Wrote this up on Reddit, but I think it would be better for it to live here. Aiming to update as I rotate the tires to track performance and this could provide some useful info on these tires.
Living in South Texas and driving mostly highway commutes with a 2022 M3LR that came with Michelin MXM4. Those tires lasted 14 months and 29k miles and were down to 2-3/32 even while rotating them every 6k miles. Replacing them was $300 ea and seemed too expensive for that kind of life. Up to this point, had achieved average efficiency of 249 Wh/Mi and was trying to get an equivalent tire for less. Finally walked into a Discount Tire and they were promoting the Michelin Defender 2 (with 70k mile warranty) as "ideal" for the Tesla M3. Gave me a bunch of discounts and got them for $210 ea plus taxes etc. and I made the switch begrudgingly. Honestly, since I was already going to compromise I wanted the Vredestein HiTrac All Season but they weren't available at the store (about $250 more in savings).
First impression, regular road noise is the same. However, there is a "new" hollow noise that now seems to echo at some speeds. Kind of like a cave/tunnel/empty-tire-bounce noise that is there but not too intrusive.
Second, efficiency, still brand new but luckily had to drive from the airport to work and thanks to Teslafi I have something to compare. At Avg 65mph, 82F they achieved 263 Wh/Mi using 12.6 kWh. This is by far the highest consumption logged. Maybe it will improve later once they break in but I'm not too hopeful. Of the six previous drives, all were at ~215 Wh/Mi, avg 62 mph, 74F using ~10.2 kWh. Will keep monitoring and updating as I rotate them.
Finally, not really convinced there's a product out there yet that is high efficiency with >50k Mi treadwear. All the other "EV" tires are up to 50k and with how this car drives, I'm thinking we'd get around 40k at best. Crucially, they're more expensive. The question is, will the overall savings of the Defender 2 compensate for the increased inefficiency? For city driving it seems to be ok but got a road trip to MO coming up and I wonder how they'll do.
Living in South Texas and driving mostly highway commutes with a 2022 M3LR that came with Michelin MXM4. Those tires lasted 14 months and 29k miles and were down to 2-3/32 even while rotating them every 6k miles. Replacing them was $300 ea and seemed too expensive for that kind of life. Up to this point, had achieved average efficiency of 249 Wh/Mi and was trying to get an equivalent tire for less. Finally walked into a Discount Tire and they were promoting the Michelin Defender 2 (with 70k mile warranty) as "ideal" for the Tesla M3. Gave me a bunch of discounts and got them for $210 ea plus taxes etc. and I made the switch begrudgingly. Honestly, since I was already going to compromise I wanted the Vredestein HiTrac All Season but they weren't available at the store (about $250 more in savings).
First impression, regular road noise is the same. However, there is a "new" hollow noise that now seems to echo at some speeds. Kind of like a cave/tunnel/empty-tire-bounce noise that is there but not too intrusive.
Second, efficiency, still brand new but luckily had to drive from the airport to work and thanks to Teslafi I have something to compare. At Avg 65mph, 82F they achieved 263 Wh/Mi using 12.6 kWh. This is by far the highest consumption logged. Maybe it will improve later once they break in but I'm not too hopeful. Of the six previous drives, all were at ~215 Wh/Mi, avg 62 mph, 74F using ~10.2 kWh. Will keep monitoring and updating as I rotate them.
Finally, not really convinced there's a product out there yet that is high efficiency with >50k Mi treadwear. All the other "EV" tires are up to 50k and with how this car drives, I'm thinking we'd get around 40k at best. Crucially, they're more expensive. The question is, will the overall savings of the Defender 2 compensate for the increased inefficiency? For city driving it seems to be ok but got a road trip to MO coming up and I wonder how they'll do.
