Escape 5.0 owners: What tires do you use on your truck?

[Greg A]

I’ve always put Michelin Defenders on my tow, but Michelin has had to replace last two complete sets on two of our vehicles under warranty. Neither vehicle even made 20k mi. Hoping it was just a bad mfgr run, but two different vehicles makes one wonder. We’ll see how the warranty replacements hold up.
Put the Goodyear Endurance on the trailer and so far very pleased with about 4K on them. Have the wheel covers on now in storage to help protect the sidewalls from the AZ sun.

[danmc44]

Originally Posted by oreo

No Chinese tires for me , spend a couple bucks and buy american for quality .

My wife had some BFG tires on her car that were made in Yugoslavia.

Just because it is an American company doesn't mean they are manufactured here. Gotta look at the fine print! (on the tire)

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by danmc44

My wife had some BFG tires on her car that were made in Yugoslavia.

Just because it is an American company doesn't mean they are manufactured here. Gotta look at the fine print! (on the tire)

BF Goodrich is in fact owned by Michelin since around 1990. Michelin also owns Uniroyal and other brands.

they make various tires all over the world, only ones I'd be relatively certain are made in USA are the LT All/Terrain tires

[cpaharley2008]

I have not purchased tires in awhile but they used to have A/B/C ratings for traction/treadwear/temperature. Do they no longer use this rating? No one has mentioned this grading...

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

I have not purchased tires in awhile but they used to have A/B/C ratings for traction/treadwear/temperature. Do they no longer use this rating? No one has mentioned this grading...

they do, but those letters have no actual meaning, they are just relative measures the tire company arbitrarily decides on. I pretty much always get A A or AA A tires, which are about as good as they get. Nte, however, LT truck tires generally do NOT have a UTQG like this. The tires on my F250 are Load Range "E" (3472 lbs per tire), and have a weight/speed rating of 123R (speed rating R for 106 MPH, you really don't want to be going any faster than that in a 8000 lb diesel pickup!).

[algonquin50]

Dueler ht685 18 on an F 150...quiet, aggressive good off road, and good in snow....great handling

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by Greg A

I’ve always put Michelin Defenders on my tow, but Michelin has had to replace last two complete sets on two of our vehicles under warranty. Neither vehicle even made 20k mi. Hoping it was just a bad mfgr run, but two different vehicles makes one wonder. We’ll see how the warranty replacements hold up.

Greg: I recently learned Michelin makes two different Defender tires. I have had great performance from the Defender LTX M/S on my 4Runner but interestingly my mother had wear issues with Defenders recently on her Subaru Outback. She had the Defender T+H tire. Do you know which ones you had problems with?

[arniesea]

First I want to thank everyone for sharing their experiences and insights. It has been an interesting discussion and I now know a lot more about tires, how to read the codes on the sidewalls, etc than I did before.

I did not want to name the original company in my first post until I had a chance to talk to them. Generally, I believe it is bad form to bad mouth companies online unless it is a site like Yelp that provides balanced good and bad reviews. That said, once I explained what would make me happy, Les Schwab was very fair. There was zero push back and they took care of me promptly.

Based on the feedback from this forum, I decided to stay with the BFG KO2 AT tires that were installed on the rear of my truck in AZ. Les Schwab gave me full road hazard credit for the tire that went flat. (there was a hole in it the size of my thumb. What ever caused it did not stay with the tire.) They also gave me trade in value less tread wear on the tires I purchased from them in Nov. They had about 3,500 miles on them. The BFG KO2s are not a tire they carry, but they ordered them and charged me the same price as the 2 I bought in AZ. Once the tires came in, they called me in for service. 40 minutes later I was driving away with 4 matching BFG KO2 AT tires.

Total out of pocket for this transaction was less than $180 once all credits were applied. This is to be expected as the BFG tires are easily $100+ more retail than the Les Schwab tires I had originally.

Thanks again for all the advice. This forum is the best!

[dfandrews]

Originally Posted by arniesea

..........Les Schwab was very fair. There was zero push back and they took care of me promptly.
................... Once the tires came in, they called me in for service. 40 minutes later I was driving away with 4 matching BFG KO2 AT tires.
...........

Glad it worked out.
Kudos to Les Schwab!!

[Greg A]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Greg: I recently learned Michelin makes two different Defender tires. I have had great performance from the Defender LTX M/S on my 4Runner but interestingly my mother had wear issues with Defenders recently on her Subaru Outback. She had the Defender T+H tire. Do you know which ones you had problems with?

Hey Dave,
Went out in the garage and looked, they are the Defender LTX M/S.
These are the warranty replacements, are at about 18k and seem to be doing better than the previous set. I’m hoping they just had a bad manufacturing run and I happened to get the bad lot on both vehicles.
The other vehicle we’ve sold, so not sure if the warranty replacements are doing any good on that one.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Greg: I recently learned Michelin makes two different Defender tires. I have had great performance from the Defender LTX M/S on my 4Runner but interestingly my mother had wear issues with Defenders recently on her Subaru Outback. She had the Defender T+H tire. Do you know which ones you had problems with?

There are more than those two Michelin tire models with "Defender" in their name; it is like BFGoodrich tires with "T/A"... it's just a brand name. I put Defenders on our van, and found later that they are a different variant, with a different tread pattern, from the Defenders of the same size and type sold at a different retailer. The Michelin Canada website currently lists three "Defender" models, and mine are none of those.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by SkipperClyde

Michelin 10 ply truck tires.

Just to clarify this description... there are no 10-ply tires for pickup trucks (or probably anything else). This description was presumably meant to be "10-ply rating", which means nothing about how many layers (plies) of reinforcement are actually used in the construction of the tire, and corresponds to Load Range E.

TireRack has a good tech page about load ranges and ply ratings.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by boardhead

Always buy LT (light truck) tires.
...
Never run P (passenger) or the ones that say nothing unless you only drive in the city.

The tires which "say nothing" (don't have a letter in front of the size specification) may be standard-load Euro-metric tires that might not be suitable... but they may also be extra-load Euro-metric tires which are quite suitable, or commercial truck tires.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by arniesea

Les Schwab gave me full road hazard credit for the tire that went flat. (there was a hole in it the size of my thumb. What ever caused it did not stay with the tire.)

So in the end the failure likely had nothing to do with the quality or construction of the original tires, since any tire can get a flat due to a road hazard; they didn't just fall apart without a cause, and a big hole means rapid deflation with any tire. To the credit of the damaged tire, it didn't tear apart despite being run (briefly, while pulling over) with a big hole in the tread.

I'm glad it worked out.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

There are more than those two Michelin tire models with "Defender" in their name; it is like BFGoodrich tires with "T/A"... it's just a brand name. I put Defenders on our van, and found later that they are a different variant, with a different tread pattern, from the Defenders of the same size and type sold at a different retailer. The Michelin Canada website currently lists three "Defender" models, and mine are none of those.

for my euro sedans, the Defenders are the cheaper hard-as-nails-and-go-80000-miles tire, while the Premiere are the grand touring tires with a smooth quiet ride, great wet traction, and still pretty decent mileage.

[Defenestrator]

I've been really impressed with the Defender LTX tires so far. Night and day compared to the Eagle LS/2s that came on the Silverado. Far better dry traction, really good wet traction (and way less "pull" than I'd expect when one side goes through puddles on the highway), and even acceptable snow and ice traction. They're not as good on snow as real winter tires of course, but they were good enough to effortlessly unstick someone's summer-tire-shod Charger without even having to build momentum.

Personally, I've come to prioritize traction under a variety of conditions over longevity. Tires are the most important factor in handling and braking. Even if they do only last 20K miles, I'll be happy.

[arniesea]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

So in the end the failure likely had nothing to do with the quality or construction of the original tires, since any tire can get a flat due to a road hazard; they didn't just fall apart without a cause, and a big hole means rapid deflation with any tire. To the credit of the damaged tire, it didn't tear apart despite being run (briefly, while pulling over) with a big hole in the tread.

I'm glad it worked out.

Correct, and partly why I didn’t name the company in my first post. I didn’t have enough information as to why they failed. I asked the tire shop in AZ that installed the 2 rear BFG tires what caused the flat and they said they didn’t know. I was trying to make it to my campsite before dark, so I didn’t press the issue. But I wasn’t about to publicly criticize Les Schwab before knowing the cause of the failure.

[chief marv]

What year is your Tundra? Mine is 2015 using 275/65R18 and have run 63000 miles no flats towing my 5.0 T. Yours must be a new one with 20 “ wheels. Good luck, recommend Michelin from Costco (warranty).

[arniesea]

Originally Posted by chief marv

What year is your Tundra? Mine is 2015 using 275/65R18 and have run 63000 miles no flats towing my 5.0 T. Yours must be a new one with 20 “ wheels. Good luck, recommend Michelin from Costco (warranty).

It is not the year but the trim line. I have a 2017 Platinum edition. The Limited, Platinum and 1794 trim lines have 20" wheels. The SR and SR5 have 18' wheels. The TRD Pro has 18" wheels but 20" are an option. TRD off Road trims have 18" wheels since tires with a taller sidewall is desirable for off road.

All have the same diameter tires, the difference is that tires on 20" wheels have a smaller sidewall profile.

[kavm]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

The larger-diameter wheels are commonly a feature of higher trim levels, for appearance and handling. This particularly makes sense for pickups used as cars, rather than as working trucks, although of course the 20" setup still meets the load requirements of the truck when it is working (in the case of the Tundra... but there have been F-150 configurations which must have the 18" wheels to meet load requirements). Fancy trim and pounding down really bad roads is not a common combination; you won't see the 20" wheels very often on corporate fleet vehicles doing service work or hauling to remote locations.

It is possible that the springs and shocks are specifically tuned for the 275/55R20 tires, but it is almost certain that if you wanted to, you could get 18" wheels and use either of the 18" tire sizes with zero issues.

We will be buying F150 to pull E5.0. Being new to this (no experience driving or buying pickup trucks or towing), I was reading this thread to inform myself about wheel sizes. Looks like F150s (depending upon trim and options) can have 17, 18, 20 and 22 inch wheel sizes. Which size fits our intended use best? We don't care for the looks and will mainly be using it in conjunction with the trailer (E5.0).

Does the larger wheel size give it a greater power to pull or load? Is sticking the 18" (standard for Lariat trim in 2020 - the details for 202 not out yet) a sensible solution?

For context - there is just the two of us and we do not expect to be loaded with the kitchen sink And, there may be some off-road and 4x4 driving in the national park type setting (some while the E5.0 is parked) but not planning to climb the sand dunes. Don't care for show, etc.

Thank you!