Your weights of the respective tires are spot on with Tirerack's specs.

I do have a question about the following statement:

"It does not say LRR on the Michelin Latitude Tour tires but they are...."

I'm looking at tires now and visited the Michelin website. Michelin's label for their LRR tires appears to be "Green X". If you look at the spec chart for the Latitude Tours, ALMOST all of them are designated as "Green X" under the category "Fuel Efficiency Features". Tire sizes that do NOT get that designation are few, but they include every tire in the Escape's size, 235/70-16.

Any thoughts?

http://www.michelinman.com/tire-sele...r/tire-details

EDIT: I emailed this question to Michelin and will post their reply for anyone interested.

 

"Michelin's label for their LRR tires appears to be "Green X". I agree, no complaints here with my Latitudes Tours. I'll bet you will not find a better LRR tire for the Escape than these. They like to pick up small pebbles in the tread once in a while when new but turning the steering wheel back and forth a little takes care of that.

GaryG

 

I've had two conversations with a Michelin representative. (Same person, he wanted to research the issue further and called me back.) He has confirmed that NONE of the Latitude Tours available in 235/70-16 have Green X technology. This is consistent with the information I posted above regarding the specifications chart. I still have not received a written response to my email.

 

Gator:

In the process of your conversation with the Michelin Man (not the great big white one), did he happen to give any insight as to if and/or when they might produce a LRR tire in the FEH sizes? Perhaps not the Latitudes, maybe one of their other designs? I'm not in a rush, so one planned for the future is OK, too.

 

so has anyone done an actual comparison from LRR tires to say a non LLR tire in comparison. I bet that non llr quality tire compared to an equal now would yield similar results. this is splitting hairs. I live in harse conditions and averaged over life of vehicle new since new,over 70% over 5000 ft and over 42 MPH.
i spend at least 60% of time in either snow or mostly freezing conditions. i bet a non llr tire versus a lrr tires would yeild almost nil results over the given life of the tire. hipermilers assume we live it less than 5k elevation and never see snow.and we live live in Florida or San Diego

 

I did not discuss that with him. Sorry.

 

Even though the Michelin Latitude Tours (MLT) are apparently not LRR tires per Michelin, as Gary pointed out the fact remains they are lighter than other tires. The MLT tires weigh 29 pounds each. The General Grabber HTS (GGHTS), which is a LRR tire, weigh 34 pounds each, a whopping 5 lbs more per tire and that is unsprung weight. Without knowing, I'd be willing to bet that the 5 pound/tire weight savings of the MLT offsets any LRR technology advantage the GGHTS might have.

 

I don't and most hypermilers don't assume where anyone lives and their weather conditions, we get the news these days. In fact, most hypermilers live in very cold snowy weather during the winter yet still manage to get great mileage. Very few report using snow tires but I'm sure there are times they wish they had them.

Before the Michelin Latitudes for the Escape were available, most news articles were releasing information from Ford that the new Latitude Tours were being special made LRR for the Escape. Up until that time, the Latitude Tours did not come in the Escape rim size and were much more of a high performance expensive tire. From what I seen from the Michelin website back in May of 2008, I thought I was going to have to pay well over $200 each for the new tires when they came out. My friend is the Parts Manager at a local Ford dealership who has an older Gas Escape and a Prius and was trying to get any information he could about the new Escape Latitudes. Michelin and the Ford Parts Warehouse needed a Part number before they could give us any information on ordering them for a spare for my '09 and two front tires for my '05 FEH. They needed a VIN and my '09 had to be built in order to get a part #. As soon as my '09 was built the information was in the computer for parts for my '09 FEH. The Parts Manager then ordered 10 of the new Latitudes from Michelin for me and to have in stock. I get a discount on Ford parts so my price was $159 each.

My new rim for the FEHL spare and the tires came in shortly thereafter and I compared those tires to the ones on my new '09 FEHL and they were exactly the same. I didn't see any marking of LRR on any of the Latitude tires but I knew weight was a big factor in LRR tires. The Latitudes seemed very light and had a thin sidewall so I compare all the weights of the FEH and FEHL tires and rims as stated earlier in this thread. The Escape Michelin Latitude Tours are LRR much more than the LRR Eco-Plus tires that came on our older FEH. Leave it up to the engineers at Ford and Michelin to tell us what we have, not some website or sales person that could not even order my latitudes without my VIN.

GaryG

 

This is strickly YOUR OPINION. I got much better performance, tread-life wise with the Continental Eco-Plus. MPG differece is too small to measure between the Michilin Lattitude Tour and Eco-Plus, making the COST PER MILE much LOWER going with the Continentals.

Conti's lasted me TWICE as long as the newer Michelin's. YMMV.
Michelin Lattitude Tours have done poorly over the highway, which is pretty much all I do ( 90% of my miles ) these days.

Ford simply determined these tires were a good match for the Escape.
The never ever said they were the best tire for the Escape.

 

I answered the question regarding LRR and didn't say a thing about comparing tread life. Why are you attacking my answer? There were many articles written about Ford and Michelin working together developing the new LRR Michelin Latitude Tour tires for the Escape.

"Beyond the major technology upgrades, the 2009 Escape and Mariner development team focused on key details such as tire technology and aerodynamic efficiency to deliver an overall 1 mpg fuel economy improvement, helping make each tank full go farther.

• Escape and Mariner feature new low-rolling-resistance tires, developed in cooperation with Michelin.
  The new 16-inch Michelin Latitude Tour design features a unique mold design, reduced weight and a new-generation tread pattern optimized for reduced fuel consumption."
• http://www.ford.com/about-ford/news-...ed-power-28223

Please get your facts straight!

GaryG