I grew up driving in Minnesota Snow. By the time I owned my vehicle, we always purchased all-season radial tires and never used snow tires. Fast forward to 4 E-Series vans, Michelin LTX AT/2 is hands down the winner for my family. I buy tires for 80% of the road conditions that I drive on. Even though Michelin deems these tires as "all-terrain", they ride more like high-quality pickup tires made for daily driving. We drive cross-country every year and experience heavy rain, mud, and occasional snow. The tires that JWA is suggesting seem like a good solution for your driving. If my current Michelin LTX A/T2 tires were not in such pristine condition with 50k plus miles, I would buy those tires. They will do the job in the snow. I have owned 3 4x4's and turned around if the conditions were too dangerous. Most roads these days have adequate snow plowing service plans.

I may be Michelin biased but anything less than Michelin's on my E350 is disappointing to drive. One point that I should mention is the worst performing tires ever in my life were Michelin LTX P-rated tires on my E150 van. They lasted 24k miles and had severe cracks after 2 years of use. Pathetic! I believe LT tires are in a different league.

 

I guess this is sorta like a motor oil discussion? A lot of good input, but varying experiences?
I appreciate the replies and background.
Looking into details, the Agilis Cross-Climates have the same load rating (2680 lbs) as the the other "LT" tires in the 225 size.

I had a set of the "P" LTXs on my Mountaineer (provided free by Ford due to the Firestone recall)... never put a tire wrong in over 60k miles (was awd, very sure-footed vehicle), and still had tread after 100k miles of use (badly cracked by then - but it was no longer mine).

 

What are the LTX tires? Car tires? Or are the Cross Climates car tires? As a possibly interested future buyer...

I bought tires from Tire Rack once, about ten years ago. I found that it was better to buy at the installer, also. The tires were fine, but sometimes the 'discount' isn't worth it. I'd rather find a good local shop.

 

In Michelin's case the "LTX" designation is considered a more heavy duty tire, something suited to an almost full-on commercial grade tire.


That's kinda my findings as well, doing very cursory research by comparing final cost once they're installed, mounted and balanced. Tire Rack has almost never been competitive with local tire shops I deal with as needed. That's assuming we're comparing the same brand, type, size etc etc.

 

In this case, Michelin seems to use/has used LTX on a number of different tires. Unless I misunderstand the system:
Tires designated with at "P" are passenger vehicle. (The ones on the Mountaineer were regular "P" tires. Our E250 uses "LT". The load ranges/ratings are also different)
"LT" designates use on light trucks.
"C" is something new-ish, intended for cargo vans.

there are also other ratings/considerations, are you familiar with the UTQG ratings/markings?
try this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code

 

Since cargo vans like Transit, Sprinter and ProMaster have become popular the "c" designation might be reserved for that type/configuration? At any rate the Wiki-Tire page is fairly extensive, a great resource of information on tire designations. and external markings. Thanks for sharing the link!

 

I am familiar with those different indicators (never heard of "C" though), but got confused when you mentioned Passenger LTX. It made me wonder just how Michelin was using that. They do, after all, use three letters for many tires, and I certainly don't know what the letters mean. That is a great link, thanks for sharing it!

 

I wonder sometimes if we (the consumers) are supposed to understand? The combinations of letters seem to vary all over the map.
Without loading another photo of the poor Mountaineer after that winter ride... those particular tires were labeled "MICHELIN .... LTX M/S" in raised white letters (as noted, they were installed by Ford at $n/c as a result of the Firestone tire fiasco/recall back in the very early 2000's)

I had never heard of the "C" designation until a few years ago when the Transit vans first came out... I saw those little [what looked like] donuts on a high-roof T250 and wondered, what the heck???

 

Choice made. Tires installed.
Thanks to everyone for their input
Major factors were: available test data, poor snow performance of previous tires, past experience with brand, and detailed info on the FTE forum
Secondary factors - for bonus points - tires made in USA (according to internet) shopping local at a trusted store, and sticking with OEM size (did not increase tire weight).
Unfortunately, with the above process, price could not be highly factored in.
Michelin Agilis CrossClimate, LT225/75-16. I'll try to remember to report back after we get some miles on them.

 

Price sometimes has to become second or third in the list of what's important----considering your final choice you did the right thing. I still personally think buying local is the best bet especially if warranty or service ever becomes necessary.

I'd be interested in the longer term reports of the CrossClimate Agilis version of Michelin.

 

This is the 4th set of tires that "I" have purchased from that shop in the last 18 months... a set of Continentals for my company vehicle D.D./set of Generals for one daughter/set of Generals for my Mom's Taurus/ and now these for the big guy.
It's about as "local" as you can get... 3rd/4th generation family business. I'm pretty sure that I bought my first tires there in 1975 or might have been '76(?)

I've only driven a few miles at this point... but these don't seem any noisier than the Generals (HTS) that we took off. We'll see how this year goes and if we get any serious miles added.
FWIW, due to our low "annual mileage accrual", getting "fresh" tires was very important as well. I sent a message to the guy on ebay with those "take-offs" asking about the date codes, but never got any reply. That sure looked like a sweet deal.

JWA - Thanks again for all of the help.

 

I have a report after a couple of months and this one day of "hard use"

We've only still got maybe 2k miles on the tires, but I tortured them on a Tour with the Lehigh Valley Shelby Club. We couldn't get the logistics to work to take one one of the cars, but we decided to participate in the event anyway.
Thus we drove the van on the Tour portion of the event, chasing all manners of high-performance blue-oval machinery on narrow back roads for the day ... with no real shoulder on many of the roads.
The tires performed well carving thru the countryside. I think that they may be a bit noisy (due to the blocky tread?) when cornering hard.
In other use they have been very good including in the wet.

The trailing guy (in his '70 Boss 302) and another guy (2012 Boss 302) thought that I did a pretty good job hustling the old E250 down the road

 

Thanks for the update Mark T-TB---as with most Michelin tires it seems your choice has so far served you well. Honestly I didn't think you'd have any problems or issues with the brand and that seems to be the case with your Cross Climate's.

For my use the "straight" LTX's were the only choice as I run heavy and want what I think is the reliability of that tire designation. At 8,400# my daily driver toolbox-on-wheels somewhat demands the E rating. I've been using Michelin's for upwards of 12 years without any issues. They're long lasting and tend to be replaced due age rather than tread wear. I don't drive a lot of miles---have added about 42K miles on this chassis since it was new-to-me in 2017 so the age thing is a big factor in my case.

Anyway thanks for the update---maybe in a year or so you can add more? Either way happy motoring!

 

@Mark T-TB

After over a year on your Michelin Cross Climate LT225/75R16e tires, now what do you think?

 

Ok, thanks for checking in on me.
We've added about 7k miles to our Van with the Cross Climate tires over the last year... including an 1100 mile round-trip trek north to Oakville (Ontario) - with much of the return trip in the rain.
I am very pleased with the tires, smooth and good bite. I would make the same choice again.
We had a few minutes of extreme highway speeds on the way to and from Canada... no trace of shake or any other issues.
We did not get any snow experience last winter (just firne with me), so nothing to report on that front. I'm not seeing any fuel mileage difference.
Let me know if any specific or other questions.

Mark