New Tire Possibility For CX-9: Nitto 850 CUV

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Force-1

Member
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2008 CX-9
Stopped by a Goodyear store today as I'm looking for replacement tires for my CX-9. Clerk showed me a fairly new tire - Nitto 850 CUV. Haven't seen this tire mentioned here.

They are available in 245/60R18 and 245/50R20. Both V rated, 500 UTQG Treadwear, Traction: AA, Temperature: A.

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I was quoted $175 each for the 245/50R20.

Not sure how good they are. I can say that I ran Nitto NT555's on my BMW 540i, and they were great. A lot of Corvette guys run the Nitto Invo on their Vettes, and I've heard nothing but positive feedback from them.
 
Looks like a good dry & wet tire with long lasting UTQG and a price to match.
My only concern would be about ice & snow performance, if that matters to you.

Personally, I rely on tire reviews from many owners on tirerack.com. I am more reluctant to try new tires, because it is usually a $700 experiemnt that one might regret later.
 
Just spoke to a local Ford dealer, and they sell them for $155 a piece. I may just do it next week. Since the vehicle will be turned in at lease end this November I don't care about ice/snow handling (though I really don't anyway here in Albuquerque).
 
So, I decided to be the Guinea Pig. Had (4) 245/50R20 Nitto 850 CUV tires installed today.

The first thing I noticed is they are very quiet, and it rides nicer. It was only about 12 miles from shop to my house though, so just first impression. I did get up to 70 on the interstate and they rode perfectly straight, no shimmy, and quiet.

Cost me $700 OTD.

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tstex said:
Force-1, what is the estimated distance you are supposed to get out of these tires?

thx
Click to expand...

Not really sure--this should explain why.

Treadwear Grades

UTQG Treadwear Grades are based on actual road use in which the test tire is run in a vehicle convoy along with standardized Course Monitoring Tires. The vehicle repeatedly runs a prescribed 400-mile test loop in West Texas for a total of 7,200 miles. The vehicle can have its alignment set, air pressure checked and tires rotated every 800 miles. The test tire's and the Monitoring Tire's wear are measured during and at the conclusion of the test. The tire manufacturers then assign a Treadwear Grade based on the observed wear rates. The Course Monitoring Tire is assigned a grade and the test tire receives a grade indicating its relative treadwear. A grade of 100 would indicate that the tire tread would last as long as the test tire, 200 would indicate the tread would last twice as long, 300 would indicate three times as long, etc.

The problem with UTQG Treadwear Grades is that they are open to some interpretation on the part of the tire manufacturer because they are assigned after the tire has only experienced a little treadwear as it runs the 7,200 miles. This means that the tire manufacturers need to extrapolate their raw wear data when they are assigning Treadwear Grades, and that their grades can to some extent reflect how conservative or optimistic their marketing department is. Typically, comparing the Treadwear Grades of tire lines within a single brand is somewhat helpful, while attempting to compare the grades between different brands is not as helpful.
Click to expand...

They do come with a 50,000-mile limited treadwear warranty.

While I'm at it, I will say I really like them. My daily round trip to work is about 40 miles, mostly highway speeds, so I've been able to put some miles on them.

They are really quiet. I called my wife via the BT yesterday, and she asked if I was driving. I was doing 70 MPH at the time, and she was surprised at how quiet it was--said she usually can hear road noise.
 
Sounds good @ 50K...for $700 drive out, that comes to .014/mile - I could live with that...wish my wife cost me that much per mile. (flame2)
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but from reading what people are averaging out of their tires in regards to mileage. It seems to me that it is around the 20-25K mile mark. With this said, I had a set of Continental Cross-Contact tires (which by the way were very nice tires) which no one seems to have ever owned here, on their CX-9's at least, but me. Those tires were pretty much gone as well at the 20K mile mark, I probably could have pushed them another 3-5K miles at most, but I was able to score a deal on a take off set of 20" OEM CX-9 wheels with the Duellers.

I honestly think that the problem is not the tires we choose. I am begining to believe that Mazda's in general are very hard on tires. Partly it is because they handle so well that the geometry of the suspension components are tuned towards sporty, spirited driving dynamics rather then comfort, and of course the fact that because of the great suspension they posses, we the drivers push them harder (unconsciously or not).

I used to own a Mazda5, and that little wagon was so fun as well, it went through tires at about the same mileage.

Bottomline, and this is completely subjective and my opinion, is that I don't beleive we will ever get the mileage we expect out any tire, no matter what brand of choice we choose.

Just my $0.02
 
Davicho,

I am neither a physicist nor a tire expert, but I do believe both the driver and their predominant driving terrain have a huge influence on mileage obtained.

My last car before the 09 CX9 GT was a toyota sequoia. I got 109K miles on two sets of tires before i traded it in...112K on a Ford Explorer before that. I have heard that some tire companies that sell tires [and provide maintenance/tire rotation agreements] have informed their tech's to keep the tire pressure 2-4lbs under spec, which makes the tire wear faster...I then had to tell them to keep the pressure at the max PSI...

I am sure we will obtain multiple variations across the board, but each of our direct experiences will dictate our procurement preferences.

Thank you for your feedback - tstex
 
I just put a set of these tires on our CX-9. I paid just over $700 installed. I've only had them on for a day, but the wife is happy. The stockers had about 27,000 on them and were ready to be replaced. The new tires are very quiet and she feels they were very good in the rain we had today.
 
Sitting in a hotel in Flagstaff, AZ typing this. Tail end of a week long vacation visiting many national parks in CO, UT, and AZ. Drove about 1800 miles, and several hundred included driving on twisty mountain roads. The Nitto's did great, especially during spirited drives through the twisties. Very impressed with them so far. Can't speak to wet road handling since I have yet to experience rain since having them mounted.

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Just got a set of the Nitto 850's installed on my wife's CX-9 Grand Touring and drove from Raleigh to Charleston. Have to say I am very impressed with how quite they are vs the OEM Bridgestone Dueler's. I have been a Bridgestone fan for a long time and was hesitant to try the Nitto's, but after reading some review's I thought I'd give it a shot as I was not impressed with the Dueler's. We have not driven with them in the rain so can't comment on wet traction, but will update this post when the opportunity comes.
 
I have the NT850's on my CX-9 as well, Love em, handle great. They don't have many mile on them yet, so can't speak for longevity. They deffinately are quiet. I'm going from central Kentucky next week to DC area and will report back on the trip with the tires for wet/dry handling, as I haven't driven them on the interstate in the rain yet, but looking at the rain channels, I'm sure they will do well, plus they are V-Rated. I love the fact that they have their own website www.nt850.com.
 
From the pic above, definately directional/asymmetrical.
i.e. can't rotate side to side (not recommended anyway even if it is symmetrical).
Some tire technicians do not recommend side to side rotation due to crackings developed
at the base of tread islands.
 
Directional. I just got back from a roadtrip about 505 miles each way. Rain on the way there, and the 850's performed beautifully! 75mph around the bends on 79 from Charleston, WV to Morgantown, WV and never had to cancel the cruise no matter how hard it rained. We had 2 adults, 2 kids in the middle, and the rear was stuffed to the roof with heavy gun reloading supplies on the way back, along with our luggage, and I did notice quite a bit of tire roll around the curves on 79 in West Virginia, but when weighed down normally, the tires respond well.
 
Just an update on these tires: I bought my cx-9 with 32,000 on it in Feb/11. The NT850's had 8/32 inch tread when I bought the car.
I now have just about 53,000 and they are at about 4.5/32. So that makes it about a 40,000 mile tire seeing as how it is 11/32 new and replacement at 2/32.

They are starting to have more rolling resistance in heavy rain now, but up until now they have been some of the best heavy rain tires for high speeds of any tire I've ever had on any car. Outstanding wet/dry traction along with superb limited roadnoise.

However, they are miserable at best in any snow.
Last winter I can think of less than 3 days that "snow" traction even mattered in Kentucky. That was a rare winter though.

I'm getting new tires either this winter or in the spring, depending on how the winter goes. I'm really leaning towards the SPEC-X for roadnoise/dry traction/snow handling but have heard that #1) they aren't real good on the interstate in heavy rain and #2) treadwear is not that great. I know that it isn't rocket science... the harder the tread compound, the longer the tire lasts but the less traction you get, but I can't get past shelling out almost a thousand dollars installed just for 30k miles.

I'm almost tempted to just get my same tires because they exceed in every category but for snow traction. hmmmm
 
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