Michelin CrossClimate 3

Excellent comfort; low noise, assured handling. I’m a car enthusiast and I always buy premium tyres. I follow the various online video tests for tyres. Must be a middle-aged thing! Across a range cars I currently own I have various full sets of summer and winter tyres (Michelin ecos, Michelin primacys, original crossclimates, continental winter contacts, Goddyear Eagle asymmetric, Dunlop sports, mid-range Falkens……..the list goes on). I’ve just put the crossclimate 3 onto my daily driver and I’m hugely impressed. Firstly these tyres felt great as soon as I left the tyre fitters. I usually find tyres require some bedding-in time, but these felt sharp from the go. Secondly, the comfort levels are very high. Thirdly, they are much quieter than expected: essentially no different to the Michelin summer tyres I had on previously, perhaps even quieter at lower speeds, which surprised me. Very quiet on SMA motorway surfaces. A tad noisier on asphalt higher speed roads but again comparable to other tyres I use. I normally run separate summer and winter tyres but if these perform well in winter (only time will tell, but crossclimates historically are renowned for having top snow performance), then I may well be swapping all my cars over to CrossClimate 3's in due course. Handling in the current hot summer period is very assured: a tad softer than my Michelin and Goodyear eagle asymetric summer tyres that I use cross my other cars, but turn-in remains very precise and grip when powering through bends is high. They are just a tad firmer than my continental winter tyres. Overall I am exceptionally pleased as these latest CrossClimates offer a really lovely balance between handling and comfort, with winter performance benefits yet little-to-no trade-off. Michelin are clearly putting a lot of engineer time into Crossclimates now, and it shows. Yes, they are slightly comfort biased, but dry handling remains really sharp and I'll take that comfort bias any day on UK roads. If you don't run summer and winter tyres then these are an absolute no brainer. To be honest, they are a bit of a no-brainer regardless. Hope this helps any decision making.

Purchased for winter use in Northern Italy, a region where winter temperatures range from -5°C to 10°C, sometimes even within a short period of time: this is the reason I decided not to use winter tires this time, but all-seasons coming from summer tires for the rest of the year. I fitted them in mid-October, and on dry road they surprised me incredibly, as they seem to be quieter than the Primacy 5s; the feedback is obviously a bit softer. Even driving in the Alps at -10°C during the Christmas period, I didn't notice any difference in road feedback.

In winter use, they struggled a bit when driving once on the highway in a heavy snowfall, requiring a lot of steering effort to maintain a straight line and counteract skidding, but objectively, it was a matter of driving at 90 km/h in 3-4 cm of snow, and it was me trying to get ot the limit.

Finally, when parking on compact ice and snow at sub-zero temperatures, they didn't give me the same feeling of grip that I used to have with the Kleber Krisalp: the wheel slipped at times, but then again, this is an extreme comparison between an all-season tire and a dedicated winter tire.

These are great tyres! I'm using them in the UK (Midlands) as my 'winter' set for a RWD small electric hatchback - the Honda e is no stranger to losing traction at the back if you're enthusiastic enough with the pedal... But the CC3s (staggered setup) have been wonderful at coping.
I took these out in the snow last week (at the time of writing) and with traction control off, you could have plenty of fun but with a gentle right foot and traction control enabled, the snow/slush was no issue at all, no squirming or complaining whatsoever. Super reassuring set of tyres, especially after seeing others struggling with summer tyres on. I found 3 steep roads to drive down and back up and the car / tyres had no issues at all getting me safely down and back up again. I've exclusively driven for 10 years on summers... (sorry!) so I was amazed by how much difference some new shoes would make on a car. With 1500 miles on them I can't comment on wear yet. I can however comment on the comfort (absolutely fine), noise levels (quieter than my Michelin PS4s) and the efficiency – which is vital on EVs – has been great! Much better than the larger 17" PS4s in the summer and better than the outgoing Yokohama BluEarth (AE50?) which came stock on the Honda.

These tires are significantly inferior to the crossclimate 2 on snow and ice, as well as on wet roads. They have become more comfortable to drive, and most importantly, more wear-resistant.

I can't exactly recall the original CrossClimate (even though I did drive it with the same car way back when) to compare its grip but a shocking improvement over CrossClimate 2 and let's not even speak about the CrossClimate+ that for some reason replaced CrossClimate in Latvia.

I got CrossClimate 3's around the end of autumn in Latvia right around the time that morning frost started to set in and I was immediately blown away by how despite being well aware that the roads which looked wet were quite possibly actually iced over, my internal autopilot would just go: "pff, what a nice summer day," and drive like it was +18°C and slightly damp. And shockingly the car would typically behave like it was indeed a cool summer day. This is not how the older model felt or behaved in similar conditions - you definitely got the feeling that the old tire was close to its designed limits of a surprise frost in western Europe.

However on the first real winter day I did almost slide into a barrier when all of a sudden what appeared to be the usual maybe ice turned out to, indeed, be black ice and it was only the combo of Volvo DSTC and my many years of experienced that somehow managed to shed speed while sliding at a slight angle and then narrowly make the turn, if disgracefully. As such, these tires seem to work well sub-limit and have sufficient grip in almost every paved turn in Latvia but at least for me and my particular car give little warning for where that limit is going to be. That and my lack of a race track to drive on means I don't intentionally do driving at or over the limit.

Overall intentionally braking hard on ice to test for road conditions feels quite a lot less sketchy with CrossClimate 3 compared to previous model but it's also been years since we previously had a real winter, so I'm comparing experiences almost a pandemic apart and it also could be (mainly) due to improved threshold braking technique that the car now feels less sketchy when sliding on ice.

Overall probably not the winter tire for the nastiest Nordic situations or for bad drivers but at the same time definitely not as bad as most people would claim, since the store selling them to me thought I was a complete lunatic for trying to use them on barely maintained rural roads in actual winter conditions. If I had the suspension and wheels for it, I'd probably get the CrossClimate 3 Sport for hopefully better handling.

Regarding comfort and noise, pretty decent. Certainly better than any winter tire I have ever had in terms of steering feel or road noise. Real summer tires are nicer but I just never manage to wear two sets out before the rubber gets old, so I much prefer buying all seasons that actually will eventually wear out before they turn into glass. No idea about the new CrossClimate 3 but the previous CrossClimate 2 was probably on par with fresh cheap tires when severely worn.