Michelin has launched a new tyre range that places comfort and quietness at the top of its list of attributes… And it's unique to this part of the globe
Michelin doesn’t launch a new family of tyres every day. In fact, the French tyre giant has a remarkably compact passenger-car tyre line-up. Indeed, in the face of complex ranges from other tyre brands, Michelin limits its passenger car tyre range to just a couple of tyre families – although they’re all available in a comprehensive range of sizes.
When it comes to conventional ‘middle of the road’ cars, it’s the Primacy range that flies the Michelin flag. Designed to fit the likes of Toyota’s Camry and Aurion as well as European prestige cars and a range of near-premium models, the Primacy is sold around the globe – both as OE (original equipment) and aftermarket replacement rubber.
The latest version of the Primacy is the Primacy 3 ST. And for the first time, it’s a tyre that has been designed, developed and built specifically for Southeast Asia (including Australia). The product of Michelin’s Thailand-based plants, and with development and design shared between the brand’s Thai, Japanese and French operations, the Primacy 3 ST, places comfort and quietness at the top of its list of attributes.
ST, Michelin says, stands for Silence Tuned. Developed especially for the auto tastes of the region, key to the tyre’s raison d’etre is the concept that driving should be “a break from the chaos” of everyday life.
Specification, construction and chemical compound are unique to the region. Indeed, although it was developed in parallel with the European Primacy 3, the 3 ST differs in most aspects – not least of which is the 3 ST’s unique tread pattern.
The completed just-in-production tyre is the product of countless computer simulations, and also of a claimed 1.3 million kilometres of on-road in Malaysia and Thailand.
The end result, claims Michelin, is a tyre that is eight per cent quieter than the Primacy 3 LC it replaces, yet dynamic qualities have not been sacrificed. In fact, Michelin’s engineers and testers say the new tyres yield improvements on-road. Chiefly among these is significant wet-braking improvement (1.6m shorter stopping distance from 70km/h over its predecessor and up to 2.9m when compared to an average of its direct competitors, claims the French giant), at least comparable dry performance and an increase of tyre life of over 25 per cent.
Michelin uses a number of proprietary technologies in the Primacy 3 ST to achieve the improvements. In layman’s terms, they are described as follows:
>> The tyres feature a unique tread pattern with a range of tread block sizes to spread the noise generated over a spectrum of frequencies. Called ‘EvenPeak’ by Michelin, the technology also has benefits in water-clearing on wet roads.
>> FlexMax is Michelin’s term for the particular characteristics of the compound it uses which yields both comfort and mechanical grip benefits.
>> CushionGuard defines the 3 ST’s tyre-wall construction which, says the company, yields both comfort and durability benefits. This allows the tyre to both absorb small bumps and cope with pothole-style big hits on the bad road surfaces common to both Australia and SE Asia.
>> And finally, Stabiligrip is a Michelin-only feature which moulds an interlocking band into the tyre mid-tread which limits individual tread block distortion under hard use. This feature ‘reinforces’ the tyre in dry use but equally allows the tyre grooves (sipes in tyre language) to stay open and drain water under duress in wet conditions.
The new tyres are fitted as OEM equipment on Honda’s latest Accord. Michelin says it’s likely that other OEM fitments will be announced, including European models destined for this marketplace.
The company is also working on a run-flat version and says this is a 2014 proposition at this stage.
THAI TESTING
motoring.com.au travelled to Thailand to sample the new Primacy 3 ST. Such is the importance of the new tyre to the company that it set up a fully-staffed temporary test facility from which to tell the Primacy 3 ST story and allow drivers to experience the tyres’ capabilities first-hand.
Michelin cycled around 650 drivers through the program in around three weeks, including a limited number of journalists. motoring.com.au was the only Australian automotive online media to attend the test.
Comparative testing is the name of the game in the tyre world and Michelin claims it picked the best performing of the tyre’s competitors against which to pit the new Primacy 3 ST. Its own trials indicated the Bridgestone Turanza GR50 was the top rated non-Michelin tyre in terms of wet and dry braking and handling. The Thai noise and comfort testing was carried out with the Primacy 3 ST pitted against the Yokohama Advan dB.
All tyre pressures were as per the car manufacturers’ placard. In the case of the Camrys we drove for the wet and noise testing, this meant 32psi. Michelin provided gauges for us to check their bona fides. We took this as proof enough and handed the gauge back. Call us gullible.
TYRE BONANZA
The venue for the 3 ST launch was the elaborately-titled Bonanza International Raceway. A very tight and twisting layout that will likely have some issues when it comes to safety homologation (due to run-off concerns – there weren’t any!), it was like a mini version of Salzburgring and runs up the two sides of a narrow valley.
One end of the sub-2.0km track featured ‘nested’ corners that require concrete walls to separate the sections of track. Not a good place to run out of talent, we’d wager.
Michelin limited the opportunity for testers to drive the track in its entirety (and potentially run out of said talent). Instead, it built wet and dry test areas at the opposite ends of the track, while in the pit area and apron there was the noise and comfort test zone. The noise and vibration test was complimented by a road drive. And yes, we did see elephants!
Though the road drive was, frankly, a waste of time (save for elephants viewed), the track exercises were anything but.
Back to back, with the Bridgestone GR50s, the P3 STs were immediately more confidence inspiring in the wet testing.
There was marginally more grip than the competitor on the partially-wet 65km/h constant-radius section of the test zone and the advantage was pushed home as the radius tightened and the track became fully wet. Here it was easy to feel both tyres ‘push’ into understeer but it was the Bridgestones that broke away earlier and recovered later.
A hard flick left and then right at 75km/h on the dry track between wet zones got both tyres sliding in the non-stability-control equipped Thai-market 2.0-litre Camry test car. Here the effect was more marked on the Bridgestone car and a fair degree of wheel work was required to tame that particular Toyota. Not so with the Michelin equipped car – in contrast, it barely wagged its tail.
The final wet test was a panic stop on fully (streaming) wet surface. Michelin data-logged every stop on the day and delivered the average distances at the day’s end. True to the claims made in its press briefing, the average distance to stop the P3 ST-shod Camry from 70km/h was 2.3m shorter than the Bridgestone equipped car.
We can vouch from our own experience that while both cars triggered their antilock systems in these emergency brake applications, the Michelin-shod car seemed to require significantly less computerised intervention.
Dry testing saw the margins between the tyres reduced and the results were less obvious. Driving back-to-back in Volvo S60s, we tackled a 75km/h small-radius bend, an aggressive lane change and a conventional slalom starting from around 60km/h.
On the 75km/h corner, there was a touch of difference, in the Bridgestone’s favour, on initial turn in. This was quickly negated, however, by the need to wind on more lock to get the car to turn at the same radius. In contrast, once committed, the P3 ST equipped car held a tighter line and in extremis we were clearly able to grab throttle earlier.
This test is not a measure of extreme tyre performance, however, so the extra stability of the Michelin tyred car in the aggressive lane change would be of more importance to most mum-and-dad tyre buyers. The manoeuvre barely troubled the stability control of the P3 ST equipped S60, but the Bridgestone Volvo was grabbing brakes and killing throttle at a rate of knots.
Maintaining this strong dynamic ability and hitting targets for quietness is what the P3 ST is all about, says Michelin. The French brand makes no apologies for the fact that this tyre was designed to increase comfort – hence the name Silence Tuned.
The test to demonstrate this commitment to comfort was simple – cables laid down across the test car’s path like road counters. Driving across them at 40km/h allowed us to check out how much noise and vibration reached in the cabin.
In test Camrys, the difference was far less dramatic than in the dynamic trials, but there was a difference. While the Yokohama dB equipped car was admirably smooth and quiet, the Michelin car tangibly attenuated road shock. Also noticeable, quite literally from its absence, was a resonance present in the Yoko-tyred car over the cables. Think of the difference between a snare drum and a bass drum and you’ll get the idea.
AUSSIE CONNECTION
Primacy 3 ST will be launched into the aftermarket in Australia in a range of sizes to fit local and imported medium and large cars with wheel diameters ranging from 15-19 inches. Extensive fitment options will be offered in particular in the important 17 and 18-inch sizes.
Michelin says it’s confident that the tyres will be well suited to the local marketplace, despite the fact no development testing took place in Australia.
Ex-pat Aussie, Michelin’s Product Marketing Manager Southeast Asia and Oceania, Pierre Azemat says particular attention was paid to finding coarse-chip surfaces similar to Australian roads during the tyres’ on-road development in Malaysia. According to Azemat, specific coarse-chip testing also took place at Michelin’s test facility in Japan.
“It’s true Australia has some pretty average roads, but overall Malaysia proved to be an ideal test location. We’re able to test on a cross section of roads with surfaces and speeds that approximate to Aussie conditions,” he said.
The Michelin Primacy 3 ST is on sale at Australian Michelin dealers now. Prices start from $177.
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