Michelin Defender vs. Continental TrueContact - recent experiences?

@farmecologist is it Ecopia EP20 or EP422 or EP422 Plus you're referring to?

Ignore the following, it's enough to light your hair on fire: The EP422 Plus also come in 3 iterations: a 5 row (from Mexico?), a four row (US?) and another, uniquely different tread pattern (Japan?). All 3 have different load ratings, wear indexes.

 

They are one of the EP422 Plus varieties. I'm not sure which one though...but I have been very happy with the LRR performance.

I was all set to try the Michelin Defenders..knowing full well that I will take a MPG hit. However, the ones at Costco are Defender XT's...and now I'm reading that the XT's might take more of a MPG hit than regular Defenders...arg.


I never though buying tires would be such a research project!

 

I put Defender XT's (Costco purchase) on our son's Civic Hybrid, while he and his wife were on vacation. My limitted experience driving them was about 40 km run out to the airport to pick them up. I'd reset the trip meter, and got pretty good mpg for the trip (for this aging Civic hybrid), and my sense was they were rolling very freely, the car was coasting well. Also, there was nothing about the tires that drew my attention, they felt good, tracked good, relatively quiet, absorbing bumps. I liked them.

 

Well I ended up ordering the the Defenders...We'll see what happens.

 

It's true you will get 7 to 10 mpg hit with truecontact compared with the stock Yokohama tires. But the mpg difference will be narrowed as time goes by. I used to get 57mph and now 54mpg after 700 miles driving. I got the worst 49mpg in the beginning but getting better. The handling is definitely better. And the noise level is somewhat better.

 

I've got Mic Defenders on a VW Golf TDI and love the life I'm getting out of the tread (90k warranty). I have a little over 30k on the Defenders and you can hardly tell that there is any wear. They did not appear to affect the MPG. Was getting roughly 48 mpg and now I still get roughly 48 mpg. Was thinking about getting them for my Prius 2 gen.

 

We have had the mich defenders on our 2010. About 12K on them so far. They are amazing tires as far as treadwear goes. It will be interesting to see how they do this winter up here in the Minnesota snow and ice.

It appears that we are taking a small MPG hit...about 2-3 MPG. I do run the tires at a high PSI so maybe that is why we taking less of a hit than other Prius owners have reported.

 

Are the original Defenders being phased out? Just the sense I get, seems like it's supersceded by Defender T+H. The latter has confounding LRR spec: only some sizes are indicated as "Michelin Total Performance" on TireRack, and 195/65R15 is not among them.

 

I've been watching that also. It appears the T+H has a shorter warranty (80k vs 90k) and Discount Tire indicates a smoother ride. I'm trying to decide do I buy the "P" before they are all gone or believe the claims that the T+H are superior. ????

 

I bought defenders for another car, about a year back, and was a bit dismayed by the manufacture date, one was closing in on two years old IIRC. TireRack right now has them as "close out".

Also a bit dismaying: a tire that looks physically identical, apart from a new name.