Living in Colorado, the proper tire is always necessary. I drive over mountain passes all the time and understand that with a poor tire, my safety, and the safety of others is at risk. Of course, safety aside, I drive a Jaguar and know that without the proper tire, the performance of your vehicle will be greatly inhibited. With that being said, I got a pretty awesome deal from Nitto Tires to test their new Motivo tire.

When I first got the tires I was very surprised and extremely skeptical at the same time. I was wondering how these tires could live up to everything they had claimed about superiority in wet and dry traction while maintaining low rolling resistance and low noise. To me, that sounded too good to be true. What went through my mind is that tires that increase your mileage with low rolling resistance and hence low noise are normally extremely hard and give no traction. On that same note, I thought it impossible for a tire to excel in both wet and dry conditions because of the way that modern tires are engineered. I decided there was no better way to actually test these tires than throw them on my car and see how they performed.
Before mounting the tires, I played around with them a little bit. Most people know that when you buy new tires, they come with little hairs all over them. As sort of a habit, I just started to pluck one of these off. Much to my amazement, the little hair just stretched out until I could no longer grasp it. This is really a testament to the new silica-rubber compound that went into making these tires. This compound makes the tire extremely sticky, yet also helps keep the tire together so you can get the 60,000 tread-wear warranty. Let's just take a second and think about that warranty for a second. My last tires wore out in 28k miles. This means that these tires are warrantied to twice what my old tires were, and will probably surpass the warranty. I know what you're thinking though... Many hard tires can also promise a large tread-wear warranty but at the same time, sacrifice ride quality and handling.
After getting the motivos mounted on my car, I was at first, very impressed with how quite the tires were at any speed. Even while cruising at my normal 80mph down our local highway, (I-25) I found the tires very quite and found wind noise to be a higher concern which is impressive seeing as all of my seals were new 2 years ago. The point is that these tires are very quite! Dry cornering is also superior to most all season tires I have driven on. These tires handle much like, maybe even a little better than, my Nankang NS-II which are marketed as a high performance summer tire. The sidewall on this tire is also very strong and I didn't find myself looking for anything more when taking turns with a little bit too much emphasis from my right foot :P. I have only been able to test the wet/snow traction of these tires a few times. They handle wet pavement very well and resist hydroplaning extremely well because of all the space in the tread. The motivos also handle snow fairly well. They don't handle as well as my Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3's in the snow, but I didn't expect them to seeing as how the PA3's are very very loud and geared specifically towards traction in snow and nothing else. With that being said, they do handle snow incredibly well for an all-season and handled snow the best out of any all-season I have ever driven.
The place where the motivo completely blew me away is in the fuel economy that I gained while driving them. I used to get 18mpg in the city with my Nankangs and about 16.5-17 with my PA3's. With the motivo, I have gotten a consistent 20-21mpg in the city and I have been driving with my right foot down a lot! On the highway I have average about 28mpg for my nakangs and 27 for my pa3's. With the motivos, I got 30mpg on my 200 mile round trip. I will continue to test the fuel economy to compare the before and after, yet this increase in fuel economy is a large selling point of these tires seeing as how the price of gas continues to sky-rocket. Just as a disclaimer however, I can't guarantee that you will see as large of an increase in fuel economy as me, all I can do is give you my results because every car drives different and every driver drives each respective vehicle in a different fashion.
The Nitto motivo tires are really something special. They are not a direct replacement with track tires, or with studded snow tires, but that's not what they were designed to do. They were designed to be the most well-rounded tire, and that is exactly what they exceeded at doing. I am very impressed with these tires and highly recommend them. I am sold for life.

 

Disguay, what's the one month update? Are they made in USA?

My XF will be needing new sneakers in a few miles. On my shortlist are:
Nitto Motivo
Nitto Invo
Continental Extreme Contact DWS
Michelin Primacy MXM4
Maybe something Yokahama
Dealer recommending Hankook Ventus EVO V12

Okay, maybe the list isn't too short. Do you have any experience with these options?

 

I've come across another review of Motivo, this reviewer has direct comparison of my OEM tire on my vehicle (2011 XF) and Motivo.

Still want to hear the update from Disquay, but thought others might like to see this:
Nitto Motivo All-Season Performance Tire Review - RoadandTrack.com

 

Here's more. Seems the Motivo shames the Conti Pro's in many aspects...

Review: Nitto Motivo UHP All Season Tires, Tire Novices Welcome! | Dad Does
Jaguars, Nitto Motivo and The Secret Life of Tires | Dad Does
Nitto Motivo Tire Test - Motor Trend

 

You kept saying they are "quite". Quite what? Or is it quiet?

 

my bad, i meant quiet. My one month update still stands that they are phenomenal tires. I love them every second. They remain sticky, quiet, and never let me down in the snow or rain. I have never driven on conti pros yet, so I cannot speak of the comparison here, but I need snow performance because of living in Colorado. Sure, I have snow tires for the months that have really heavy snow, but for march and april, it is sunny where I live and snowy in the mountains. If I want to go skiing, I am on roads with no snow for about 70% of the trip and then roads with snow the last 30%. The nittos really work for me in those conditions because they really give the best of all worlds. When I say the best of all worlds I am referring to the general consensus that tires can only have two of the following three aspects: Performance, Comfort, Treadlife. Because of the new compound like I stated above, the motivos are able to meet high standards in all aspects. With that being said, there are specialty tires out there that just focus on one or two of those aspects and will surpass the motivo in these aspects. I however, needed a tire that fit all three aspects and worked as true high performance all season tire that won't cost me boatloads of money from replacing them every 25k like I used to.

Hopefully that helps a little bit, if you have any other questions just ask!

 

Too bad they don't have more sizes. Tried to get a quote for my XKR with 20" wheels, and they didn't have the size.

 

tnt, they have more sizes coming soon. They just came out with a couple pilot sizes first and soon they will release their whole line

 

Hi Disquay,

I'm creeping closer to needing new tires. I really thought my Conti Pros would be toast by now, but frankly I'm not sure I even detect any wear over the past 7kmi (almost at 40kmi now). Anyway, I thought I would see if you have anything new to report about your Nittos. Still love 'em?

 

Sorry to have bumped up this thread, but the Motivos now come in the 20" trim. Here's the link to my write-ip on the new wheels/tires:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...r-pics-102767/

 

Those people who are looking for best tires for their vehicles, your review is very important to understand about Nitto Motivo tires. These are great in quality but some people consider it old styled. Thank you so much for your review which really help me a lot for finding right tire for my vehicle.

 

Well guys, I lowered my car and blew a tie rod end. So the wear on the front of these tires has gone to hell the past 5000 miles. Granted, I was able to realize this alignment issue simply due to the fact that I saw very little wear on the motivos. One thing that I did notice is that if you drive them hard (like to take turns at full speed like I do,) then they have a tendency to wear very heavily on the outsides. I think this is from the softer sidewall to give it a comforting ride.