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Goodyear Assurance CS TripleTred All-Season, now gone. Read further down.

EXT4ME

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May 3, 2012
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The time had come to get new tires on the EXT, so today I had a set of P265/70R17 Goodyear Assurance CS TripleTred All-Seasons installed.

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When I bought my used 2004 Cadillac Escalade EXT two years ago, it had a set of worn LT265/70R17 121R Yokohama Geolander AT/S E-Series tires installed.

These tires, while worn, had enough usable tread to allow me to spend money getting other things on my truck back into shape without having to worry about spending any funds on tires right away.

After having spent the last 33,000 miles on the Yokohama's, I was pretty well convinced that I would not be replacing the tires on my truck with the same type that I was removing.

To be fair to the Yoko's, I have no idea how many actual miles were on those tires when I finally got rid of them.

But, having driven on these tires over the past 33,000 miles I can pass along these observations:

It is understood that most E-Series truck tires ride like, well, truck tires.

Especially if they are inflated anywhere in the upper range of their rated capacity.

While rated for up to 50 PSI, I found they gave the best ride at about 40 PSI.

I had the Yoko's balanced and rotated a couple of times, but found that at least one of them had a tendency to make the truck pull to one side or the other if placed on the front.

I rotated the tires until I got the worst two tires on the back and no longer had any pulling issues, so I left them at their positions until it was time to replace them all.

All four of the tires had a fair amount of cupping, which prompted me to get an alignment early on.

I later learned that All Wheel Drive vehicles, like the EXT, can sometimes cause a higher rate of tire cupping than similar two wheel drive or 4 wheel drive vehicles driven mostly in two wheel drive mode.

Since the alignment was almost perfect when I had it checked, this bit of knowledge made some sense.

The Yoko's handled well both on wet and dry pavement and handled an 11" snow we had a couple of Christmas's ago, without complaint.

If I were to list my main reasons for not considering the Yoko's as replacements, I would say first, they were very noisy and second they were rough riding.

The cupping and age could be the main reason for the noise and the higher air pressure and E-Series design could be the reason for the rougher ride.

So I am not going to really hold any of that against the Yoko's, it's just not what I want in a tire.

As to why I chose the Goodyear's, first of all I have had really good service out of Goodyear tires over the past 30+ years. 

I really do not have the need for an E-Series tire because I hardly ever carry much of a load in my truck and I tow my party barge, Sea-Doo or mower trailer very infrequently and over fairly short distances.

I also hardly ever drive my truck off-road and where I live, we may get one or two relatively small winter snow/ice events every year or so.

My main criteria for my new tires was a street-oriented tread design that would provide fairly quiet performance and provide better than average dry and wet surface traction and good stopping ability with a better than average anticipated tread life.

This Consumer's Reports Review pretty much sums up what my research showed and mirrors a lot of other reviews I had read.

I had used several sets of the Goodyear Fortera tires on my Suburban over the ten years I drove that truck, as well as the Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor on both my Suburban and Ford Explorer.

Goodyear phased out the Fortera line, which was the most quiet highway tire I have ever owned, so I switched over to the Wrangler SilentArmor's when the time came for new tires.

The Wrangler SilentArmor's were not near as quiet as the Fortera's and had a more aggressive off-road look to them.

The Goodyear Assurance CS TripleTred All-Seasons are supposed to be the replacement for the Fortera line and so far, they are proving to be nearly as quiet as the Forteras, which is a good thing.

Within a block of driving out of the tire shop's parking lot, I realized just how bad the old Yoko's had been.

I had convinced myself that I was hearing a lot more of the AWD running gear in this truck when, in fact, the majority of the noise I had been hearing was the old Yoko's.

The new tires are very quiet and the ride is much smoother.

The steering input is precise and the truck feels sure-footed on dry pavement.

At this time, I only have about 100 miles on only dry pavement, but at first impression, I am very pleased.

As we get into the spring rain season, I will report back once I get some wet surface driving behind me.

The Goodyear Assurance CS TripleTred All-Seasons have the aggressive street style look I was wanting for my EXT, as opposed to a more all-terrain, off road style of the Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor's that I prefer on my Explorer.

They are quiet and seem to handle very well for the type of daily driving I tend to do most.

I will be watching these tires closely for any of the cupping issues the Yoko's had developed and try to minimize that with more frequent rotations and balancing.

These tires are rated for 65,000 miles, but I never kid myself with those numbers.

I honestly hope to get between 40,000 and 50,000 miles, at best.

If I get that, I will be happy.

Goodyear also claims this tire has an "Evolving traction grooves help maintain confident traction in rain and snow as the tire wears" feature.

I sincerely hope that I do not get a chance to observe this phenomenon for a good long time.

I'll try to keep you posted. 




 
I put the same tire on mine this past summer, I loved them and cant wait to get the summer wheels back on my AV.
 
Good choice they will out last your AV
 
What could I expect to pay for these tires? I have factory 20" wheels and would go with a stock size....

 
What EXT4ME said is true, but they are a on road tire. I had them of one of my cars put 50,000 miles on them and they were still good till my sister wreck it.

 
I paid $185 per tire.

If you buy at an Authorized Goodyear retailer, they often have rebates from $20 to $40 per tire.

The higher rebates usually require you to put the purchase on the Goodyear credit card and the rebates are in the form of a pre-paid Visa card.

I think their last promotion just ended, but they do this a couple of times a year.
 
Z66 BUTCH said:
What could I expect to pay for these tires? I have factory 20" wheels and would go with a stock size....

Swing by the Goodyear website and have a go at their tire selector.

You will be able to see the MSRP price and you can go shopping from there.

I am sure there must be some on-line stores that will give you a better price than the Goodyear dealers, so it may be worth your time to shop the web before making your purchase.

My original plan was to find a set of the 20" Escalade wheels to replace my 17's and to have this tire installed on them.

But that just never worked out.

I think these tires will be a nice look for your wheels.
 
We've had a set of these on my daughter's Taurus for about 5 years now. Last fall I noticed small cracks in the sidewall of the tires. I'm sure it's UV exposure related, since the car sits outside all of the time, but I thought I would throw this longer-term observation out for everyone. I will most likely be replacing the tires this summer due to the age-related cracking.

They have good traction on every surface except deep snow, where they are just OK. In my mind, the directional tread is a minus, since you cannot cross rotate the tires. My daughter does not drive a lot of miles so I will likely go with a cheaper, lower tread mileage guarantee tire next time. It doesn't make sense to buy a high mileage warranty tire if you are only going to use half of the warranty miles before you need to replace them because of age-related issues.
 
I have now logged 7,000 miles on these tires and I am very, very pleased.

They are extremely quiet and smooth and handle like a dream on both wet and dry pavement.

There is no noticeable tread wear, even though I am sure there has to be some.

I really like the street performance look and this size really fits the EXT nicely.

This would not be a good choice for anyone looking for a more aggressive off-road look, however.

So far, I think I will be placing these tires near the top of any future considerations.

Two thumbs up!

(y) (y)
 
I had a new set of these tires put on yesterday.

They weren't completely worn out, but I have a trip down to the coast in a couple of days and don't want any surprises.

These have been some really nice tires.

Quiet, smooth and outstanding traction in wet, dry and the little bit of snow they have seen.

A good on-road tire.

The only complaint I have is they do tend pick up little rocks and hold on to them quite a bit.

But several other brands of tires I have had did that, as well.

The old set had 55,000 miles on them and could have gone another 5K or so if I hadn't had this road trip ahead of me.

About what I had guessed in my earlier post.

I'll take it.

(y)
 
As hopefully the final step in chasing down this current round of noise, I bought and had installed a new set of tires yesterday.

This process has seen me rotate my old tires a couple of times, install new wheel bearing hubs, CV axle shafts and a remanufactured front AWD differential.

A brand new OEM AWD transfer case had previously been installed earlier in the year, not only to address noise issues, but also due to it's age and the need to get it installed before my long time mechanic closed his shop and retired.

All of the hardware changes were due and had been planned for some time now.

With each repair, the noise level decreased, but no single repair got rid of all of the noises I had been hearing for some time.

Every part replaced had either been previously replaced or rebuilt coming up on 100K miles ago.

The AWD transfer case was the OEM original with 230K miles on it.

It had been noisy the entire time I have owned the truck and I had planned to replace or have it rebuilt somewhere down the line.

So, I felt good that the time was right for what I did.

But, there were still some noises that persisted.

With the tire rotations (my old tires were uni-directional so they could only be rotated front to back and vice versa on the same side of the truck) I would get some changes in the perceived location of the noises.

After I installed the final hardware piece, the front AWD differential, I took the truck to my tire shop and had them perform a front end alignment and balance of each old tire.

I was able then to determine that one of the tires on the driver's side was making more noise than the other.

I put the noisy tire on the back and the driver's side front became much quieter.

I shifted my focus to the passenger side and I soon suspected that I was getting noise from each of the passenger side tires.

At first, I was thinking I might actually had just installed a bad front wheel bearing on the passenger front.

But, that just did not seem like a good possibility to me with the wheel bearings being Moog units and they only had a couple of hundred miles on them.

So, as a test, I dropped off the spare tire and mounted it at the passenger front location.

I took the truck on a long road trip consisting of different road surfaces and speeds.

The right front of the truck was much quieter now, but the rear was now more noticeable.

I reinstalled the old front tire and put the spare on the back and repeated my test drive.

Now, the noise had returned to the front and the back seemed to be quieter.

So, it looked as though I had at least three noisy tires.

What bothered me the most, was this set of tires is the second set of P265/70R17 Goodyear Assurance CS TripleTred All-Seasons mentioned in the thread above.

The first set had gone for 60,000 miles with no issues with noise.

Strangely enough, I never had that first set of tires re-balanced or rotated one time the whole 60,000 miles they were on the truck.

The second, noisy set, I had re-balanced and rotated a couple of times along the way.

Mainly because I felt bad about not doing the first set.

The set I just replaced had just over 30,000 miles on them and as such, I did not think they were going to be as big a source of noise as they ended up being when I started tracking down and fixing my noise issues.

I found out last year when I had to buy tires for our 2012 GMC Acadia, that Goodyear no longer makes this tire.

The Goodyear tire I put on the Acadia is performing well, so far, with no noises and they are very smooth.

I had thought that was going to be the next tire for the EXT.

But, I found out when I went tire shopping, that Goodyear no longer makes the tire I had put on the Acadia.

Fine.

So I just began researching for a new set of tires, regardless of manufacturer.

I finally settled on what appears to be a good tire for my needs.

I ended up choosing the 265/70R-17 BFGoodrich ADVANTAGE T/A SPORT LT

IMG_4001.jpg


I purchased these tires and had them installed yesterday.

Immediate major reduction in noise.

The noises I am hearing now are things I haven't heard clearly in a long time like the burble tone of my engine exhaust, wind noise, engine fan noise, a whiny power steering pump and very minor drive train noises, which these AWD trucks are prone to produce.

I can finally confirm that my new transfer case and front differential are virtually noise free.

BFGoodrich claims these are 60,000 mile tires.

With what I have just seen with the Goodyears, also 60,000 mile tires, I would not place any real money on that bet.

I am also happy that these new tires are not uni-directional so I can cross rotate easily, as needed.

Regardless, I am very happy at the moment and I am ready to put this long project to rest for a while.

(y)



 
BainMan said:
So glad it helped with the noise! The tires look good too

Thanks!

I put a couple of hundred miles on them yesterday.

It was so nice to get this issue behind me for a while.

(y)
 
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