Michelin Latitude Tour HP Review

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP is a premium all-season tire carefully designed for light trucks, crossovers, and SUVs. The tire allows for a pretty smooth ride, with reliable performance in most weather conditions, including light snow. Let’s see what else this tire offers.

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP is a pretty fuel efficient tire, where its tread life is also very appreciable. Moreover, it also stands out for its superior dry performance, directional grip, handling, and precise steering response, resulting in impressive dry lap times. On the negative side, the tire needs to improve its overall wet traction, impact comfort, and noise performance.

Tire Sizes

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP comes in 16 to 22 inches rims, and they have the following specs.

• Speed ratings: H, V, W, and Y.
• Load ratings: SL and XL.
• Tread depth range: 9 to 10/32″.
• Weight range: 27 to 43 lbs.
• Treadwear warranty: 55k miles for H and V rated sizes, and 45k for W, and Y speed rated ones.
• UTQG rating: 440 A B.

For Your Info: Most folk ask me, what’s the difference between the Latitude Tour and the Tour HP, well, they are very similar looking from the outside, but the “simple Latitude Tour” has lower speed rating, and greater tread depth (almost 2/32″ greater). And gives you greater mileage, and also the warranty, (which is 65k), with a UTQG of 720 A B.

But what is UTQG? Check here: https://tiredriver.com/what-is-utqg-rating/

External and Internal Construction

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP comes with a symmetric tread pattern with 5 ribs (conventionally seen on tires).

The 3 central columns, form 4 longitudinal channels/grooves, where the inner two are more aggressive.

This is because of the off-set edges seen on the central most rib.

Though its mainly characterized by the curved lateral notches and wave-like siping.

The adjacent ribs although also carry these features, here the notches are interlocking and sipes are slightly more elongated.

And yes, the same pattern is continued on the shoulder lugs as well.

Internally, the tire comes with a single ply polyester casing, 2 steel belts and a nylon cap ply reinforced with Michelin’s FAZ Technology (Filament At Zero degrees).

This tech. is jut a technique, where the cord is wrapped around the tire, much like winding a fishing line around a reel. Its just a fancy way of saying, the cord is spirally wound.

Find all the tires compared with Latitude Tour HP.

Wet Traction

Compared to other all-season tires in its class, the Latitude Tour HP lags slightly in its ability to manage and grip wet surfaces effectively.

While it maintains great steering feel on dry roads, there’s a noticeable reduction in road adhesion on wet, and so the tire shows slight slippage.

I mean its still pretty great, and you get a balanced interaction between the front and rear tires, it just has slight trouble regaining control, when it goes out, (mostly under steers, I mean).

And as this process is time-intensive, the tire records marginally slower lap times, and deceleration distances from 60mph to a standstill (on tests).

But why is this happening, even though the tire has ample siping?

To comprehend this, it’s essential to understand siping first.

These are basically slits, designed to absorb and expel water by “flexing” and generating suction to lift/soak-up water, facilitating enhanced grip on (relatively) drier surfaces by the tire’s rubber components (such as biters).

Now the Michelin Latitude Tour tire’s struggle arises from its comparatively harder rubber composition. This compound stiffness hampers the efficiency of the sipes as they aren’t able to flex properly.

And so with less water getting cleared off, the tire faces slippage.

Dry Performance

When we’re looking at how well a tire can grip in dry conditions, we have to think about many things like how it’s made, what it’s made of, and what’s its tread composition like.

And comparatively, the Michelin Latitude Tour does a great job in all performance factors here, like the directional grip, steering response and handling. Let’s check them out.

Directional Grip

This grip mainly comes from the middle part of the tire because that’s the part that carries most of the car’s weight, as it rolls in a straight line.

And since its a straight line grip, it makes sense that it’s measured by braking distance and acceleration tests.

Now the Michelin Latitude Tour HP does pretty well here, thanks to it’s continuous running 3 central ribs there.

And those combined with multi-directional biters (or in-groove notches), you get a pretty decent overall longitudinal traction. (It’s braking distance was just 1 feet longer compared to Pirelli Scorpion Verde AS).

Handling

The Michelin Latitude Tour “HP” as now comes with a lighter build and a harder composition now offers one of the best lateral traction values among its direct competitors.

This superior lateral traction is attributed to its reinforced shoulders or you can say sides.

Basically, during cornering, the sidewalls/shoulders experience the highest concentration of weight as the tire turns, making the Tour HP’s compacted up shoulder lugs crucial for optimal performance.

Moreover the tire’s sipes are also helping here, (even though they are primarily designed to enhance wet grip).

They are basically having a curved lateral and longitudinal structure, and they flex, ensuring grip in both directions.

Furthermore, the lugs are interconnected with a tie bar and feature reinforced foundations underneath, maximizing rubber-to-road contact and, consequently, grip.

However, grip tells only half the story, as overall handling is derived from the tire’s steering response.

In this regard, the integrated advancements of the Michelin Latitude Tour HP deliver a marked improvement in handling, ensuring a balanced and responsive driving experience (see below).

Steering Response

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP comes with a spirally-wound nylon cords, internally. And these basically really help in providing it with a solid feel and sharp steering, where it delivers commendable resistance and feedback during mid-corner loads, allowing for a swift and sporty response.

In a word, its overall steering is just “satisfying”.

And that, combined with the tire’s impressive lateral traction, you get one of the fastest dry lap times (on average), as seen on tests (compared to others in the category).

So why is that?

Well, this is because of the tire’s lightweight design thanks to its single ply polyester, and shallower tread rubber on top, with foundational supports underneath.

The light weight puts less pressure on the lugs as they turn, and with rubber supports (and tie bars), you get minimal lug flex, and a great under and over steering balance.

Now maybe its just me, but I’d prefer if the tire required a bit more effort during increased steering input. However, this is a small concern considering its remarkable road performance.

Winter Performance

When evaluating the winter performance of an all-season tire, three critical factors are predominantly considered:

• The tire’s overall acceleration.
• Overall handling, including the steering response.
• Its adaptability to various terrains, primarily focusing on soft snow and ice.

Assessing these criteria, the Michelin Latitude Tour HP performs commendably, exceeding average expectations in most areas, (I mean compared to other tires coming in its category).

Now here, its proficient ice traction is attributed to its numerous interlocking sipes, seen everywhere across the tread.

And with multi-directional curved slits (biters) on all ribs, you also get exceptional “soft snow” traction.

These biters basically, combined with its siping, latch onto snow particles, enabling more snow adherence, which is crucial for winter traction.

This is because snowflakes can interlock effectively, generating a more enhance grip (compared to snow to rubber contact).

Note: The tire does not come with the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake certification.

Tread Life

When it comes to tread longevity, the Michelin Latitude Tour HP, utilizing a durable silica-based tread rubber composition, stands out impressively among its direct competitors.

But what makes it exceptional here?

Interestingly, its enduring tread life is essentially a secondary benefit here. I mean its a by-product of its primary focus, which if fuel efficiency.

The rubber compound of the tire is formulated to significantly reduce rolling resistance, a feature attributable to its lighter single-ply polyester internal structure. And this lightweight construction results in less force exerted on the lugs as they “rub” against the road.

Moreover, Michelin’s MaxTouch Construction enhances this feature, ensuring contact forces are evenly distributed across the tire, optimizing tire life by further balancing wear.

For Your info: Among touring tires, the Michelin Defender 2 (review), gives the best tread life.

Noise Generation

While the Michelin Latitude Tour is relatively quiet, there is room for improvement, particularly in its “HP” model, we’re discussing here.

As this tire gives out a prominent two-tone cavity noise.

The root issue of this noise lies in the tire’s tread, which is prone to producing a mix of lower-pitched grinds and higher-pitched whines. Though interestingly, the same components in its composition that induce this noise also contribute to the tire’s fuel efficiency.

Now, the good thing is, this noise could have been worse, if not for the tire’s variable pitch tread, which generates a range of sound frequencies, preventing the overall noise from intensifying.

Fuel Usage

The Latitude Tour HP is marketed as a highly fuel-efficient tire, where Michelin claims, it could save you up to 82 gallons of fuel over its lifespan, but how true is it?

To evaluate this, one must consider various factors influencing fuel economy. These factors include the tire’s weight, tread depth, and composition, all of which affect its rolling resistance, or the friction it experiences while moving.

Now the Latitude Tour HP checks all these boxes.

Its single-ply, lightweight construction results in less pressure on the lugs as they rub against the road. And this combined with its optimal tread depth, and reinforced foundations for all lugs, this tire experiences minimal lug flexing.

Lug flexing basically wastes energy in to re-shaping the tread.

And so here, the Latitude Tour optimizing energy for propulsion rather than expending it unnecessarily, provides decent overall fuel economy.

Ride Smoothness

The running smoothness of a tire is primarily determined by its ability to absorb the imperfections and irregularities, coming from the surface effectively.

And in this category, the Michelin Latitude Tour HP could use a “bump” up.

This is because the tire incorporates a hard nylon cap ply, featuring a spirally wound structure in its construction. And while this feature allows this tire with exceptional stability and “smoothness” during cornering maneuvers, it falls short in delivering optimal results when it comes to absorbing bumps and damping vibrations.

So, What’s The Verdict?

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP is a pretty decent tire, which gives you amazing dry performance, thanks to its continuous running central ribs and reinforced shoulders (which also provide superb steering feedback).

However, the tire’s performance in wet conditions could be enhanced, where its stiffer rubber faces some spillage.

But for winter conditions, it surpasses expectations, offering proficient ice and soft snow traction due to its interlocking sipes and multi-directional biters, although it lacks the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake certification.

Though the most notable feature of this tire is its fuel efficiency, where its silica based composition allow for limited rolling resistance.

And yes this also adds to the tire’s lifespan.

Conversely, the tire’s ride smoothness and noise levels are areas for improvement. The hard nylon cap ply, while providing stability, falls short in absorbing bumps, where its interlocking notches also produce decent tread noise as well.