Are Chinese tires really that bad?

[wavinwayne]

I did a 3 year stint in the automotive electronics supplier business in the early 2010s. My professional experience in dealing with Chinese manufacturers is that they will cheat on quality at every opportunity. I would not use Chinese tires because of that experience.

 

[userfriendly]

And what is your source for this bit of wisdom ?

Just between you, me and JD’s couch it was Tucker somebody.

 

[DemoFly]

I run China tires on my drives on my commercial trucks. Better tires don't pay because they cup or get punctured before they wear. They're great, honestly. I actually LIKE double coins.

I've never had to buy China tires on a passenger vehicle. Name brand tires are on sale all the time. Not against it, I've heard milestar tires are great. Just never had a need.

Some comments are hilarious and holier than thou. You all buy China everything, but you draw the line at tires!

 

[k1xv]

I would only consider buying no name imported tires if they were sold by a reputable retailer, such as Tirerack. I don't think they would knowingly offer junk tires to their loyal customers.

 

[CKN]

I did a 3 year stint in the automotive electronics supplier business in the early 2010s. My professional experience in dealing with Chinese manufacturers is that they will cheat on quality at every opportunity. I would not use Chinese tires because of that experience.

Yep-I'm sure they have not improved in 14 years........

 

[TomYoung]

might be ok.. we talking liangdongfen brand or radar, westlake, milestar?
or post up a size and I'll go deal search.

Of course in a prius if you buy the wrong tires the 20$ a tire in savings will go into the gas tank fast when you lose 10-15% fuel economy.
for 185/65r15
the cheapest I'd go is solar 4xs at walmart for $47
probably dont need to spend 160$ each on michelin defenders.
but they also have
pirellis at 85
mastercraft at 61
yokohamas at 73
kumho ta11 62
starfire at 63

so No I probably would avoid chinese branded tires for something else.

Where do mastercraft and star fire come from?

 

[Jimmy_Russells]

And what is your source for this bit of wisdom ?

A decade working in the tire industry.

 

[Wolfshead]

Don't forget the 25.00 Installation package per tire, No Thanks on Chinese or any Asian tires.Been there Done that.

 

[nthach]

I run China tires on my drives on my commercial trucks. Better tires don't pay because they cup or get punctured before they wear. They're great, honestly. I actually LIKE double coins.

I've never had to buy China tires on a passenger vehicle. Name brand tires are on sale all the time. Not against it, I've heard milestar tires are great. Just never had a need.

Some comments are hilarious and holier than thou. You all buy China everything, but you draw the line at tires!

I’ve seen Doublecoins on school buses recently - and was usually a Goodyear/Michelin domain too. This was on a newish IC Bus(International) or Thomas “transit-style” pusher bus.

 

[Torrid]

I personally will pay extra for good tires. I prefer Michelin. Whether that's worth it financially or not I don't know, but for my piece of mind I'm fine with it.

 

[DemoFly]

My professional experience in dealing with Chinese manufacturers is that they will cheat on quality at every opportunity.

This sort of behavior never happens in the estados unidos.

 

[JTK]

Another day, another "are Chinese tires bad" thread...

I believe most of the negative comments you'll see on them are from people who have little/no direct experience with them.

The market has been loaded with import tires since before the Internet days, so they are certainly nothing new.

It's about expectations. They're typically half the cost, or even less than the legacy name brands. It you expect 60k miles of smooth, quiet, high performance service from them, you are likely going to be disappointed with import tires.

 

[Jetronic]

I drive a Bus for a living, In Europe, so the busses are quite different from the US. The company buys large batches of tyres from whoever is cheapest, and gets tyres remoulde for the rear axle. New busses come with Bridgestone tyres, they are terrible in the wet. Apollo tyres are terrible in the wet and bad in the dry, Orium tyres are good in the wet, but suffer some in the dry though not nearly as bad as the Apollos. remoulds are tyres from hell, if you want to slide a bus, put these on them.

For some special size we have Kumho, but I don't drive that type bus enough to comment on them.

We now started getting Continental, and so far it seems like these are my new favourites, it was Orium before.

None of these are Chinese, and the quality differs dramatically. I can tell whats on the bus from driving, without looking. So why can't Chinese tyres have quality differences between brands? I already mentioned my Hankook OEM tyre experience on my car (excellent against aquaplaning, terrible wet grip, ok-ish dry grip)

I would advice anyone to not buy any tyre from anywhere without at least some review done on them. I currently have Maxxis on the new car and so far impressed, just a little noisy, says my hearing but got nothing to compare to on this car. The Kenda tyres on my bicycle are excellent.

 

[Rand]

Where do mastercraft and star fire come from?

Cooper tires.

 

[sds911]

I vote for contis or yoko. Have both on my vehicles rn. I wouldn’t do bargain basement Chinese. Not worth it for me and I love a bargain. General is owned by Conti now, correct?

Must be some labor day sales. Check tirerack.com, discount/americas tire, costco/sams.

Try financing with discount tire card (credit permitting), affirm or similar. I used discount tire cc and pay interest free over 6 to 9 months. Helps w/cash flow instead of paying up front.

 

[Escape08]

May I ask, why buy something that you're in doubt to begin with? There are tons of alternative out there. Everytime you drive your car, there is this fear behind your head that the tires will blow up anytime.

 

[wings&wheels]

Don't forget the 25.00 Installation package per tire, No Thanks on Chinese or any Asian tires.Been there Done that.

Does "Asian" include Bridgestone and Yokohama??

 

[thescreensavers]

I wouldn't put cheap Chinese tires on my cars.

I stick to name brands, majority of the Chinese tires are significantly worse in the wet (braking) then good brands.

Tyer review did a test with all seasons the best tire stopped and the cheapest tire (Chinese) was still doing 40mph!

 

[Enthusiast]

Concerning Chinese tires, my only experiences were with primewell and sonar. Primewell was all around awful. The lightest dust of snow caused the car to slide everywhere, traction in rain was mediocre, they were loud, And they road rough. Sonar was okay in the rain, meh in the snow, but otherwise we're okay. My recommendation is to buy a quality tire from a quality brand. Where it's made is not going to make the tire good or bad, It's the design and designers that will determine this.

If you want to buy US made tires that are affordable, I think the Douglas tires at Walmart are still US made. You might want to check but Starfire might also be US-made on certain models instead of Chinese made. Douglas is made by Kelly Springfield and Starfire is made by Cooper which is owned by Goodyear. Just remember they don't have a warranty concerning Starfire so keep that in consideration.

Even some premium brand tires are not always made in the US, Canada, or European countries with a similar economy as the US.

 

[bullwinkle]

Concerning Chinese tires, my only experiences were with primewell and sonar. Primewell was all around awful. The lightest dust of snow caused the car to slide everywhere, traction in rain was mediocre, they were loud, And they road rough. Sonar was okay in the rain, meh in the snow, but otherwise we're okay. My recommendation is to buy a quality tire from a quality brand. Where it's made is not going to make the tire good or bad, It's the design and designers that will determine this.

If you want to buy US made tires that are affordable, I think the Douglas tires at Walmart are still US made. You might want to check but Starfire might also be US-made on certain models instead of Chinese made. Douglas is made by Kelly Springfield and Starfire is made by Cooper which is owned by Goodyear. Just remember they don't have a warranty concerning Starfire so keep that in consideration.

Even some premium brand tires are not always made in the US, Canada, or European countries with a similar economy as the US.

Douglas is actually Goodyear-literally every set I’ve ever had or ridden on is like driving on rumble strips! (Although Kelly is also a GY brand-a discount brand made by another discount brand). Uniroyal seems to be a better discount brand if one wants USA tires, we’ve had decent luck with them.