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The United States and China are battling over trade tariffs on tires, but for most of us, safety is where the rubber meets the road.
Imports of Chinese tires have grown from 15 million tires in 2000 to 46 million last year, according to the United Steelworkers union, which has accused China of unfair trade practices.
I concur here, you get what you pay for, and with tires that's not one place to skimp out on. Cheap tires are not good. But with that aside, I hope one day they'll consider starting to make things in the U.S. again instead of giving all the business to China. I think we'd see an increase in the U.S. economy.
Was looking for some tires for my ride over on Tire Rack the other day. It never fails that the lowest price point is for Chinese or at least Asian produced tires (Kuhmo). However that says nothing about their quality! The funny thing is they get good ratings but when you go and actually read a few you wonder how that happened because there are so many people saying stuff like, "Wish I would have spent more to get a good tire...these suck!"
The last set of tires I got for my 'burban were Yokohama's. I almost didn't buy them just because I figured they would be made overseas because of the name. But they are made in the US. BTW...Yokohama Geolander HT-S gets 2 thumbs up from me! 45000mi and still going strong.
The last set of tires I got for my 'burban were Yokohama's. I almost didn't buy them just because I figured they would be made overseas because of the name. But they are made in the US. BTW...Yokohama Geolander HT-S gets 2 thumbs up from me! 45000mi and still going strong.
You should always look for quality but let's not kid ourselves that everything made in the u.s. was of good quality. there were a lot of things made in the u.s. that were poor to mediocre quality too.
*Some* Chinese made tires are good, some are not. The Kumho Solus is leading the pack (or was last time I looked) for all-season tires in Tire Rack's polls, they are for the most part made in China. I got a set of "Merit Metric" tires awhile back, they were cheap and available and needed to put tires on step-daughter's car, these turned out to be a damn decent tire.
But China in general has a QC/QA problem, I think some manufacturers who operate plants there like Kumho exercise their own QC/QA and have good results.
I've owned a number of my cars for upwards of 30 years...
Never had a single problem with USA made tires... name brand or off brand...
I've also never had a bad Michelin Tire or German Made Tire...
I have Firestone and Sears Tires on my Model A's that date from the 1950's and they don't leak!
I can't say the same for low cost imported tires... had several go bad from just sitting around
I have had a set of Uniroyals separate belts on the old Chevy Impala, to be fair these tires were pretty old when they went.
I did have a set of Firestones on the Scirocco when I bought it, one of them was out-of-round, they were generally crap tires.
Both of the above were USA made tires.
Come to think of it, I have never had a problem with a Michelin tire either - sometimes they are out of line on price, but it's always a quality tire without issues.
I have run mostly Sumitomo tires on the 'roc, the Japanese made HTR -200 - always a good tire, 12 out of 12 tires, 3 sets, were all without issues.
I had one Continental de-laminate belts and practically disintegrate on the Impala, although, again, said tire was way over 6 years old when it failed.
I have had a set of Uniroyals separate belts on the old Chevy Impala, to be fair these tires were pretty old when they went.
I did have a set of Firestones on the Scirocco when I bought it, one of them was out-of-round, they were generally crap tires.
Both of the above were USA made tires.
Come to think of it, I have never had a problem with a Michelin tire either - sometimes they are out of line on price, but it's always a quality tire without issues.
I have run mostly Sumitomo tires on the 'roc, the Japanese made HTR -200 - always a good tire, 12 out of 12 tires, 3 sets, were all without issues.
I had one Continental de-laminate belts and practically disintegrate on the Impala, although, again, said tire was way over 6 years old when it failed.
I'm probably easier on tires than most... and most of my cars are low-performance
I got 48k on my OEM Continentals on the 325iT... funny thing about the Continentals is several people commented on my Made In USA All Season Tires in Germany... they asked why I had winter tires driving the Autobahn in the Summer
I decided to replace them with another set of Continentals and the the set I bought in California is made in Germany... go figure...
I might be just my imagination... but it seems lots of new tires don't age well... I come across more imported tires with excessive age cracks these days...
My 1905 Oldsmobile has all White Firestone Tires with no tread... the two made in the USA look great... the two Firestones made in Vietnam are starting to crack everywhere...
^my last set of tires were firestones but I do not know where they were made. The tread was litterally crumbling. It had a fair amount of tread left on it....but it was just coming appart.
^my last set of tires were firestones but I do not know where they were made. The tread was litterally crumbling. It had a fair amount of tread left on it....but it was just coming appart.
Not a whole lot of American Made Passenger tires to choose from today...
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