no-name tires

[xfactor9]

What do BITOG folks think about lesser-known brand tires? Geostar, Fierce, Westlake, Milestar, Nexen etc...

Are they a good value? Or are you putting your life at risk?

 

[yonyon]

Working in a depressed area I see a lot of these. My impressions:

I wouldn't buy a Geostar or Westlake unless the alternative was exposed cords. From what I've seen, Nexens seem like a decent deal unless you get one that blows out without warning. They're known for that. Milestars don't seem to last as long as the name implies, but for a car that never sees highway speeds or wet weather they work.

Edit:
I have nothing against using inexpensive tire with names you don't see often in an appropriate manner. Some are better than others.

 

[d00df00d]

A few thoughts:

1. Any time you cheap out on a safety-critical part for your car, you're risking not only your life but the lives of everyone around you. The latter is the real problem, IMO -- do what you want with your own life, but leave others out of it.

2. I generally dislike the idea that "you get what you pay for;" sometimes there are bargains, and sometimes there are rip-offs. In my experience, tires seem to be the one product for which the saying works and there are no exceptions. Every time I have bought expensive tires, I have been very happy with them. Every time I have bought cheaper tires, I have regretted it for one reason or another.

3. The usual counterpoint is "but I'm not racing so I don't need expensive tires." Unfortuately, you still have to be able to stop or swerve in an emergency, maintain control on a wet highway, trust that your tires won't lose air or blow out, and so on. Also, the poor ride quality, high tread noise, and poor directional stability of bad tires can make your car very tiring to drive.

 

[Shannow]

I'd rather see new cheap tyres on every car in the carpark than semi-slicks

 

[skyactiv]

Cheap tires often have a narrower tread width compared to the sectional width.

 

[rjundi]

Originally Posted By: xfactor9
What do BITOG folks think about lesser-known brand tires? Geostar, Fierce, Westlake, Milestar, Nexen etc...

Are they a good value? Or are you putting your life at risk?


Do you research on what company is behind the tire. Some lessor known brands are simply managed by well known brands. (eg Fierce = Goodyear)

IMHO majority of the lessor known brands currently are equivalent to potentially better tires to what was around in the 1970-mid 1990's branded tires.

I don't you can generally state putting life at risk.

Some folks who buy the inexpensive stuff simply neglect basics like tire pressure and leads to destruction and weakness of branded or non-branded tires. However it blows up with non name brand and it gets blamed. At least they have TMPS for these folks who still will likely ignore it.

In my twenties I always bought "store brand tires" (NTB, Sears) and had incredible luck with the least expensive tires.

 

[CapriRacer]

The problem here is that there isn't anything consistent.

Some off brands are IDENTICAL to name brand products.

Some off brands are completely different, even though they were made by name brand manufacturers.

Without additional information, you just don't know.

And what about generalities? If something is bad 50% of the time, is that enough to say "It is generally bad."? What about 10% or 90%, particularly if we are talking about something potentially dangerous. In dangerous situations, I tend to go with the "even a few failures is bad" approach.

 

[KitaCam]

The most cost effective "cheap" tire is an "like new" OEM pull-off from a used tire shop...many people upgrade their tires on a new car so those tires often come with fewer than 1k miles....and can be bought for $35 OTT incl. balancing...I bought two such tires @ $35/ea (vs $90 new retail) that matched the new pair (same tire/different local brand name) put on by the dealer to sell a used car to me....Sumic/Doral 65A ....good tire but will last only 20k miles...

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: rjundi

Do you research on what company is behind the tire. Some lessor known brands are simply managed by well known brands. (eg Fierce = Goodyear)

IMHO majority of the lessor known brands currently are equivalent to potentially better tires to what was around in the 1970-mid 1990's branded tires.


Pretty much my philosophy.

I dig through a tire pile at a local junkyard and wind up with lesser names more of the time. Maybe dealers take the matched sets and the top shelf names. These tires were removed b/c the cars were junk so they're not too screwed up. They're also a great sampler of what the last (cheap?) set of tires anyone ever buys, will be.

 

[fdcg27]

There are lower tier brands of known quality available that I would personally prefer.
Tires like the General Altimax, the Cooper CS4 and the Hankook H727 are known to be good tires and are priced quite reasonably, especially if you watch for sales and MIRs.
No-name tires may be quite good or may not be.
If you get to know someone who works at a shop that sells a lot of these no-names, they could probably tell you what holds up well and what to avoid.
Most local shops will avoid selling junk new tires.

 

[exranger06]

I have a set of National brand tires on my Explorer. They're supposedly made by Cooper. I have roughly 40k on them and they're almost worn out but overall I've been satisfied with them. Would buy again.

 

[Ken2]

Quote:
Are they a good value?
If they are the best you can afford, they are much better than bald tires. If you're just trying to be thrifty, economize elsewhere. I consider tire failure to be almost a non-existent safety factor. Wet braking--huge safety factor. I don't feel that cheapo tires (nor certain better tires) will give my family the safest wet braking capability.

 

[Spazdog]

I buy the "off-brands" frequently.

I would buy Goodyear's Fierce Instinct ZRs again over the actual Goodyear Eagle GT. The tread pattern is almost identical. The only real negative was that they were noisy. Other than the sidewall being a little fancier on the Eagle GTs, I do not personally think that there is a difference.

I was almost forced to put Riken Raptors (Michelin private label) on my PT. At the time, only the Mazda3S and the PT-GT used that particular size of tire. I had a choice between OE Goodyear Eagle RS-As or Riken. No other brands were stocked...anywhere. The Eagle RS-As were so bad and so expensive that it wasn't really a choice. The Rikens served us well. Noticeably better

I rolled the dice on Continental's Czech offshoot Barum. They are pretty good so far.

I bought General Exclaim UHPs when they first came out super cheap. ($88.00 ea for 18"s ) Then every car forum on the internet caught on to what a good tire it was and the price went up over 50%.

When I sold tires, I put a set of $15.99 ea Western Auto private label Coopers on my Suzuki Swift. Now, it wasn't a particularly good tire in any performance/traction/treadwear aspect, but for $15.99 (-employee discount =$12.79) they were awesome. Best $12 tire in the world.

 

[yonyon]

Originally Posted By: Spazdog

I was almost forced to put Riken Raptors (Michelin private label) on my PT. At the time, only the Mazda3S and the PT-GT used that particular size of tire. I had a choice between OE Goodyear Eagle RS-As or Riken. No other brands were stocked...anywhere. The Eagle RS-As were so bad and so expensive that it wasn't really a choice. The Rikens served us well. Noticeably better


I also had a good experience with Riken Raptors. At the time my only choices were BFG Radial T/As or the Rikens. I went with the Rikens because the BFGs are basically junk if there's any moisture on the road and when it gets cold out they won't make the car go. I couldn't imagine that the Chinese could build a tire worse than the BFGs so I saved $5/tire on a set and got a dramatically better product.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Ken2
If they are the best you can afford, they are much better than bald tires. If you're just trying to be thrifty, economize elsewhere.

Exactly.

 

[GenSan]

Off-brand tires with good usable tread is far better than having a 2013 vehicle w/ brand name tires and safety features galore running 19" tires w/ 2/32"s tread depth.

It amazes me the majority of folks just don't care about tread depth(hydroplaning) let alone running winter treads where needed. I could be at the local dollar general or the parking garage of Saks 5th Ave, people truly neglect their tires from my perusing of tires in various parking lots.

 

[Errtt]

Better than worn slicks.
I always buy the major known tires, but... on a recent vehicle I added to our home, they threw on Fuzion Touring (very cheap) for the sale. So I drove on them a bit until I decided what I wanted. I put Michelin Defenders on.
I must say I was actually impressed with the dry & wet traction on those cheap Fuzion's. Good looking tire too. But I sleep a little better knowing fresh Michelin's took over.

A friend finally replaced the Stampede tires on his truck. They were so badly worn (belts showing), and they lasted him a few years driving that truck all over no issues.

 

[Spazdog]

Mayrun is the no name flavor of the day here:

Very often on BMW and Infiniti for some reason.

Like I said previously, I will buy private label tires. But I will not touch these Chinese tires.

 

[d00df00d]

I may never understand the idea of putting cheap tires on an expensive car. It's like walking into an expensive restaurant and ordering a microwave dinner.

I would MUCH rather have a worse car with good tires than the other way around.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Hankook was considered to be no-name tire brand not so long ago, Hankook H727 was much cheaper than many mid-tier brands such as Yokohama, General, Kumho ... but it is now priced above those brands at TireRack, DTD ... at lest in the size(s) I'm looking for Volvo V70.

Nexen is the 1 of the 3 big South Korean tire companies, they are just in US for a few years, some of their tires are decent at much lower price than Hankook and Kumho.