1997 Cadillac Seville Luxury Sedan (SLS)

My Experiences With Tires

Over the past several years, this car has had a few sets of tires mounted, and all have been Michelins. It's my experience that Michelin tires are the smoothest tires you can find, and I've never been disappointed with a Michelin tires (unlike other brands). So far, this particular car has had two sets of the Michelin Pilot XGT H4. My thoughts about it are below. Click the picture(s) to access Michelin's website.

UTOG Ratings: 400/A/A
The Pilot is Michelin's sporting tire offering, with several different models in the Pilot line designed with different priorities in mind. The XGT H4 is the mildest of the Pilot tires, but in my experience still delivers a good blend of performance, all season traction, and tread life. I replaced the first set of these with 38,000 miles, due to an irreparable puncture in one. With less than 25% tread on the rest, I elected to replace all four. As of this writing, all four are at 5/32" of tread, and they're sitting at about 33,000 miles. On such a heavy car, and with a tire that's only rated 400 for tread life, I think the mileage we have gotten from either set is satisfactory. At that wear rate, I could possibly get as many as 20,000 more miles from these until I hit the wear bars, but I generally replace tires far before that ever happens. I expect to replace them by Summer 2005.

UTOG Ratings: 680/A/B
I'm looking at the X Radial tire as a good replacement to the Pilots. The Pilots have more capability than I use them at, and I'm paying for that capability with the tread life. I generally get 100x the UTOG treadwear rating on a set of tires, and I'll probably get that on the Pilots when I replace them (40,000 miles). With that in mind, I might see 70,000 miles out of a set of X Radials. I'm also looking forward to even more road isolation and comfort, and more snow traction due to the heavily-siped tread design. On top of all that, the X Radials are at least $100 cheaper on the set from Sam's Club than the Pilots are. The X Radial is sold exclusively through membership warehouses like BJ's, Costco, and Sam's Club, so don't look for them at a Michelin dealer. I believe these are functionally equivalent to the Harmony, which is available at Michelin dealers.