[revjpeterson]

There's a reasons GM engineer's put those on from the factory.

Because Goodyear provided a tire that met their desired specs at the lowest cost, right?

 

[revjpeterson]

I endured my OEM FuelMax tires for about 31,000 miles, but even though they had half of their usable tread remaining, I decided it was time to change them out last month. Their worst-performing conditions were on the wet snow mentioned above, but I was also not pleased with their ability to stick to the road on dirt/gravel surfaces or on paved surfaces that had loose material scattered on them, such as the end of a gravel driveway or the intersection of a gravel road and a paved road. They were actually pretty decent on wet pavement, but they did also start to get a noticeable hum that increased as the tread wear progressed.

I looked at several LRR tires, but ultimately none of them matched up with what I was looking for, because all of them were either too expensive for my tastes, or they under-performed in some important aspect of the TireRack surveys, particularly traction in various adverse conditions. If I had gone LRR with my replacement tire, it would have probably been the Pirelli Cinturato P7.

The tire I ultimately purchased was not officially certified as LRR, but it actually got better fuel economy than some LRR tires in one of the tests I read. In the 1200 miles I've put on these Kumho Ecsta PA31 tires, I have seen comparable fuel economy to what I got with the OEM Goodyears, so LRR certification isn't necessarily a cut and dried indicator of the tire's ability to promote or detract from fuel economy.