PR4 Disappiontment...

Chris, both Jim Rau and I have had the same experience with our last PR4s. I'd gotten 14K out of two PR4 rears and then the last one was toast at a bit over 7K. I haven't changed the way I ride or where I ride either. I rode lots of places, mostly out here in the west, at the same speeds I've always ridden (72 or so on 2-lanes, 78-83 on interstates), and the last tire lasted half as long as the first two PR4s.

Hopefully the T30s will last longer.
 
I agree with what Phil and Doug said. I ride the same way on the same bike and the last PR4 lasted half as long as the previous one. I had the first rear PR4 put on in Fairbanks AK when riding with Phil. And then put on another one here at home. The rear before the first PR4 was a PR3 and that one went a little over 12K. The PR4 I put on next went 13,??? miles and I replaced it early because I was leaving on a long trip. It may have gone 14K of 154K. The last one was down to the wear bars at 7K. That is a big difference no matter how you look at it.

The "tiretest" link is interesting, but I think it needs to be more current.
 
I tried to use the "post-your-story" link and no matter what I did, it told me I hadn't entered the security code correctly. I went to the "contact" link and it only showed cars as options. I just left the vehicle info blank and posted my question. I'll be interested to see if I get a response.
 
OK...I got two automated replies from Michelin. Both tell me that due to a extremely high email volume there will be delay in their response to me. One said I can expect a delay of 2-3 business days, the other said to expect a 3-5 day delay.
 
Phil Tarman said:
OK...I got two automated replies from Michelin. Both tell me that due to a extremely high email volume there will be delay in their response to me. One said I can expect a delay of 2-3 business days, the other said to expect a 3-5 day delay.
Click to expand...

That is about the same thing I got a couple weeks ago. Haven't heard from the since.
And I don't think they want to hear from me.
 
Surprise! I heard from them just moments ago:

"Phillip,

Thank you for your feedback about the MICHELIN Pilot Road 4 tires on your bike. Many factors can affect tire longevity but rest assured we did not change anything about the MICHELIN Pilot Road 4.

If you would like to discuss your situation, I invite you to contact MICHELIN Consumer Care Department at, 800-346-4098.




Michelin

Scot C. Clark
Michelin North America, Inc.

Marketing & Communications Manager, Two-Wheel"

 
Phil Tarman said:
Surprise! I heard from them just moments ago:

"Phillip,

Thank you for your feedback about the MICHELIN Pilot Road 4 tires on your bike. Many factors can affect tire longevity but rest assured we did not change anything about the MICHELIN Pilot Road 4.

If you would like to discuss your situation, I invite you to contact MICHELIN Consumer Care Department at, 800-346-4098.




Michelin

Scot C. Clark
Michelin North America, Inc.

Marketing & Communications Manager, Two-Wheel"

Click to expand...

Yes indeed - big surprise.

Keep us posted. I assume you will be telling them that you aren't the only one with the problem.
 
Daboo said:
Is it because they could tell you're a man of the cloth that they answered you so fast?
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As the Chaplin used to say: "Do you know what the maximum effective range of a lightning bolt is?"
 
Daboo said:
Is it because they could tell you're a man of the cloth that they answered you so fast? :)

I have to admit, you guys are scaring me. Just a real rough guess, but with the way mine is wearing, I could possibly make 20,000 miles. Based on my own experience, I have a winner. But if your collective experience has the second rear tire lasting only 7k miles- ugh...

Chris
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Mine will do the same or perhaps even 22,000 miles over here in France!
 
Makes you wonder if Michelin might have had a bad batch and three of us got tires from that batch.

I'm still happy with the Bridgestone T30s after riding in more rain yesterday.
 
Phil Tarman said:
Makes you wonder if Michelin might have had a bad batch and three of us got tires from that batch.

I'm still happy with the Bridgestone T30s after riding in more rain yesterday.
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Perhaps, but not willing to risk spending the money on the PR4s if there is a chance of unusually high wear rate.
 
I now have about 7500 km (about 4650 m) on my PR4s and they measure up to be about 1/3 worn. I will be satisfied if I can make it past 20,000 km on the pair. They have much better wet-grip than the previous Michelin Pilot Active tyres on which I did 27,000 km (could have made it to 30,000 km though). I am happy to sacrifice a few thousand km of tyre life to get much improved wet grip. I still don't like the rumbling noise on course-mix surfaces but I have to live with that. If I can't get past the 20K then I will probably go back to the Pilot Active tyres if they are still available as they work out much cheaper in the long run and IMHO give better feedback. If they are not available I could try the Bridgestone T30s but they are not so easy to get here in Melbourne (Oz, not Florida).

Macka
 
I really liked the Pirelli Angel GTs on my NT. They were very good in the rain, handled great and wore like iron. They had a different "feel" than the Michelins though, like they were a harder compound in the center. They tipped over easier in the curves and felt like they took 50 pounds off of the bike. I will probably be trying them on the Triumph when the current set of PR4s wear out.
 
KazooST said:
I really liked the Pirelli Angel GTs on my NT. They were very good in the rain, handled great and wore like iron. They had a different "feel" than the Michelins though, like they were a harder compound in the center. They tipped over easier in the curves and felt like they took 50 pounds off of the bike. I will probably be trying them on the Triumph when the current set of PR4s wear out.
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Hey there KazooST, when you say that they wore like iron, how many miles did you get out of them? Taking 50 pounds (20+ kg) off the feel of the bike would be good too.

Macka
 
Macka, I had over 10000 miles on the Angel GTs when I sold the NT and they were less than half gone; slight squaring on the rear with no problems on the front. They spent about 50% of their time on chip-sealed country roads, 40% on the Interstate (about half and half asphalt and concrete with rain grooves) and 10% city riding. All of the riding was one-up. I'm sure they would have gone well past 15000 miles before I would have been looking to change them.
 
Thanks for that feedback. It seems that you were pretty happy with them overall. I might give them a try next time if I can find some. I won't be needing them for sometime, obviously, and there is only one bike-tyre supplier within 25km of me.

Macka
 
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