Automotive Forums

I just purchased a 2005 touring and have issues with those darn Pax tires.  (want to put studded tires for the winter- we live in harsh winter country)  Anyone willing to share info on replacing the Pax tire system with regular tires and rims?  What brand and size tires and al. rims should be used.  I am aware of the possibility of voiding the warrarnty.  

here is the link for lawsuit info
http://www.sfmslaw.com/pages/cases.php?id=343
The problem is as of now only California residents are involved in a lawsuit but the U.S. laws are being reviewed for possibly filing a suit on behalf of all U.S. citizens w/the Honda/Michelin PAX system....... Finally, GET THIS!!!!!!!! I lived in St. Bernard Parish LOUISIANA...THIS IS EAST of New Orleans and 10' lower. I was told about having all service done at one of the "Premier Dealers" in order to keep the TIRES FOR LIFE warranty. This was fine until hurriane Katrina..... My home had water over the roof for 2 weeks and so did the "Premier Dealers".... We evacuated to Florida and Iowa and I had the tires serviced at Honda dealerships there...Guess what I have 30K miles on vehicle, the Premier dealership rotated tires and the shimming stopped for 5 min...I drove right back to the dealer ,Who has opened 2 branches over 100 miles away from my new home and guess what they said...... "We re-opened one "Premier Honda" dealerships in November so you should have driven from DES MOINES IOWA to NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA in November!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  You know we do have freedom of speech in our country so I will look into ways that we can post "HONDA and MICHELIN PAX TIRES RIP OFF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC" or how about "NO to Honda, NO to Michelin" . Yall can come up w/more and send info through e-mail to friends and maybe Honda and Michelin dealers!!!! I know I will.  Hey you can copy my info above and send it to everyone you know!!!!!!!!!! Feel Free, I will defend myself!!!  

The dealers are all liars. I have a CD from Honda, and a warranty for the PAX system. My tires are worn out at 24,000 miles. They told me that I am a liar and I do not have a warranty. I called the Michelin hot line and they stated that I do have a 3 year warranty . The first 2 years are 100% and the 3rd year is 50%. The dealer still refused to even balance them. He stated that because I have new brakes the unbalanced tires are my fault. Brakes do not cause the unbalance , the tires cause it. They are liars and refuse to honor any warranty. They have put my back to the wall . I have no other choice than to go to small claims court. I will never purchace another Honda ever.I will go back to AMERICAN VEHICLES only, as I did when I first started buying cars.  Waht a Bunch of ***  

Wow, I am about to purchase an Odyssey Touring minivan and am I glad that I stumbled across this page.  I note with interest that for 2008 they offer the option of not having the PAX system on the touring edition.  I was going to get a 2007, but this cinches it for me.  I'll be getting a 2008 without PAX.  Thanks for the warning!  

Here's an update.

To review, our Quest has 18k miles and already needs a new set of tires. Just going to the local tire store will not work. The dealer wanted $900 per tire (for a total of $3600) to fix.

After talking to the PAX hotline (which is the ONLY way you can change your tires--neat, huh?) we were referred to a tire store some 30 miles away from us. (We live in the Bay Area USA and not on a farm in rural Kansas--there are literally several hundred tire stores closer to us, but only this one will deal with our tires).

The ONLY way we can get our tires is to go to the tire store and engage in a CONFERENCE CALL WITH THE PAX HOTLINE AND THE TIRE DEALER. I am not making this up! This is what the PAX Hotline told me we needed to do in order to simply replace our tires. They made no promises as to the costs.

I would love to simply replace these tires, but we can't since they are integrated with our tire pressure monitoring system. Presumibly aftermarket wheels would blow this away and reduce the resell our our lemon--I mean Quest.

Clearly Michelin has engaged in fraud on a massive scale here. To everybody's point, we need to take action. Here's some handy links and emails (this is just a start, everybody please add more here):

60 Minutes -- 60m@cbsnews.com (put "Michelin PAX tires" in the subject)

Tom Vacar, KTVU Consumer Editor -- tovacar@ktvu.com (for the Bay Area)
http://www.ktvu.com/consumer/1849625/detail.html

(Most local news stations have a "consumer editor" like Tom Vacar--you should send an email about Michelin PAX to ALL of them).

Also, everybody should be sending feedback to Nissan, Honda, and all of the other manufacturers to let them know that they should never use Michelin as a tire supplier ever again, and that they should sue Michelin for the cost of a full recall of our cars so they can install normal tires and refund us for the extra purchase price.



OO  

Another update:

I've been told by the "the only Tire Dealer in the Bay Area that will deal with PAX" (that is 30 miles away from me) that the price for four tires will be $1400 IF HE CAN GET THEM.

Apparently Michelin is RATIONING the tires, and they told the deal he could only have TWO of the SEVEN TIRES AVAILABLE IN THE U.S.

My only financially viable move here will be to ditch these tires and buy new conventional rims/tires. At $1400 every 15,000 miles, I will pay $14,000 over the life of the car, which is about half of the purchase price of the entire car, and at about $.10 per mile, about 60% of the cost of gasoline for the car.

I am concerned that the tire pressure monitoring system will no longer work and that will void part of my warranty. I wonder if anybody has any thoughts on this.

I am still hoping for help from either Michelin or Nissan as well. Meanwhile, here's another email link for Bay Area residents:

Michael Finney, 7 On Your Side (ABC TV): 7oys@kgo-tv.com

Please tell them your story about Michelin PAX...

Would anybody like to help me create a Michelin PAX "consumer information site"?


OO  

Hi,

I am an owner of a 2005 Honda Odyssey Touring model and am ready to replacethese tires for the first time. I have 34k miles on them and I have been given praise by all of the HOnda mechanics.

HOWEVER, I drive like a grandma, and baby the turns. i can easily see how folks can get only 14K - 18K and have to replace these junk run-flats.

I've sent emails to both 60mins and the San Fran reporter. It looks like there was a class action lawsuit in Cali in '07 that got shot down by the courts.

Anybody have more info on this?

Thanks,  

I have an 06 Odyssey with about 20K miles.  Last summer in Colorado, I had a leakey PAX tire.  The problem was a screw through the tread.  Unable to fix it locally and not willing to go 250 miles to Albuquerque to a dealer, we pumped sealant into the the tire.  This solved the leak and we returned home to OK. Incidently, the TPMS sensor continued to work. Since the tread was down to 6/32, the dealer offered a new set for $1200.

I decided to change wheels.  Bought take-off Odyssey wheels and Yokohoma tires from The Tire Rack.  Bought a spare rim kit from Honda along with new sensors and now have a set of conventional wheels and tires that can be repaired anywhere.  The TPMS operates as it should.

The new steel wheels and tires weigh quite a bit less than the PAX wheels and tires which weigh about 90 lbs each!

Anyone know where I can sell the original PAX wheels and tires?  

>Anyone know where I can sell the original PAX wheels and tires?  

EBAY, Craig's List and the newspaper come to mind...  

>Anyone know where I can sell the original PAX wheels and tires?  

http://www.odyclub.com/forums/index.php also comes to mind.  You might look for other Odyssey websites.  Bound to be someone with a bad wheel or four that is looking to buy...  

Well, my Odyssey Pax tires have been changed over to conventional tires and rims.  I had new rims and studded winter tires put on with the TPMS sensors (from the Ex model I believe.) Had it done at Honda in Canada where their Odyssey Touring model does not come with the Pax.  It was a successful,(a bit pricey) transition costing $1100.  Would've been cheaper w/o the sensors.  Going conventional opened up my options and everything is working fine.  I'm glad I did it.  

I just swapped out the PAX tires from my 2005 Odyssey, with 17" wheels taken-off from an Acura RL.
The RL wheels spec:  Bolt Pattern 5-120; offset: 55mm;

Tire spec:  Kumho Solus KH16 235/60TR17 (listed at tiretack $80); rolling diameter: ~28"

I got the wheel/tire/sensor package from a guy (the wheels are used).  The wheels look go.  The tires are quiet.  The sensors work (not on the first try, there were some mix-up).  You can contact Mike acurahondaoem@hotmail.com or 408-829-5302.  He is located in San Jose.  I did a local pickup.

I don't know what the offset is on the original PAX, but with 55mm, I have no problem.  I double checked the speed with my GPS, the speedometer reads true.

on the way I learned these facts:
- Palo Alto Honda dealer, waits $95 for fixing a puncture and $285 per tire for replacement.
- my Honda dealer, told me they cannot replace PAX with stock Honda wheels, because there are not combination of wheels and tire that has the correct rolling diameter. (lie)
- Local Wheelworks store was willing to fix me with a set of after-market wheels, until they talked the Honda dealer to get the bolt pattern and details. The dealer told them that the bolt pattern are offset are special, and nothing will fit.  I thank them because they were at least nice enough try.
- If you buy new wheels and tires from Tirerack, they will mount and balance them for you and if you car use a TPMS, they will also install the sensor for.  That is until I mention that I have a Touring, then they say there are nothing in their stock that will fit that car. (lie)  

Looks like Michelin is calling it quits with the PAX system...

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/11/14/afx4339121.html  

gtrksak:
The dealers are all liars. I have a CD from Honda, and a warranty for the PAX system. My tires are worn out at 24,000 miles. They told me that I am a liar and I do not have a warranty. I called the Michelin hot line and they stated that I do have a 3 year warranty . The first 2 years are 100% and the 3rd year is 50%. The dealer still refused to even balance them. He stated that because I have new brakes the unbalanced tires are my fault. Brakes do not cause the unbalance , the tires cause it. They are liars and refuse to honor any warranty. They have put my back to the wall . I have no other choice than to go to small claims court. I will never purchace another Honda ever.I will go back to AMERICAN VEHICLES only, as I did when I first started buying cars.  Waht a Bunch of ***

Did you ever take them to small claims? I would like to know the outcome.

I'm going to take them to small claims myself. I was forced to go today to the dealership and replace all tires because we have this tropical rain in San Diego today, and the tires are so bold that I can't drive over 40 MPH without going airborne. I dropped off the kids to school, and went straight to the dealership and told them that I need the new tires now! The price is $1200, when I asked them why I have to put new tires after only 30,000 miles on the car, they said that I should take it to Honda, they are just doing their job. Right! So, I'll pay for the tires today, and then I'm going to file a claim here. Anybody can post or email an original sales brochure for 2007 Touring where they advertise how great those tires are? Any info that depicts their mis-representation would be very helpful.  

HONDA IS NOTHING BUT FRAUD!

I purchased an Oddisey Touring for my wife when we had the third baby. We had four BMW's before this, and I always loved European cars, this time decided to buy Honda instead of a Mercedes minivan. What a mistake. I'll never buy anything from Honda, even a bycicle helmet!

I'm not going dwell on the PAX issue, it's been discussed enough here already.

Here is another issue: Gas Mileage! The reason why we purchased it was trying to save on gas. The brochure stated that we should expect 22 MPG in the city and 28 on the freeway. We've had this car for a year, and I never got anything over 15 MPG, this is driving about 65% freeway in Southern California!!  

The first sign was when I picked up my car from a Las Vegas dealership and drove home to San Diego. The trip is 350 miles, I thought I would make it home on one tank going 100% freeway, and will have some gas left. I ran out of gas about 40 miles outside of San Diego!! The dealer even put the whole tank of Supreme gas when I bought it. When I asked Honda why such difference with gas mileage, they said that the gas mileage in the brochure is a result of the lab test when they put ONLY the engine on the test blocks and run it electronically at various speeds!! It has nothing to do with reality, with the car weight, with weather conditions, NOTHING! It's a pure lab experiment that they later put in their brochure as an ACTUAL mileage! How do they get away with it??????? So Honda does this fraud knowingly and intentionally!!! Are there lawyers on this forum?

By the way, interesting side issue: I put these comments three times into Kelly Blue Book online feedback section, all three times the comments were deleted. I wonder why??

I'm trading Honda for the Bentz. I'd rather pay more but feel that my kids are safe!