Michelin Premier A/S: A Good Tire Makes all the Difference
At the crack of noon, I entered the empty parking lot where Michelin was demonstrating its latest tire, the Premier A/S. A track made of cones had been set up, and four different cars were waiting to be ‘’dynamically driven’’.
While we all know that a good tire can make the difference between narrowly avoiding an obstacle and smashing right into it, those rubber cylinders are frequently ignored. Since they are the only thing between your car and the road, it is very important to choose the right tire for your driving style.
It is usually very hard to compare two tires. When you put a fresh set of rubber on your car, it's usually because the old ones were done, so whatever new tires you put under the car are going to feel so much better. That’s why I was thrilled to be able to test two examples of the same car, on the same track, one equipped with the Michelin Premier A/S, and the other with its competitor, the Goodyear Assurance TripleTred.
A quick briefing on the proper seat position by Carl Nadeau, professional driver and Michelin’s expert driver, and we are off on the wet track in a Kia Optima equipped with Goodyear Assurance tires. I had to learn the track, and get a feel of the rubber.
We then take the Premier A/S –equipped car. The difference is easily discernable in the first seconds… Especially since those first instants are spent accelerating to 80 km/h, and then slamming the brakes! The tires stay firmly planted on the ground, and record much shorter stopping distances than the competition. They are also very stable in the sharp S-shaped turns, easily transitioning from left to right. They are in fact so planted in turns that this journalist thought he was a real race driver… Just before a close encounter with a cone!
And the best part is that, however good the Michelin Premier A/S may be in sporty driving, it’s not a high-performance tire. It is designed to offer a safe drive under all conditions, even after thousands of kilometers. One of its innovations are the lateral grooves, designed to get the water out: they get wider as the tire wears, so even with only 50% of tread remaining, stopping distances stay the same. The Premier A/S also comes with a 100,000 km warranty.
Carl had one last surprise for us: I was to drive the same track, but this time with winter tires! Even with the excellent Michelin X-Ice, the few laps I did were enough to convince me that you should never use a winter compound in the summer, whatever the reason. Braking distances were almost 2 car lengths longer than with the all-seasons, and turning performance on the wet track was awful. You could hear those poor X-Ices agonizing, while the Premier A/S remained quiet in the sharp turns.
With a good tire (and careful driving!), your car will remain on the road, whatever the conditions!