastern Ontario is quite willing to discuss the merits of various tires. And at that level they don't take part in corporate sweetheart deals, like the (now defunct) one between Ford and Firestone. And the memory of that stink has, I think, made Ford the most conscious of all the tire companies of the need for good judgement on tires.

Michelin makes fine tires, but the characteristics that make them good can be found in many other brands. The days when indivual makes have unique advantages are long gone, except for special needs (i.e. racing) where the selection is much more limited. That's why I said to the initial question "unless you have special needs".

You can bet that the dealers will be very concerned that any tires they sell work well for the cars they sell. Their main interest is, after all, to keep customers coming back to buy cars, not tires, and so making the cars run nicely is going to be their big worry.

The sceptic in me suggests that they may have profit margins of the various tyres in the back of their minds when putting forward recommendations, but that could just be me being paranoid (which is why I value the advice of an impartial third party, such as this newsgroup).

To be honest with you, I thought your original post was referring to the recommendations of the car company itself (i.e. Ford), who would probably say replace with the same tyre as the original.... which itself was probably decided not by chassis engineers/test drivers/computer simulations/whatever, but by some smarmy Ford marketing oike over a pint of lager bought by whatever tyre manufacturer had the highest client entertainment budget at the time.

Having said that, if you do have a good relationship with your local dealership(which should justify an award in itself), then they know the cars better than most other people, and with the added interest of keeping you happy they probably would be the best people to get advice from.

"Dave Mulvey" wrote

I did. Your image of the decision-making process is very incomplete. Such happy events may sometimes occur but they are almost never decisive. The thing you miss is that large companies (like all large bureaucracies) have many departments. The marketing guy has to run such decisions past engineering, legal, and other competing staff.

The Firestone story illustrates that this is not a fool-proof process, but as I said, Ford is the one company that is going to be concerned not to repeat THAT mistake.