I’ve been running Cooper tires for 20 years. I decided to go to my local tire dealer and give Michelin a try. We purchased 4 Michelin Defender T+H tires for our 2011 Chevy Malibu. The road noise is totally unacceptable. When you get over 50 MPH it is nearly impossible to carry on a conversation with all the noise. I cannot speak to the performance in snow, as there’s no way we can deal with this noise. They may be a great performing tire; however, the road noise is unacceptable. I think I’m going back to Cooper. We’ve had the tires for 3 months now and can’t deal with this any longer.

Just had a set of four put on my 2018 Malibu and they feel great going down the road. I was a little hesitant to buy these because of the few reviews about noise. “NOT true”. I was very relieved to find the tires are very quiet. Especially compared to the original stock tires I had on the car. I would bet that the negative reviews about noise is a result of incorrect installation of the tires. Yep. These tires are designed with an inner & outside. Meaning the tires “have to” be installed on the rim with the side wall of the tire that has a print “INSIDE” towards the car. I made sure to remind the mechanic of this and double check before installing the sets onto the car. I also underlined the print INSIDE with white-out marker. Do this and you’ll be as happy as I was.

I bought brand new winter tires in December. This was the first time I had ever purchased winter tires, but after ten years of driving, I understood it was time to lower the risks of accidents and thought I'd invest in new tires now so that I can save in the long run. Plus, I wasn't really saving when wearing out my all-season every year, so it made more sense to me (finally) to alternate between the two types of tires. The drive in the winter was completely different after installing my winter tires. I can feel the way the tires hugged the snow and gently stopped when I applied the breaks! This was especially important for me since I drive often between Toronto and Montreal where road conditions can be unpredictable in the winter time. I love my Michelin tires!

I bought a set of four Defenders for my 1996 Toyota Avalon five years ago and now have 70,000 miles on them. They still look young and have between 5/32-6/32nds of remaining tread. They ride well, handle well, and will easily go the 80,000 miles as advertised.

I bought these tires two months ago and have been impressed ever since! I immediately noticed a softer/cushier and more quiet ride with my car. And the handling/traction has been outstanding in both wet and dry conditions. The Defender T + H has very deep and wide groves and can cut through standing water puddles with ease. Seriously, the best tire that I have ever used!

I've had 3 or 4 sets of these tires or their predecessor. All lasted longer than their 80,000 mile claim. Most of 'em got past 90,000 miles. I'm shopping for another set right now. The set I'm replacing has a little over 120,000 miles. I kept them @ 44 psi. I rotated them once. The outer groove on the front tires has just reached the Nader bumps.

I bought four tires and had them installed on 11/23/2020. You may wonder, how can you rate them so high after just one day? Glad you asked, for the last 40 years or so, being in the transportation industry, driving passenger cars, luxury buses, tanker trucks (18 wheelers) etc… nothing compares to Michelin tires. They are the best. I have five passenger cars that have been driven 200k plus miles each. When I try other brands I’m always sorry. After you put 50k or 60k miles on a tire, that’s when it’s easy to feel the Michelin difference. They are just as smooth as when you first put them on. Of course you have people complaining about them being bumpy, however that is not the fault of the tire. Let me explain; when I installed new Michelins on the front wheel drive 2007 Chevy Impala, with 176k miles, it was very important to install new struts and shocks first. You may not know that it takes less than 5k miles to destroy a set of brand new tires (make them bumpy) installed on a vehicle with worn out struts and shocks. Along the same lines, make sure to do a wheel alignment. For best results, do the work in the following order: 1. New shocks 2. New Michelins 3. Wheel alignment Next, have you ever thought of why all these tire places want you to rotate the tires? Answer: to sell more tires. It is true (especially on front wheel drive cars) that, when rotated, the tires wear more even. What they will not tell you is this: yes, they wear more even, EVEN FASTER. I have driven Michelin Defenders mounted on the back of a front wheel drive car, for 92k miles, no rotating allowed. Yes, the front tires wore out in 52k miles due to a bad wheel alignment that had nothing to do with the tires. All I had to do was to buy two, not four, new tires for the front and fix the wheel alignment. At 52k miles, the tires on the back hardly looked used and they lasted another 40k miles. If I had them rotated, I would destroy all my tires evenly, even faster. If you are interested in an ultra-smooth ride and spending the least amount of money, buy Michelin tires and carefully read and follow the instructions above. david

I purchased a set of 4 of these for my RDX and was initially happy with them. I have 10K mostly highway miles on them now, and have become increasingly disappointed with the road noise and especially hard ride. i.e. over separations in the road, bridges and speed bumps.

When i bought these they carried a 90,000 mile claim. They have since lowered that to 80,000. I would have been happy to have gotten 50,000. Won't happen. With winter coming I will need to replace these at about 40,000. They do ride well and wear evenly but the mileage claim is very unrealistic.

I bought these in February 2023, replacing a set of Premiere A/S,. I get there will be some handling and ride adjustment . The A/S was fabulous until they got down to 3mls. Even though they only lasted 42000 mile, I would have bought another set, I thought they were that good. The Defenders are like driving offroad tires. Every inperfection on the road surface is felt. I have had vibration thru the steering wheel and rough ride feel throughout the cabin. At just under 3000mi, I had my mechanic go over the tires and the entire front end. He rotated and rebalanced all four tires since there was nothing else he could find. This caused a reduction in the vibration but the ride is incredibly hard. I could have saved a $100/tire and just bought a private brand label for this ride. Clearly I do not recommend these tires