What are the most overrated, overpriced tires?

[user52165]

Originally Posted by MNgopher
I find that most of time generalizations of an entire brand based on the experience of one tire in one particular use category to be less than useful. Most tire brands have some good tires and some not so good tires, and as others have pointed out, sometimes chasing an OEM spec.


+1 This

 

[AZjeff]

Originally Posted by PPWarrior
I think Continental tires are over priced. I had one set of 4 for 36k miles and they sucked and looked beat up. However, I got some Michelin Defenders on my car now, with 32k miles and still look brand new.



The OEM Contis on the RAV had 52k and probably had 5k more in them but didn't want to go through winter on low tires. 10k rotates and no balances. Replaced them with Contis again and felt the price was competitive. Like many things YMMV.

Waiting for this to turn into a Michelin beat down.

 

[Big_3_Only]

Easily Michelins...

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by AZjeff
Originally Posted by PPWarrior
I think Continental tires are over priced. I had one set of 4 for 36k miles and they sucked and looked beat up. However, I got some Michelin Defenders on my car now, with 32k miles and still look brand new.



The OEM Contis on the RAV had 52k and probably had 5k more in them but didn't want to go through winter on low tires. 10k rotates and no balances. Replaced them with Contis again and felt the price was competitive. Like many things YMMV.

Waiting for this to turn into a Michelin beat down.


As others said, it depends on the particular brand of tire. The worse tires were typically OEM ones. They usually have to hit a particular spec on fuel economy also which doesn't come into play when you go with an aftermarket tire. I have Michelin and Continental on my cars now, no real complaints on the particular tire line. I've had Goodyear in the past which were also fine. But all tire makers have good and cheap lines so people really need to call out the particular tire line not just the brand.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Agree with Vogue (ouch! they are expensive, and not well made). They are maximizing short term profits on past name-recognition, that old trick.
Agree with Goodyears usually being too expensive for what you get. They also expect consumers to recognize their brand name and have reduced quality in cost-cutting over the years.
Coopers are to avoid, overpriced and not great.

It can vary amongst models of tires within a brand of course. Complicates the picture.

Michelins are almost always very good and typically worth the price.
General tires these days tend to be good values, since they actually got a bad reputation for shoddy quality and bad performance for the last 30 years, and now the new owners have been trying to elevate the brand.

 

[Muskieteer]

Michelins and Good-year

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by Wolf359
As others said, it depends on the particular brand of tire. The worse tires were typically OEM ones. They usually have to hit a particular spec on fuel economy also which doesn't come into play when you go with an aftermarket tire. I have Michelin and Continental on my cars now, no real complaints on the particular tire line. I've had Goodyear in the past which were also fine. But all tire makers have good and cheap lines so people really need to call out the particular tire line not just the brand.

Absolutely generalizing on a brand is kind of pointless given that every company makes dozens of different current models in over a hundred different sizes and for hundreds of different applications. And then there's whatever the driver wants out of them whether it's grip, wear, comfort, noise, etc.

I remember hearing great things about the Continental ExtremeContact DWS. Once I had them I couldn't wait to get rid of them because of uneven wear and that I couldn't even take a turn at 15 MPH without them chirping. Now the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 has been worth every penny.

 

[CKN]

It would seem that the Michelin Defenders are not living up to their millage claims.

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted by NO2
Any tire that is OEM spec.


I would say that depends. There are manufacturer-specific versions of certain tires that have revised designs and construction to fit a particular need. (N0, TPC, M*, etc.) Obviously, the car manufacturer felt there was a specific performance target and the off-the-shelf version of the tire couldn't meet that, though this is more commonly found on sports cars where they want to squeeze out every last bit of performance. Sometimes it means a modified tread compound, more reinforcement in a certain area of the tire, or even making it a run-flat.


I try not to say that any one brand is better or worse than others. Anyone who has owned a few cars in their lifetime, and had to buy tires for them, knows that every brand has some really lousy designs and some really great ones. Blindly buying into one brand (or the reverse, avoiding one altogether) is short-sighted and ignorant. We all take for granted that places like Tire Rack and Consumer Reports post objective comparisons of tires and that sort of information is readily available. For those of you who want to cut-down an entire brand or prop one up as superior in all aspects, I challenge you to go look through the test results. You will quickly see that even the beloved Michelin brand has turned out some very mediocre tires.

 

[Brigadier]

Everything from Les Schwab.

 

[kkreit01]

There are several in each brand. Michelin first comes to mind. I'd had 3 sets of Michelin Latitudes as OEM. They were all horrible. The Bridgestone Dueler H/L 422 Ecopias on my Jeep are very high priced, and are also horrible.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Originally Posted by Brigadier
Everything from Les Schwab.
True. I noticed that too. Les Schwab is for people who have never learned how to look up name-brand tire prices on the internet and compare, or their grandchildren or kids won't do it for them. That demographic is dying out. Still a few people around who will pay high prices for inferior tires at Schwab and won't know or care.

 

[HangFire]

Dunlap Radial Rover RVXT. OK, not high priced, and maybe not that highly rated. But a total waste of money. Replaced at 28K only because I was too frugal to admit what a mistake they were before that, I couldn't wait to get rid of them. There is nothing good to say about this tire- ride, handling, treadwear, traction, noise, snow, everything about it was just awful. I have to give my tire guy credit, he tried to warn me off.

A decade later and the memory still burns bright in my mind, I'm amazed to find they were made for another 5 years after I got mine.

But as usual, this thread turned into generalized brand bashing. While I fully support the right to consumer outrage, I try to moderate that with the realization every major US brand has winners and losers.

 

[littlehulkster]

Michelin.

I think Michelin makes a good tire, a great one even.

The problem is, there are lots of other companies that can do the same, and sell it cheaper. I wouldn't throw away a set of Michelins if they came on a car, but I just don't see the benefit you're getting for the increased cost.

 

[d00df00d]

Michelin basically owns the high-end high performance tire space. If you look at the best tires for the best performing cars, you'll see a few Pirellis and a Bridgestone or Dunlop or two, and everything else will be Michelin. The Pilot Sport 4 and 4S are so utterly dominant that you wonder why anyone else even tries. Better combination of dry grip, wet grip, feel, NVH, longevity, and quality than... really any summer tire ever made.

It's their mass-market stuff that's less likely to be best-in-class. Though to be completely honest, I don't see the point in those segments at all. Like, I get that people value cost, NVH, and longevity over everything else, but.... Are we buying furniture here, or tires? But maybe that's another story.

So yeah, I can see how someone who's trying to be thrifty might think Michelins are overrated or overpriced. But if you want a tire that does what a tire is supposed to do, they're a bargain compared to everything else.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by Brigadier
Everything from Les Schwab.

Michelin prices for Toyo or Falken. No thanks.

 

[Nick1994]

Michelin, in my climate they dry rot like crazy

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by Wolf359
As others said, it depends on the particular brand of tire. The worse tires were typically OEM ones. They usually have to hit a particular spec on fuel economy also which doesn't come into play when you go with an aftermarket tire. I have Michelin and Continental on my cars now, no real complaints on the particular tire line. I've had Goodyear in the past which were also fine. But all tire makers have good and cheap lines so people really need to call out the particular tire line not just the brand.

Absolutely generalizing on a brand is kind of pointless given that every company makes dozens of different current models in over a hundred different sizes and for hundreds of different applications. And then there's whatever the driver wants out of them whether it's grip, wear, comfort, noise, etc.

I remember hearing great things about the Continental ExtremeContact DWS. Once I had them I couldn't wait to get rid of them because of uneven wear and that I couldn't even take a turn at 15 MPH without them chirping. Now the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 has been worth every penny.


Yeah, I have the Michelin A/S 3+ and the Continental PureContacts. They're both fine. It's just too bad the Michelin's are only rated for 45k, but then it's a Z rated tire. The Extremecontact DWS got replaced with DWS 06 which are supposed to be even better. I was tempted to get them at one point, but the Purecontacts were a little cheaper and the previous owner had gotten over 60k out of them.

 

[demarpaint]

Overrated and overpriced, imo, Michelin tires.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

I have to say that I am not overly impressed with my Nokian Hakkaplahtlah R2 SUVs, they are capable enough but sure didn't rock my world. Got them on sale in the spring but they still weren't cheap and I could have grabbed something else on sale at that time that probably would have made me happy for a lot less money.
It's only one set of tires to make a judgment on, but I'm probably not going to pick up any more Nokians in the future.
The biggest problem with them is their performance in unexpected warm spells, they can be pretty scary. Obviously, this is not what winter tires are meant for, but the loss in braking performance seems unduly dramatic. I'm going to put my RT43s back on at the earliest sign of spring as they should be fine for any late spring snowstorms...although I am not thrilled with them for summer performance. I liked the all GY setup I had before (Eagle Sport A/S and Ice Grip WRT) more that what I am running now, although those were certainly not perfect tires.