[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by HeavyFuelRun

Can I just get wheel alignment done outside? Or is it true that since the car is in warranty, I must do the wheel alignment only through VW service centers?

Yes you can get the wheel alignment done from outside, no issues with warranty. Anyway even if you did upsize to 195 60 R15 only suspension warranty is affected which is for 10,000 Kms/ 6 months only.

Better get the alignment checked at VW. Since your car is new they would fix it free of cost.

[HeavyFuelRun]

Originally Posted by el lobo 6061

Yes you can get the wheel alignment done from outside, no issues with warranty. Anyway even if you did upsize to 195 60 R15 only suspension warranty is affected which is for 10,000 Kms/ 6 months only.

Better get the alignment checked at VW. Since your car is new they would fix it free of cost.

Thanks el lobo 6061 . Took the car to VW anyway, and they checked it out, apparenlty their alignment kit is not up and running yet since they are moving workshops, but after checking he stated that I can drive on and there are no is issues with alignment.

[deoelect]

Changed to XM2s(185/70 R14) a month back. My car came with factory fitted JKs. After driving around 2.5K(including a 1.5K highway drive), I feel that the overall composure of the car has increased remarkably. The tire noise has also reduced a lot.

[lejhoom]

I have been using Michelins (185/70 R13) for Palio Stile MJD. They ran for 75000 km and still there was thread sufficient to run another 5000 km. However, decided to change them because they were already more than 4 years old. Got XM2 of same size, here in Hyderabad. Rs. 5250 each. Manufactured 36/14. A Sony battery charger came free with the tires. I think the prices are certainly on the higher side. A few days back saw an ad in Snapdeal. They were offering the tires for Rs 19000. On enquiry they were found to be manufactured in 2011!

Drove around 700 km so far. The initial feeling was that XM2 tires have better grip than XM1. The thread pattern is also different. On highway, during rains, they certainly inspire confidence.

[csateesh]

It was time to change the shoes for my steed.

The Yoko A drives lasted 53k kms and had still quite some tread left but the road noise was on the rise but performed reliably for 4 years.

It was a toss between Yoko A drives vs. Michelin XM2 and decided to give Michelin an opportunity to show case what she has in store

Immediate observations include

1. Extremely light steering compared to my Yoko A drives and
2. Similar braking

I haven't tested #2 significantly as it is just 20 kms post installation.

Have a few highway runs in the near future and will update the thread with the findings

NOTE : The free charger didn't tilt the decision in Michelin's favour !!

[SR71-Blackbird]

I swapped the tyres of my new punto evo emotion to Michelin XM2 as soon as it was delivered.
The car came fitted with Goodyear duraplus 195/60 R15 from the factory and I swapped them with tyres of the same size.

I have driven almost 2000 kms in 3 weeks on all sorts of roads with these tyres (pot hole ridden roads of bangalore, 6 laned NH from Bangalore to Vellore, twisty NHs and broken interior roads around Shimoga).
The road grip has been awesome and tyre noise is less as well.

But, the inner sidewall of the rear left had a cut a couple of days back. It was ok when I was parking the car at a friends home, but was deflated when I came back a couple of hours back
I am not sure how it happened(the tyre could could have brushed against something when parking as it was very dark) and had to replace this tire with a new one.
Hope this is an one off occurrence and doesn't happen again!

[FrankMartin]

Had fitted 4 new Yoko A drives (155/65 R13) on my WagonR from Lokmanya Pune in 2010,
He had done a decent job then and they had run for about 40K and there was still some tread left, but the sidewall had started to show small cracks, so I though it would be good to get them replaced instead of making a decision in emergency.
For the new set I initially started out with Michelin XM2s , Continental CEC3,
Bridgestone S322's and was not too keen to go for Yokos again.
Was also looking to upsize from 155/65 to 155/70
I stay in Baner and checked out a couple of dealers which included Darshan (Baner-Balewadi), Lokmanya (Karve Rd), Bridgestone (Shree Tyres Baner) and Bridgestone (Deepraj Tyres Bavdhan).
After a long discussion with Rajan from Deepraj Tyres, he offered set of 4 155/70R13 Michelin XM2s for 13K (mfg dt Jul 14) alongwith free wheel alignment & balancing. His quote was the lowest among all the dealers and that sealed the deal.
At that time of the purchase I was not aware of the portable charger offer so that did not influence my decision.
He offered 300 for the old tyres which I was not too happy about, but did not have much room to bargain there.

Have driven for around 250kms now
1. No impact on the steering feel, however the feedback is better
2. Road grip is outstanding and I immediately noticed a significant improvement in the braking distance. Switching from old Yoko As to new XM2s would be a factor but nevertheless the XM2s have better grip compared to the YokoAs
3. Rolling resistance is slightly higher than the YokoA
3. Ride quality has improved a lot and has become very supple.
4. Tight turns are not a problem now, the XM2s feel more confident than the earlier YokoAs. Earlier with the YokoAs i used to feel that there was some lateral slipping.
5. However, as compared to the YokoAs I found some noise from the XM2s when on the highway. In comparison the YokoAs were less noisy if not silent

Will update the thread in a couple of months with more notes

[vipul_singh]

Here is my review on switching over from XM1+ to XM2 (175/65 R 14)


http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post3595974

[Sridhar K]

I switched over from 195/60 R15 Yoko A Drives to 185/65 R15 XM2 on my swift zdi yesterday. Had done 38Ks on my a-drives. There was quite a bit of tread left but I was not happy with the dry grip and breaking. All the tyre had at least one puncture. Planning a high way run in a couple of weeks and wanted to go with better tyres.

Initial observations are as follows
a) Lighter steering (perhaps due to shift from 195 to 185)
b) Better ride comfort
c) Grip similar to a-drives when I first changed to a-drives
d) lesser side wall flex and body roll (most obvious change)
e) noise level are on par with how the a-drives were when they were new
f) breaking is on par with my 38 K a-drives. My break pad needs replacement

Guess it is too early to compare as I should wait for 300-500 kms before the real grip level starts to show up. My brother-in-law's swift had 185/70 R14 xm1 and mine had 195/60/R 15 a-drives and I felt the grip in my brother-in-laws car was better. Each tyre costed me Rs 5600 in Chennai + Rs 600 for alloys balancing. Mouth and alignment was free at GN Tyres in Tambaram Sanatorium.

I wanted to shift back to stock size . The options were earth-1 (5k a piece), XM2, Turanza AR20. Wanted to try something other than Yoko this time. Was tempted to try ZLO though it was not available at 185/65 R15 after reading the ZLO thread here but picked XM2 instead.

[rahulsnh]

A renowned dealer in Bangalore is selling XM2 145 80R12 for Rs. 3125, whereas it is available on internet for 2760. Are margins really this wide or am I missing something? Obviously installing is not difficult.

[khoj]

Could be that margins are indeed that much OR it could be a case of grey imports OR old stock (pre ISI mark). Check with the on line seller as to the date of manufacture, the ISI mark being present and whether he will provide a warranty certificate. You may also want to ask them to send you a copy of their authorisation certificate being resellers for Michelin.

Originally Posted by rahulsnh

A renowned dealer in Bangalore is selling XM2 145 80R12 for Rs. 3125, whereas it is available on internet for 2760. Are margins really this wide or am I missing something? Obviously installing is not difficult.

[csateesh]

Dear BHPians

My initial feedback on XM2

Would like to add my reviews after the 2 400km highway runs

1. Noise levels were significantly low - Didn't even realize when I used to drive over cats eye
2. RPM vs. Speed (posting it as I feel this is related to mileage) - With A drives when I hit 100 kmph my rpm will be just around 2500 but less than that with XM2 it is closer to 2000 mark
3. Comfort - The drive wasn't a magic carpet but definitely better compared to A drives
4. Mileage - I was consistently driving at 110kmph and inspite of than it returned a 1.5 kmpl higher mileage

Driving in the city

Noise levels and RPM vs. speed comparisons are of no use in city driving so my review will concentrate only on comfort and mileage.

Comfort - Much better compared to A drives on the broken tarmac of Bangalore
Mileage - Consistently have been able to clock 1.2 ~ 1.5 kmpl more than my A drives. My car would never exceed 13.2 kmpl in the city with A drives but with XM2 it has been consistently in the range between 14.5 ~ 14.8 kmpl

Overall a big to XM2

Hope this helps fellow BHPians

Cheers

[bharatsomany]

Originally Posted by csateesh

2. RPM vs. Speed (posting it as I feel this is related to mileage) - With A drives when I hit 100 kmph my rpm will be just around 2500 but less than that with XM2 it is closer to 2000 mark

csateesh,
Your findings on RPM are impossible. It's not that I'm trying to be offensive in any way, just honestly stating that it is not possible. For the said RPM drop, you would have to oversize your tyres by 25% not taking into account any additional compression due to the huge sidewall. This is not possible even in the largest of SUVs and even pickup trucks! I am nearly certain that you've taken measurements in different gears. Besides, if the readings are from an in car tacho & speedo, they would have to be the same!
The speedo itself has no direct relation with tyres and has a fixed calibration, after all the drivetrain is mechanically a single operational assembly. Do have a re-look and check if the comparison was done in the same gear.

4. Mileage - I was consistently driving at 110kmph and inspite of than it returned a 1.5 kmpl higher mileage

Mileage is surprisingly better at well over 10% improvement, this is certainly valuable info when comparing tyres commercially. So it would be valuable for everyone to have your feedback once you've rechecked the stats.

[speed_edge]

Hi,

Its 55K on stock and seems right time to upgrade my WagonR tyres. Based on all the discussions on team-bhp I convinced that Michelin - Energy XM2 is the tyres to go for.

Reason for this post is to find out right size for the tyres. I'm currently running on 145/70,R13 and car model is LXi 2008. Below are the options I found from number of posts

Options : size : Wheel width(mm) : Delta to stock(mm)
Stock : 145/70, R13 : 101.5
Option1 : 155/65, R13 : 100.7 : -0.75
Option2 : 155/70, R13 : 108.5 : 7


As you see between option 1 and 2, we get good 7mm additional GC compared to stock in option2. The Qs now I have is, will this additional tyre width result in any friction between wheel and wheel wall? Is 155/70, R13 comes without any other issue in Lxi? Appreciate any comments on this.

Also, I'm from Bangalore and appreciate if you can point to any good dealer who can provide sweet deal. I believe I need WA, WB and nitrogen and that should be part of the deal. On some post I read valve is also something we need to look for, is this something require to clarify with dealer (Like make or anything else)?

Regards
SE

[csateesh]

Originally Posted by bharatsomany

csateesh,
Your findings on RPM are impossible. It's not that I'm trying to be offensive in any way, just honestly stating that it is not possible. For the said RPM drop, you would have to oversize your tyres by 25% not taking into account any additional compression due to the huge sidewall. This is not possible even in the largest of SUVs and even pickup trucks! I am nearly certain that you've taken measurements in different gears. Besides, if the readings are from an in car tacho & speedo, they would have to be the same!
The speedo itself has no direct relation with tyres and has a fixed calibration, after all the drivetrain is mechanically a single operational assembly. Do have a re-look and check if the comparison was done in the same gear.

@bharatsomany - No offense !!

When does a car struggle to gain speed

1. When the weight of the car has increased or
2. The rolling resistance of the tyres - Higher it is the more the engine needs to work on

For me #1 hasn't changed but I attribute the ease of acceleration to be down only to the reduced rolling resistance.

Not once but I validated these measurements multiple times before posting it as I found it too good to be true but alas what you see are facts

Unfortunately I may not have pictures of speed and rpm from my earlier shoes but I can try to post the ones for Michelin.

NOTE : I am not affiliated to any of the tyre manufacturing organizations. Sharing my findings to help others in any which way.