On the market for new SUV grade tires for 2017 CX5 Grand Touring. Consumer Reports suggest Michelin Defender2 as the best All Season (M+S) option (I've been very satisfied going with CR tire suggestions over the years). Want I'm wondering is if there's a consensus on an ideal size stock/over/under width/height. I'm considering going a bit higher to gain a little more ground clearance.

 

Better to stick with stock size. If you start messing with the size of the tires, then you'll more than likely have incorrect speedometer and mileage readings without a tuner.

 

Very minor difference in speedo/mileage (depending on the tire selection).

 

But is there an advantage to going with another size? I am currently looking at the Sumitomo HTR A/S P03 for my 21. I assume you have the same size tires as I do with your GT (19" wheels)? The price is hard to beat at Discount Tire (just dropped from $164 to $147/ea) and they have excellent specs with a 65k treadwear warranty.
https://www.discounttire.com/buy-tir...s-p03/p/118034

 

The problem with comparing tires is that you must first find you platform and weight category.

And there is always an advantage as chickdr19 said to going with other sizes ,brands and type tires that better suit your operating area and load capacity.
I have used Sumotomo's on various platform and model and have always been pleased with their performance. I almost never now use any retailer other than Discount Tires.
A sales hint, when ordering tires you can request tires that have a manufactured date of one year or a set that have the same or very close to the same manufactured date. But you must go directly with a sales associate to get this request done.

 

Around here, the Defender2's only cost a few $'s more than the ones you quoted, have a higher tread life rating - 100k kms vs 72k kms, they have the highest Consumer Guide rating for SUV tires, and they're M+S rated, which is something I'm specifically looking for (maybe the Sumintomo M+S too, but I couldn't find it if they are). As far as size goes, I prefer a bit of a taller tire, assuming it doesn't cause any turning or other handling difficulties.

 

More secrets untold on the internet about tires/
Discount Tires rotates their stock constantly. If any tire go beyond a reasonable date from manufactured , delivered to their warehouses, from there to the retail store goes beyond reasonable dates they will sell them to a company that in turn sells them to other tire retailers that often offered them less then Discount Tire new. However the cluse to support this is in the WARRANTY. There is a reason why Discount as a major tire retailer has one of the best Warranties in the business.

As I sad in the last response all one has to do is look for the seral number on the tire and go to that tire brands website directly and find decode the number to find such information as day and time, date of manufactured and origin of country manufactured for the more importantly for a customer wanting to know. For someone a little more into technical information there is that as well.

Myself I don't like starting with a tire that is a year or more old or one that has been out of a warehouse stored environment , like a Retail tire store sales floor.
In my personal shop the agreement I had standing with the tire suppliers is to rotate my older dated stock of unsold tires every 90 days.

 

Everybody's experience will be different, but for me, I'll be needing a new set of tires, long, long before a 'best before date' ever comes close to being in play.

 

Ya you are more like me. I run my tires for 30k miles and will change them out not matter the tread depth. I also measure them when first installed on me wheel and then when I install them on my vehicles with a durometer. I also have a 200 foot flat tarmac in a large trucking park that I also do G force and skid testing n my own personal vehicles using an accelerometer. So I also see decline in holding 'G' Force at the 20k mile and most apparent 30k mile marker.
Have sold brand name tire and wheel for not only several decades in the thousands and those tire installed all aged quickly or their performance degrades quicker than most realize, All of those great tire tests done professionally and armature conducted testing never come back and retest a tire after a few years of service or 20 -30 k miles on them. Needless to say I am sure only a very few would be able to do the platform model manufactures specification for 60mph -zero stopping distance performance rating.

 

The Sumitomo's are M+S rated (from the page I linked: Severe weather rated with a mud and snow (M+S) designation.) . But it seems you have already picked your tire....

BTW, the Michelin Defender 2 sells for $255/ea at my DT so it is quite a bit more than a few dollars in my book vs the $147/ea I paid today. https://www.discounttire.com/buy-tir...der-2/p/161645

I would buy Michelin if the price was right. I put a set of them on my Frontier in August as the price was amazingly good.