marousek

Hey there,

I have been on this forum for a while, but so far just as a silent reader. But today its finally time I have something constructive to say......

I got a call from the service manager at my Acura dealer and we had a brief chat about my feedback for the last service. They did great, but I did tell him that I hate the tires since the first day I drove in a rainy weather. He said that they are aware of the premature wear on these tires and the low performance on anything but dry pavement. He said that he heard that Acura may be finally doing something about it in the very near future.......

My question is....Did any one of you hear anything liek this?

I would be a happy camper if they swapped the tires for something decent.......

Otherwise I love my car!

2005 TL, SSM, 6MT

K-80-123

When I picked mine up from the Dealer this week I had them trade the tires out before I picked up the car...He said they have had several people doing the same thing... He also thought Acura would doing something about it in the near future....no idea if its true but it was said.

georgeny

I haven't seen or heard anything and I doubt if it will be a big deal. They will probably pro-rate tires and issue a limited credit against buying a new set that they will overcharge for if they follow the standards of other tire situations.

Don'tt get me wrong, these are crap tires and horrible to drive on in the rain. I have 19 k on them now and will replace them soon if I don't trade, I have 2004. Are they still putting this crap on 2006's ? If so and I do trade the dealer will be footing the bill for different tires or not making the deal with me. Great car, shitty tires.

marousek

K-80-123 did they replace them when you were buying it? I pushed the price down hard, so they were no willing to swap them for me when I was buying my TL. (I did hear about the issue before I bought it.) Now I kind of regret not pushing it harder.....but it did seem like they were going to do something about it.......

the pro-rating of the wear or whatever is bull%$^& if they do that .....doesn't do anything if I still have to run another 15k on the slippery tires......

Anyone here from Acura or a dealer that can confirm what I heard from my dealer?

mio

r they going to recall the BRIDGESTONE EL-42 ONLY? the 05 michilin is fine, right?

marousek

Yes, my chat with the dealer was about the Bridgestone's "stepchildren" that nobody wants.....

In general I think everyone is happy with the Michelins......

K-80-123

Yes they replaced with Toyo 245/45 Proxy 4 at no additional charge....I cut this deal after we got the price of the car down to where it needed to be for me...btw I paid $31,000 OTD for 06 without nav and the tire swap....I would not have known about the tires except for this forum and a friend who owns a 04-TL.

jmbnova

What would the dealer swap the tires out to? I am picking up my (new) TL tomorrow and might see if they will swap.... What are you guys getting in return for those EL42s or whatever the hell they are?

K-80-123

My car came in Monday on a truck from KC it had 10 miles on it and most of that was going to the tire shop...the dealer did say the tire shop kept the bridgestones...I went with the 245/45 toyo proxy 4 to so the tire is slightly wider than the rim...thought it might keep the road rash down on the wheels...so far I like the tires and the tread pattern...

marousek

Sounds great. I would even be fine with the stock Michelins. Hopefully they will do something. I will definitely ask again Saturday when I take the car in to see when and if anything is coming. He sounded pretty sure.....but so far no confirmation from any others here......

I have to take it in anyways.....car pulls to the left above 50 or so.....sux!

bluenoise

My 04 is coming up on 30k miles in the next week and my EL42s are nearly bald on the outer edges. While I hate the necessary expense of new tires, I am certainly looking forward to putting better rubber on there. We just got our first rains and it's like driving on ice with these turd-donuts. It would be nice if Acura gave me a deal, but I don't expect one as I've put all those miles onto them.

JetJock

I had the High Performance tire option when I purchased my "04 6mt TL. After a few months I had a problem with one tire so I replaced all 4 with Michelin PS-2's. They were very expensive but all I can say is the money was well spent. They ride better, handle MUCH better, are quieter and well worth the money. My only regret is paying extra for the RE-030 tires. I should have taken the standard tires, then dumped them for the PS-2's the day I took delivery of the car. These tires are MADE for the TL. They seem to have been designed specifically for the TL. They are THAT good.

TLVR

I changed over to Kumho ASX when the EL42 were at 20K, had maybe 2K miles left . To me personal safety was the main reason. I was not going to jeopardize my life on slippery, rain soaked roads. Yes, ticked me off to have to shell out the extra $$ so early but peace of mind is worth so much more. Here in S.Florida its too easy to hydroplane on marginal tires-and the EL were an accident waiting to happen. Now the ride is rock solid during the worst rain storms and much quieter as well.

marousek

So it sounds like a lot of you guys to the plunge and paid to replace these damn "skates". Well, I will see what they say Saturday......

I will keep you guys posted....

riored3

The stock Bridgestones were crap. A big disappointment. They not only were bald at 26,000 miles, but flat spotted when the temperature was below 50 degrees. I replaced them with the Toyo Proxes4 , 235/45 's. They have more sidewall, so it is not a problem with curb rash. They ride quieter and give a better ride. I can't believe that such a great car came with second quality tires.

ericajackhannahjamie?

not all the stock tires are bad... mine are still stock. It's an 04...

blktl1

How many miles do you have? I put like 12k on them and they wer pretty much shot.

marousek

Well, first things first. TheMainEvEnt , whoever is on that picture on your profile, (is it you?).....is a very beautiful woman.

Sorry.....had to say it

As to the tires.....you said they are not that bad. And you even have the older once with the original formulation. Did you never have issues driving with them on wet/icey roads? I would think NJ gets some foul weather on occasion.......

shockwave

AGGGGGHHHH!

Did you hate the RE-030's that much? I selected the 'high perf tire" option for my 06 6MT that is on order. I have heard that they are still using the RE-030's for the HP tire option, can anyone confirm this?

At this point I may just delete that option, buy some Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3's or Dunlop SP 9000's, and have the dealer throw them on when the car gets here.

Advice?

HEK

ditto. I drove 2.5k in a week and 1/2 the distance was in pouring rain/ roads with small streams on them and can say that I felt confident not feeling I was hydroplaining...I had Michelins Pilots on my RSX-S and swapped them at 200 miles with Nitto's Extremes, excelent tires in snow/ rain but a little noisy, wouldn't mind changing these with a set of Nittos but ...can't find a good reason yet..

need4spd

Sorry for the big photo and long post, but it is needed to to show detail. Also the photo was taken after a drive in salt/snow.

In order to supply Acura with an inexpensive OEM tire that had sharp turn in and response in dry conditions, they sacrificed wet and snow traction in the process and put you at risk while driving in these conditions. Acura’s test criteria for the tires on the 04TL was only dry performance. So they got what they tested for and nothing more.

IMO Bridgestone is playing a game with the public, they supply tires to OEM makers at low cost and charge big $’s for replacements to recover their money, and in the process, fool John C. Public that they are a great tire, and get their name on many cars as OEM tires to regain their status after the Firestone fiasco and be used as “Mini” billboards on the cars.

Anyway, back to the tire itself (this applied to an EL42 used on the 2004 TL, other years may have changed tread design):

To get better turn in, skid pad results, and response, using a low cost “Touring Tire” in a performance tire application they made the following changes to the standard EL42 construction VS other automaker applications (remember, before the TL, the 235/45-17 tire did not exist for the EL42)

1. The decreased the overall tread depth to 9/32nds vs. the industry standard of 10/32nds for all season tires (some all seasons are 11/32nds such as pilot sport a/s or even 12/32nds Turanza LS-Z as examples). By reducing the overall tread depth by 1/32nd, they reduced tire squirm, which improves response, turn in, skid pad, etc. Performance tires that are prepared for racing tires are usually saved to ½ tread depth for the same reasons. At 2,000 miles, my EL42’s had only 8/32nds tread depth (new ones measured just shy of 9/32nds). See blue area in photo.
2. Note, the radial groves in tires (shown in blue) provide all the wet weather traction on the tire (think of the F1 tires that are both wet and dry with only radial grooves.
3. The outside tread block has a cross cut that is not continuous to the first radial groove (as on the 745i EL42 tire, and other EL42 tires). This is specifically done to improve the performance of the EL42 in cornering and skid pad, but at the expense of SNOW traction. (See YELLOW area on photo). The cross tread cuts on the outer edges of the tires provide much of the snow traction of a tire, and in the case of the TL EL42, approx 1/3 of that is filled in with rubber, so guess what, snow performance is in the tank with this design.
4. The cross cuts throughout the tire are 5/32nds of an inch as shown in red on the photo. As indicated in 3 above, these provide the snow traction of the tire, and at 5/32nd of an inch, are at the point where snow tires are no longer considered suitable for snow use. For snow, you want the deepest tread depth possible, and many snow tires are in excess of 12/32nds of an inch (some “performance” snows start at 10/32nd to 11/32nds). Again, this was done to improve the “DRY” performance of the tire to minimize tire squirm, and improve the response of the tire. Again, at the expense of snow traction. This will result in a tire at 5/32nds tread depth that is a solid rib radially around the tire, with no cross cuts for snow traction. This is 3/32nds BEFORE it is at the legal limit of 2/3nds. Also, since the tread becomes solid blocks, the tire will take longer to wear down to 2/32nds and at this point is the most dangerous in foul weather applications. This was also done to extend the tread wear rating, besides better handling.
5. One of the belts is made from nylon, other EL42 tires did not use Nylon. Nylon is prone to provide a memory effect and exaggerate flat spotting of tires and is an inexpensive alternative to other belt materials, however, in defense of Bridgestone, more and more tires have switched to nylon as it’s high temperature characteristics make it shrink and pull together the overall belt package which enhances the high speed rating of the tire at a lower cost.

Remember that the above comparison was done against other EL42 Bridgestone tires with the same speed rating, but in other low profile, large contact patch applications (not against other brands of tires, or other tire types from Bridgestone, so these are the actual changes Bridgestone did to make it specifically to the TL application).

It should also be noted that “All Season” tires are ONLY an indication of the % of void area vs. tread, not how well they perform in snow, or how deep the tread depth is and hopefully that the rubber compound selected is flexible in cold weather. “All Season” does not mean the tires will perform well in snow (same for M+S designation), only those with the snowflake symbol on them mean they are tested for snow conditions.

My take on the whole thing is that the EL-42’s on the 04 TL were designed to provide maximum dry traction, forgoing snow and wet traction.

My understanding is that the tires on the TL were selected by Acura based on the best DRY traction by comparing 3 makers of tires, and it appears that Bridgestone gave exactly what Acura was looking for, nothing more, which is a low cost, all-season tire that performs well in DRY conditions.

Very short sighted on Acura’s part for not considering other REAL WORLD concerns.

Sorry for the long post.

trancemission

can't say she's ever heard that before...

JetJock

Shockwave...I didn't "hate" the RE-030's enough to dump them, but an unfortunate incident with one tire ruined the sidewall. I had the opportunity to replace just that one tire, but considering the miles I already had to the other 3 tires and past experience with replacing 1 tire and using the 3 older tires made me want to replace all 4. Previously on my old Audi, after I replaced 1 tire that had 3500miles, the car never "tracked " properly with the one new tire and 3 old tires.

As for the PS-2's...they are far far superior to the RE-030's. That's why I said I would have taken the stock tires free, then swapped them when I took delivery of my new car and put 4 PS-2's on the car instead of the RE-030's. They are THAT GOOD!! Much quieter, better handling, and best of all....they are more predictable in tight turns, giving the driver a better "feel" for what's going on with the tires. When they start to let loose, the driver has more feel for the road conditions and how the tires are holding. It's a very noticable difference between these two types of tires. The RE-030's are good, but the PS-2's are AWESOME!

PS: I considered the Goodyear, but my dealer told me the PS-2's were much better and the quality control on the Goodyears is very poor. I have a friend with those tires and he's had quality problems getting the tires balanced properly. Also the dealer told me they've had a lot of returns on the Goodyears for quality issues. He said they've NEVER had a PS-2 come back with a problem.

pettydw

After viewing posts on this website for nealy 2 years, nobody has a negative comment about Pilot Sports. The Goodyear F1's in our car size have had complaints about turn-in feel. In general, my experience with Michelins says they seem to stay round, where as other tires tend to go out of round when they get older (lumpy tires are a pet peave of mine). I watched the tire dealer have a very difficult time removing the OEM Michelins from my '93 Prelude due to the tight inside diameter. He said all Michelins were that way, which may explain the roundness factor. Other tire brands I've seen put on were sometimes removed and reinstalled to get a good balance, supporting the tight inside bead theory.

xedap1998

wow..someone really analizing these tires. Yeah i am thinking the same thing as you. All 4 of my tires still have 5/32-6/32 in the middle tread block but close to bald on the out side (both in and out side). I believe the EL42 is custom made for TL and has a poorer treadware rating than most of the other EL42.They have treadwear of 300 while only 260 on the TL

BenM

Thanks for the solid work. I've had my TL since April '04, and got the newer TL's at 10000 miles, with no apparent improvement. Last week in about 2 inches of snow the car was absolutely dangerous, and could barely negotiate going up over a highway overpass. I've adjusted my driving to this lousy tire which is a mistake. I just spoke with Tony, the regional rep for Acura today. Just as others have said his attitude was rude, insulting and condescending, refusing to even acknowledge a hint of a problem. He basically said that unless the NHTSA forces Acura to do something, the customers can go pound salt! I'm to the point now where I have a quote form a Honda dealer willing to buy out my lease for a Pilot and I'm ready to dump the TL on principal (although still dealing with Honda, ironically !

ttliang

i wouldn't dump no sweet TL for no tires or no principle. so they saved $$$ on tires. i think people know that by now. just go get something u like. u know how much $$$ u get to lose on lease buy out? enough to buy you different sets for each conditions, ie snow. summer and all seasons. my . whatever floats your boat. it's ur $$$.