Specification Sidewall Radius Diameter Circumference Revs/Mile Difference
295/45-18 5.2in 14.2in 28.5in 89.4in 709 0.0%
295/40-20 4.6in 14.6in 29.3in 92.0in 689 2.9%

2.9% bothers anyone?

Don, you can't compare wear ratings across manufacturers. Wear ratings are relative to a tire picked by the manufacturer.

From Tire Rack:

"UTQG Treadwear Grades are based on actual road use in which the test tire is run in a vehicle convoy along with standardized Course Monitoring Tires. The vehicle repeatedly runs a prescribed 400-mile test loop in West Texas for a total of 7,200 miles. The vehicle can have its alignment set, air pressure checked and tires rotated every 800 miles. The test tire's and the Monitoring Tire's wear are measured during and at the conclusion of the test. The tire manufacturers then assign a Treadwear Grade based on the observed wear rates. The Course Monitoring Tire is assigned a grade and the test tire receives a grade indicating its relative treadwear. A grade of 100 would indicate that the tire tread would last as long as the test tire, 200 would indicate the tread would last twice as long, 300 would indicate three times as long, etc.

The problem with UTQG Treadwear Grades is that they are open to some interpretation on the part of the tire manufacturer because they are assigned after the tire has only experienced a little treadwear as it runs the 7,200 miles. This means that the tire manufacturers need to extrapolate their raw wear data when they are assigning Treadwear Grades, and that their grades can to some extent reflect how conservative or optimistic their marketing department is. Typically, comparing the Treadwear Grades of tire lines within a single brand is somewhat helpful, while attempting to compare the grades between different brands is not as helpful."

 

Don, what exactly is your wheel size? are you running a stagger like I do?

if so, I have not tried them yet but the Yokohama Advan ST are getting rave reviews, seeing as you are in MA. the tour hp's are an all season tire if I am not mistaken and may be a viable option, but lets face it, this is a Lightning and not only deserves but needs the grippiest tire you can get, as Tim mentioned treadwear ratings are very misleading, I can attest from personal experience that the 300 utog rated BFG KDW tires had much nore grip than my current 220 utog rated Michelin Diamaris, thusly the 300 rated yokohamas are said to have tremendous grip.

 

All 4 of my wheels are 20x10, so any of the tires sugested will work fine for me

Tim I know that
The two tires I was compairing were both Michelins, so if they claim one has better wear ratings, I would tend to belive them.

 

Don, what tire are you going with?

God Bless,

Suavy

 

Right now I am leaning towards the Michelin Latitude Tour HP
275/40/20 front
315/35/29 rear

They are both 28.6 overall diameter
the fronts are 10.8 wide
the rears are 12.6 wide

But still open to any sugestions

 

Don, I'm not a tire guru but doesn't Nitto have 555's (not R's) in a 285/40/20, they seem to perform and hold up well, are affordable and look decient.

 

YAAAAAAAA
I ordered the Michelin Latitude Tour HP's today

The price with shipping was a little cheeper than I had thought, they will be here friday or moday. So by next week I will be back on the road.

I will let you know how they ride, and look.

 

Here's what others have had to say about them:

Tire Rack survey

 

There is also this test, on a Porsche Cayenne

Tire Rack Test

You sometimes have to read between the lines in those surveys. What size tires, and what type of vehical. Pitstain sounds like he has been pleased with his Michelin Diamaris, and since there are not a lot of choices in these sizes, I decided to give these a shot. Hell they can't be worse than the toyos

Edit
I was just tracking my order, and had to pull up my order number. When I did that it showed my buying history. It reminded me of when I had my SVT Focus.

Since it came with Continental Sport Contacts, which are a summer only tire, I had to replace them with a set of All season tires. So I replaced them with the same size Continental Extreme Contacts. You would think that because they are the all season version of the same tires it came with, it would be a great replacement tire. Well these tires made the Focus allmost undriveable, so bad that I sent them back, and replaced them with some Pirelli PZero Nero M&S, which drove awesome.

If you look at this Survey, you can see the Continentals are rated higher than the Pirelli's. So you have to take these surveys and tests with a grain of salt.

Tire Rack survey

 

Understood. Just providing some additional data points.

I like the reviews and tests done by Tire Rack itself much better.

 

Let us know hpw you like the Tour HP's Don, Michelin makes a great tire.

 

Thanks
I will let you know how they work out, looks like they may be here by Friday