From: Alan E. Foster[SMTP:alan.foster@vt.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 7:23 PM
Subject: [D90] michelin XZLs

I spoke with a customer service rep from Michelin today ... fairly informative. The short of it is:

The XZL is for sale in the USA (apparently the XL is not) ... therefore, distributors can get them. 
I'm still waiting to hear back from the local dist. to see what their prices are, but here are the 
order numbers she cited me (since most tire shops have never heard of this tire):

8.25x16 = 46526
9.00x16 = 99806

I'm interested to see what kinds of prices you guys might get around the country (anyone else wanna 
make some phone calls to the local tire shop?), just to see what the avg. asking price is ... I 
didn't mean to steal this one out from under SG, but if I can save a bunch of cash on a potentially 
cool tire (still want something ~34x9.50x16 ... interco needs to make a radial, darn it!)

-Alan







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From: Clarke Williams[SMTP:clarkewilliams@halcyon.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 4:48 PM
Subject: RE: [D90] Michelin XZL Tires and cooling

Chris,
The XL (old XCL) is a multi-purpose directional tread tire designed mostly for rock and mud. The XL 
(aka XCL) also works well on pavement (lowest rolling resistance of ANY tire manufactured -- M.I.T. 
won a solar-powered car distance contest using these tires), if aired up to moderately high 
pressures (45 psig or so).

The XML is a purpose-built mud tire. Very deep treads. Non-directional.

XZL is designed as a multi-purpose non-directional tire for rock, mud, and sand. It replaces the 
older XS sand tire and supercedes the XL tires, too. The XL tires are continuing in production but 
I expect will be phased out in a few years. They continue because the XL/XCL is a standard military 
tire for something like 40 countries as well as NATO.

The XS was considered for years to be the best sand tire available for desert crossings. Testing by 
Michelin in the Sahara and Saudi deserts showed that the XZL actually had better sand performance, 
in large part because of reduced rolling resistance (narrower section). This testing was conducted 
in the late 1980's. Thus the XS tires were discontinued.

The rubber compound of all X-series tires is fairly hard. The XZL and XL tires have decent snow and 
rain performance only if kept aired up. The XML tires have superb mud traction but the very deep 
lugs are somewhat fragile in rocks. All of the X-series tires have very large lugs and clean 
themselves of mud quickly.

XL tires, although directional, will work adequately in reverse rotation so one could, conceivably, 
get away with a single spare. I always carried two spares when I was running XCLs. In two sets of 
6 tires I had a single tire failure and that was a faulty carcass (bubbles in sidewall that I 
stupidly ignored).

Clarke