I ended up finding UniRoyal Tiger Paws that give a warrantee for 70K. All of the Michelins I looked at would not provide a warrantee beyond 25K and most were priced in the $115-130 range.

I've ordered the TigerPaw from Sears and they will cost about $99 per tire and with the package get free lifetime rotation/balance/alignment check.

Just about everyone I've talked to, plus my research on the web, were consistent that v-rated tires, aka "high performance tires" tend to be made with "soft rubber" to improve traction and consequently wear out faster, particularly all-weather tires. Several articles on-line note that racing tires are made even "stickier" and only last a couple of hundred miles or less. They also generally don't recommend dropping to the next lower speed rating of H, but some of the articles on-line said it might work. Not sure I want to be the test case as winters can be brutal in south central Maine.

The Bridgestones on the car have a treadwear rating of 260 (also A traction and A temperature) which is pretty low. Can someone who has the factory-installed Michelins tell us what the ratings are for those? It seems the folks with the Michelins are not complaining in this group, only the people with the Bridgestones.

BTW, I got an e-mail from Toyota implying the problem was caused by me. They note that the service schedule tells us to rotate the tires at 6,000 miles. I rotated them at 7000 since the dealer told me to rotate them on every other oil change. He also told me that balancing and alignment checks were not necessary. Like 1,000 more per rotation was really going to make a tire wear out 40,000 before its time. That's right, blame the victim!

Regardless, for a car that costs $27,000, you should get tires that last longer than a year and 20,000 miles.