You touched a sore point with me. For years I have been a Michelin drone. Whenever I needed replacement tires, I always bought Michelins. Lately I begun to think maybe I should look elsewhere. I have been less that thrilled with the last few Michelin tires (or BFGoodrich tires - a Michelin subsidiary) that I have purchased.
My 2003 Expedition came with Continental tires. They were OK for the first
50,000 miles, but began to get noisy, so I replaced them at around 55,000 miles with Michelin Cross-Terrains. I now wish I had the Continentals back (at least the Continentals with less than 50k miles). The Michelins ride OK and stay balanced, but they are noisy as heck - much noisier than the noisy Continentals I replaced and seem to have worse wet traction (just a feeling, no numbers to back it up).My 2004 Thunderbird came with Michelins from Ford and the tires suck. I cannot keep them balanced and they appear to me to be gripless.
I also have a 2003 Saturn Vue with Bridgestone tires. These tires are much better than my other tires. Even at 37,000 miles they aren't noisy and I have only had to have them balanced once (they seem to stay balanced). To bad they are from Bridgestone / Firestone.
I do have an F150 with 8 year old Michelin LTX tires and those tires seem to be just fine (well except for the one I just replaced because I put a spike through the tread).
The last set of new BF Goodrich tires I had on an older Expedition (now long gone) were horrible.
I also bought a set of Michelin Pilot Sports for a Mustang GT I no longer own - they were not horrible, but at best they were no better than the Goodyear's that came on the car and they were certainly more expensive.
And finally, for those that can stand Consumer Reports, Michelins have not exactly shined in CR's recent tire comparisons. For instance the Cross Terrains like the ones I now have on my Expedition were rated 19 out of 22 in a November 2004 CR test (the Continentals that came on the vehicle were rated 20...). On the other hand Tire Rack Customers rank the Cross Terrains pretty well (5 out of 62), but then the people doing the ranking might be like me - Michelin drones.
So I guess the question is - Are Michelin still my best non-brainer option for tires, or should I look elsewhere? And if I look elsewhere for my next tire purchase (probably new tires for the Thunderbird), where should I look? I will not buy Firestone tires (and because of guilt by association - no Bridgestones either) no matter what rating may say (burn me once, shame on you, burn me three or four times, damn I must be stupid).
Ed