Pirelli 21" Tires

Swafford3

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Jul 19, 2024
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Have a Lucid Grand Touring almost two years old. Left rear tire totally blew out at 1,700 miles, right rear tire apparently had a nail in it very soon after and was losing air. Today I am told that my two front tires will both need to be replaced due to tread wear. I only have 6,000 miles on the car and have been told that there is absolutely no warranty on these tires. I had to pay Lucid $500 each for replacement of the two rear tires and am interested to see if there are other tire brands I can purchase. I do not want to continue to have Pirellis replaced if there are other options.
 
It's funny because I was told pretty much the opposite by a Lucid tech. They told me that, because of the rigidity of the chassis, you could lift from the lift point opposite the flat. I've also seen them use a jack to lift on one side to swap out wheels in the field, so I know it's not against company policy.
That is correct. Not just Lucid, but Audi, BMW, Porsche. Just insure you use the designated lift point. I have seen Audi's and Porsche's severally frame damaged when a tire jock misses the welded lift point and lifts from an unsupported section of the floor pan.
 
You may be correct but the techs in Millbrae specifically told me not to do it. You wont find any tire shop that will use a jack even for a single tire replacement. They will always use a lift to ensure no damage is done to the frame of these heavy cars. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't believe it is worth risk.
 
You may be correct but the techs in Millbrae specifically told me not to do it. You wont find any tire shop that will use a jack even for a single tire replacement. They will always use a lift to ensure no damage is done to the frame of these heavy cars. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't believe it is worth risk.
I've been rotating my EV tires, one lift point at a time, by myself since 2012 with Tesla S, X, 3 and now with Lucid with no problems.

I haven't got a flat with Lucid but I got quite a few in my Teslas and my local tire shop (Pep Boys) would just use a jack to lift one single tire off the ground to patch it. No problems for the past 12 years.
 
The Tesla puck has a stud that fits into a hole on the Tesla's underside, which is why it won't work on other cars.

I called Lucid Customer Service about this, and they told me that any puck would fit, including a Tesla one. That was obviously incorrect. Customer Service also said they "had heard" a regular hockey puck would work. I searched this forum and found that @Bill55 has, indeed, used hockey pucks to lift his Sapphire, so I'm going with that.

Tire Choice has agreed, but they are going to require me to sign a liability waiver.

A Lucid lift point has different hole pattern and those holes don't take a Tesla puck.

You can use a generic hockey puck that has no central post that secures into the hole.

There's one that fits Lucid holes that cost less than $200:

 
There's one that fits Lucid holes that cost less than $200:


There do seem to be some holes in the Lucid lift points, but there is nothing in the owner's manual about having to use such adapters, Lucid Customer Service said any generic jack puck will work, and several posters have said that hockey pucks can safely be used.

This ad calls them "factory lift points". I'm wondering if those holes are there for use when the car might be rotated during assembly and thus needs to be secured more than in a straight vertical lift.

These are suspiciously expensive. If they were really necessary, I can't imagine Lucid would not warn of their need in the owner's manual or provide them to customers. (I asked Customer Service if I could buy a set from Lucid, and they don't even sell a lift adapter for the car.)



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There do seem to be some holes in the Lucid lift points, but there is nothing in the owner's manual about having to use such adapters, Lucid Customer Service said any generic jack puck will work, and several posters have said that hockey pucks can safely be used.

This ad calls them "factory lift points". I'm wondering if those holes are there for use when the car might be rotated during assembly and thus needs to be secured more than in a straight vertical lift.

These are suspiciously expensive. If they were really necessary, I can't imagine Lucid would not warn of their need in the owner's manual or provide them to customers. (I asked Customer Service if I could buy a set from Lucid, and they don't even sell a lift adapter for the car.)
Audi engineers told me the puck is just a buffer to keep the jack from gouging the plastic underbody, and the half moon indentations in their lift point is just to insure proper line up of their puck with the jack cradle. Since the floor lifting point is flush with the floor pan, it can be hard to tell if you get the puck centered on the pad, unless you are on your knees. The indentations gives an easy positive location of puck placement. Guessing the Tesla is the same.

Audi VW makes a factory service tool aluminum puck but it's not for sale to the public. A company came up with their own fancy $60 ea puck and the Audi community panned them due to cost. Then several small companies came up with the delrin - urethane pucks, like I have, shown above in red, for $15 ea, with the same indentation. $15 is reasonable. It's just a puck. Works perfectly. Will last forever. Love it.

I find the LMaxx billett aluminum pucks above to be outrageous overpriced bling. They are not required or necessary, like the Audi factory one. The hard rubber hockey puck is universally used because it works. I see piles of them in every tire shop. You just need to carefully line up the puck on your jack cradle directly underneath the lift point. Be careful!

I will crawl under my Lucid today for a closer look at the lift pad. To see if there truly is a factory made location point. And I might dig out my urethane scraps.
 
You may be correct but the techs in Millbrae specifically told me not to do it. You wont find any tire shop that will use a jack even for a single tire replacement. They will always use a lift to ensure no damage is done to the frame of these heavy cars. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't believe it is worth risk.
When all of my tires were replaced, they carefully lifted up the car using four jacks, one ant each jack point. They were extremely careful and used pucks. I looked under and I couldn’t see even the tiniest scratch.
 
Have a Lucid Grand Touring almost two years old. Left rear tire totally blew out at 1,700 miles, right rear tire apparently had a nail in it very soon after and was losing air. Today I am told that my two front tires will both need to be replaced due to tread wear. I only have 6,000 miles on the car and have been told that there is absolutely no warranty on these tires. I had to pay Lucid $500 each for replacement of the two rear tires and am interested to see if there are other tire brands I can purchase. I do not want to continue to have Pirellis replaced if there are other options.
My GT was delivered in Oct 2022 with 21” wheels and summer Pirellis. I live in Central VA and can’t run summer tires half the year. The guy delivering the car said Lucid would fix the problem. After going around in circles with Lucid it ended up it was my problem and would be $7000 to switch out the wheels and tires. The guy in CA who handled the sale told me I could get Michelin tires. They are not made for EVs but are the correct size and load bearing rating. I immediately ordered four from my local tire shop and they were installed and I took the Pirellis home and stored them. In May I took them back and the shop swapped them out. Repeated in November. Luci and I are both happy and both sets still look new. The tires might outlive me. Prior to getting Luci I drove a Maserati. It came with Pirellis that wore out very quickly. I switched to Michelins. They still wore out quickly but not quite as fast. That car ate tires for breakfast.
 
The guy in CA who handled the sale told me I could get Michelin tires. They are not made for EVs but are the correct size and load bearing rating.
Hang on - which Michelins? There are no equivalent Michelins for the 21” wheels. The closest are XL-rated, which is a much lower load rating than the HL-rated Pirellis.

An XL load index tire can cope with a load capacity of up to 750kg/1650lbs (load index 98) and a HL load index tire a load capacity of up to 825kg/1820lbs (load index 101).

That means that the Michelins will support 680 lbs *less* weight than the Pirellis.

Given the high weight of the car, I would be careful how many people and how much luggage you load into the car on the Michelins.
 
When all of my tires were replaced, they carefully lifted up the car using four jacks, one ant each jack point. They were extremely careful and used pucks. I looked under and I couldn’t see even the tiniest scratch.
Great, that is still best practice (using four floor jacks) in an automotive garage that does not have a lift. Having worked in Porsche Audi dealers in college, it was done for efficiency: all 4 wheels dismounted, then all 4 tires removed, 4 reinstalled, 4 balanced, 4 remounted. We used 4 jacks when the lifts were in use.
 
When all of my tires were replaced, they carefully lifted up the car using four jacks, one ant each jack point. They were extremely careful and used pucks. I looked under and I couldn’t see even the tiniest scratch.
Any special reason why 4 jacks were used instead of a lift?
 
Hang on - which Michelins? There are no equivalent Michelins for the 21” wheels. The closest are XL-rated, which is a much lower load rating than the HL-rated Pirellis.

An XL load index tire can cope with a load capacity of up to 750kg/1650lbs (load index 98) and a HL load index tire a load capacity of up to 825kg/1820lbs (load index 101).

That means that the Michelins will support 680 lbs *less* weight than the Pirellis.

Given the high weight of the car, I would be careful how many people and how much luggage you load into the car on the Michelins.
A common mistake people do when specifying load bearing capability is not specifying the pressure. The load carrying capability of a pneumatic tire goes up as pressure is increased. I think there are some websites that can help determine the added psi needed to achieve the desired load.
 
A common mistake people do when specifying load bearing capability is not specifying the pressure. The load carrying capability of a pneumatic tire goes up as pressure is increased. I think there are some websites that can help determine the added psi needed to achieve the desired load.
Sorry, I strongly disagree. What you say is true for fork lifts tires but not passenger tires. While the load carrying capacity may go up slightly up, everything else, above a few psi, goes down: contact patch, handling, wear, ride. Every tire engineering site I have seen says 3-5 psi is the max psi above recommended full load set by the manufacturer. And I have seen some say it does not increase load bearing but, with 3-5 psi more, can reduce sidewall flex which causes damaging heat in the tire. Especially when the car is fully loaded and going fast. The added slight psi is done for safety, not to increase the load capacity.

The load bearing rating is set by the manufacturer after extensive testing and consulting with vehicle manufacturers that will use the tire. You are dead wrong if a XL tire can be changed to an HL by pumping it up. It's just a n over inflated XL, with different handling characteristics than the tire manufacturer and vehicle manufacturers designed for.
 
We put a new set of 21" Pirelli LM2 tires on our car for a recent road trip. The Tire Rack person I talked to when ordering told me that new versions of a continuing tire line are almost always about improving either road noise and/or tread wear. It's too early to tell about tread wear, but the LM2s did seem noticeably quieter than the LM1s.
 
That is great news! My friends at Conti tell me that most of the ongoing tire research from them and others now relates to EVs and its semi-unique issues: noise, car weight, treadwear/mileage due to torque on accel and decel. Plus the airless work from Michelin.
 
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