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M3LR on Michelin Defender 2

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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.
 
Doh. Just occurred to me this was for summer tires vs AS..on hankook website, only AS has 50K mileage warranty.
Put the ion as on today on my x. Better range than contis for bumper to bumper freeway and local traffic. Best trip planner estimate by a lot. Will go on road-trips next week and see if that still holds. Very quiet and comfortable ride so far. Better than contis over bumps. Not sure about tight turns yet.
 
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Crossposting a nice sorely needed thread and review on this topic.


 
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To bring this tread back to the original topic, any chance the OP or another person with the Defender 2 have an update on use after some break in time or more metrics after multiple drives?
For city driving it seems to be ok but got a road trip to MO coming up and I wonder how they'll do.
Did you happen to go on this trip yet?

I saw this video and Michelin stated that they did testing and the M3 should get 80k on the Defender 2:
They also stated that the OEM ones are for best range and that tire efficiency improves as the tread wears down. So for efficiency comparison, I think it is better to compare when prior tire was new-ish instead of when it has been worn out.
 
To bring this tread back to the original topic, any chance the OP or another person with the Defender 2 have an update on use after some break in time or more metrics after multiple drives?

Did you happen to go on this trip yet?

I saw this video and Michelin stated that they did testing and the M3 should get 80k on the Defender 2:
They also stated that the OEM ones are for best range and that tire efficiency improves as the tread wears down. So for efficiency comparison, I think it is better to compare when prior tire was new-ish instead of when it has been worn out.

Not yet, but I'm at 6k miles with them and they're doing around 254 w/mi just with mainly city driving. This is 5% higher than what I had before, so not too bad. Haven't really noticed a difference on the few trips to San Antonio and Austin from the OEM tires. Felt like I charged as usual after 200 miles or 2.5hrs of driving to whatever the M3 said I needed and kept going.
 
Just noticed new highlands use hankook ion ev tires
IMG_0924.png
 
Just noticed new highlands use hankook ion ev tires View attachment 970393
Hankook is earning their place
Good competition vs Michelin and Bridgestone
Good for us EV owners
I predict EV gen 4 tires in the next 12 months if we consider the ions as gen 3 and pilot sports as gen 2
Will be great to experience treadwear back to the legacy UTQG numbers of 800 vs best we have today of 500 miles and warranties of 80K
 
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Not yet, but I'm at 6k miles with them and they're doing around 254 w/mi just with mainly city driving. This is 5% higher than what I had before, so not too bad. Haven't really noticed a difference on the few trips to San Antonio and Austin from the OEM tires. Felt like I charged as usual after 200 miles or 2.5hrs of driving to whatever the M3 said I needed and kept going.
I was going to ask for an update also. This is not apples to apples, but I got the defender 2's for my Ram truck. I felt ROBBED when I first got them on. Consumed more fuel and mpg went down almost 3mpg.

Now, with around 9k miles on them (1 rotation), I feel like I got a great tire. Smoother, much smoother and quieter than the GY's and.. now I'm getting 3-4 mpg over what I originally was getting with the previous goodyears (that's a 6mpg turnaround from 1st mounting). To top it off.... tread wear is almost non-existent. I can see I "should" get 70k+ out of these. Rotating every 8K miles at Costco.

I had the defenders in mind for my M3LR, which I pick up tomorrow, but will need more from others to see their results. Thanks for your post.
 
Well, haven’t exactly reached 6k miles for a tire rotation or done a long road trip yet (except a couple of hours to San Antonio). Getting close, but going to do an update on the Michelin Defender 2 performance since I discovered some interesting data on Teslafi 😊

Mostly highway commutes for the 5,250 mi since the tires were changed from Michelin MXM4 to Defender 2 in the Texas summer. As the car reports in the trip card, it’s achieved an average efficiency of 257 Wh/Mi. This is a 3% lower efficiency than the “lifetime” average of the Michelin MXM4’s that I had for 29k miles. I’ll update tire tread depth once I rotate them, but they still look very new.

However, this is where it gets interesting, Teslafi data is different from the “trip” data reported by the car and can be shared in a couple of charts below. First, when looking at speed efficiency, we can compare the “lifetime” Michelin MXM4 (blue) usage vs the 5k miles of the Michelin Defender 2 (green):

1694098423262.png


Since it’s based on average speed and I haven’t had a chance for a long fast road trip, there are no comparison points above 70mph. Overall though, the Wh/Mi difference seems to be pretty low at the 50-60mph sweet spot (2%) and even improves a bit above that speed. If we average the differences, it’s 226 Wh/Mi on the MXM4 vs 237 Wh/Mi on the Defender 2, a 5% reduction in efficiency. However, this considers 27k miles for the MXM4s, what happens if we restrict it to the first 6k miles when they were new? Well, we get the exact same results, disappointing! But, what about the end of life of the MXM4s? If we compare it to the last 6k miles used before replacing them:

1694098429636.png


In this case, we average 231 Wh/Mi from the MXM4 vs 237 Wh/Mi from the Defender 2, this is only a 2% difference in regards to the end of life of the originally tires. Also, it's even a small improvement (-1%) at the 55-60mph sweet spot! It will be interesting to see how long the Defender 2’s can hold on to their efficiency before it begins to deteriorate, if it’s for 2/3 of their promised lifetime they might actually be a step up vs the MXM4s! A promised 50k but only 29k for the MXM4s vs a promised 80k on the Defender 2’s (aiming to get at least 60k on them) for a lower price with a negligible efficiency difference, nice!
 
However, this considers 27k miles for the MXM4s, what happens if we restrict it to the first 6k miles when they were new? Well, we get the exact same results, disappointing! But, what about the end of life of the MXM4s?
Great data and thanks for sharing. Just a quick question - did these comparison happen to fall in roughly the same range of months? I've notice weather has some impact to my driving efficiency but it might not be as big of an issue for cars with heat pumps.

In this case, we average 231 Wh/Mi from the MXM4 vs 237 Wh/Mi from the Defender 2, this is only a 2% difference in regards to the end of life of the originally tires. Also, it's even a small improvement (-1%) at the 55-60mph sweet spot! It will be interesting to see how long the Defender 2’s can hold on to their efficiency before it begins to deteriorate, if it’s for 2/3 of their promised lifetime they might actually be a step up vs the MXM4s!
Huh, so your tires became less efficient towards the end of their tread life. That's the opposite of what I had heard before. But perhaps the above note about weather applies as well.
 
Great data and thanks for sharing. Just a quick question - did these comparison happen to fall in roughly the same range of months? I've notice weather has some impact to my driving efficiency but it might not be as big of an issue for cars with heat pumps.


Huh, so your tires became less efficient towards the end of their tread life. That's the opposite of what I had heard before. But perhaps the above note about weather applies as well.
For the first comparison, it wasn't really the same range of months, got the car at the end of February and the Defenders were installed in May. So the MXM4's benefited from spring while new vs summer for the Defender 2's. No idea if heat is better or worse on the tire in regards to mileage.

The second point is what surprised me the most and haven't really seen much info in regards to how these EV tires perform as they wear out. The start and end of life for the MXM4's also fell in the same range of months, between February - May so the weather should have been mostly the same. It makes sense to me that it would be worse because you've worn down the tire's tread. Where have you seen the opposite? Never paid this much attention to tire efficiency before with my ICE vehicle lol but since the data is there, it's just a matter of analyzing it. Kinda a fun aspect of ownership for me ;)

After having the Defender 2's for six months now, I can say that I don't really notice any range or efficiency difference. If it's using more battery it doesn't matter because I just charge at night at home anyway. It would be better to have manufacturers focus on road noise, cost, and mileage warranty instead of "efficiency" for most EV owners. Gimme four quiet tires for $500 that last two years or 50k guaranteed!
 
For the first comparison, it wasn't really the same range of months, got the car at the end of February and the Defenders were installed in May. So the MXM4's benefited from spring while new vs summer for the Defender 2's. No idea if heat is better or worse on the tire in regards to mileage.

The second point is what surprised me the most and haven't really seen much info in regards to how these EV tires perform as they wear out. The start and end of life for the MXM4's also fell in the same range of months, between February - May so the weather should have been mostly the same. It makes sense to me that it would be worse because you've worn down the tire's tread. Where have you seen the opposite? Never paid this much attention to tire efficiency before with my ICE vehicle lol but since the data is there, it's just a matter of analyzing it. Kinda a fun aspect of ownership for me ;)

After having the Defender 2's for six months now, I can say that I don't really notice any range or efficiency difference. If it's using more battery it doesn't matter because I just charge at night at home anyway. It would be better to have manufacturers focus on road noise, cost, and mileage warranty instead of "efficiency" for most EV owners. Gimme four quiet tires for $500 that last two years or 50k guaranteed!
Thanks for Info. I am not a "tires Pro" so I always go with whatever on sales at Costco at that time. They normally "rotate" sales between Michelin and Bridgestone
 
For the first comparison, it wasn't really the same range of months, got the car at the end of February and the Defenders were installed in May. So the MXM4's benefited from spring while new vs summer for the Defender 2's. No idea if heat is better or worse on the tire in regards to mileage.

The second point is what surprised me the most and haven't really seen much info in regards to how these EV tires perform as they wear out. The start and end of life for the MXM4's also fell in the same range of months, between February - May so the weather should have been mostly the same. It makes sense to me that it would be worse because you've worn down the tire's tread
The tread blocks with grooves and holes are there for rain and snow only. Like a race car, grip for completely dry conditions is best with a smooth flat tire surface. They're called "slicks" sort of ironically because it's actually the opposite---most static friction. Unless you hit water in which case....

On normal tires with tread there is some rolling resistance because the tread blocks deform during driving when they touch the ground and are stretched and then come back once the wheel turns. Higher tread blocks (less worn) means more stretch and more rolling resistance.

So new tires are less efficient in rolling resistance. Other parts of tire like the physical compound and other construction also matters for low rolling resistance but generally efficiency increases, as does noise, with more wear. So the new tires being quieter is expected, but being more efficient too is a sign of a technological improvement.
 
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