Should you buy cheap Chinese tyres?

[PranK]

I have been religiously anti the cheap Chinese tyre brands. I like good middle-teir tyres and I like knowing I have decent rubber. 

I bought a set of wheels that came with Black Diamond tyres. They were noisy but not terrible with grip. When it came time to replace them I did some reading and watched a bit of YouTube about cheap Chinese rubber and if it is actually terrible. So, I went against my better judgement, listened to a few reviews and bought a pair of Sailun tyres for the rear of the 335i. Two tyres, fitted for a twenty less than a single front-matched Kumho!

And let me tell you.... They're f**king horrible. They are so noisy even at low speeds and even moderate take offs from the lights cause TCS flashing. And these were the GOOD cheap Chinese tyres. 

What is your opinion or experiences with Chinese tyres?

[GTSBoy]

Did not even read your post. Voted no. Immediately. Will not buy tyres from there. Will not buy cars from there. They have about 3/5ths of f**k all chance of repeating the Korean experience (of going from crap to actually good). That's because they give absolutely no f**ks for product quality. Only making the new version, completely dumping the old version, of everything, every 6 months.

[silviaz]

25 minutes ago, PranK said:

I have been religiously anti the cheap Chinese tyre brands. I like good middle-teir tyres and I like knowing I have decent rubber. 

I bought a set of wheels that came with Black Diamond tyres. They were noisy but not terrible with grip. When it came time to replace them I did some reading and watched a bit of YouTube about cheap Chinese rubber and if it is actually terrible. So, I went against my better judgement, listened to a few reviews and bought a pair of Sailun tyres for the rear of the 335i. Two tyres, fitted for a twenty less than a single front-matched Kumho!

And let me tell you.... They're f**king horrible. They are so noisy even at low speeds and even moderate take offs from the lights cause TCS flashing. And these were the GOOD cheap Chinese tyres. 

What is your opinion or experiences with Chinese tyres?

Nope, I had some ones called "road claw" on a car with no traction control (luckily I never drove it in the rain) because I don't think that would have ended well lol. Tyres I think is one of those things to not cheap out on. I've heard stories of people using cheap Chinese tyres and almost totalling their car, just not worth the risk.

[PranK]

Just now, silviaz said:

Nope, I had some ones called "road claw" on a car with no traction control (luckily I never drove it in the rain) because I don't think that would have ended well lol. Tyres I think is one of those things to not cheap out on. I've heard stories of people using cheap Chinese tyres and almost totalling their car, just not worth the risk.

Seriously? How can anything be terrible when it has "claw" in the name? What a let down.

[Murray_Calavera]

Big no vote from me. I like being able to stop when it's raining. 

[Duncan]

/GTSBoy goes back to looking for a phone that wasn't made in china

For me the issue is the variability. I'll bet there are good tyres being made in china, it's just that I don't know which ones they are through personal experience, credible review or brand recognition (in that order of importance).

I enjoy being able to use a reasonable range of a car's capability when I drive it, so I want 80% quality tyres on it. That is a very expensive choice but bad tyres are very frustrating when you are trying to have fun, and can be very scary when something unexpected happens on a wet night.

[GTSBoy]

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

GTSBoy goes back to looking for a phone that wasn't made in china

Korean company's phone made in China is not same as Chinese phone.

Chinese phone made in China is made with inventions and dev blatently stolen from the Korean company, for approximately 3 months before burning the Chinese phone company's name and brand to the ground and starting again to get away from the bad publicity and reviews left online by disgruntled customers.

Rinse and repeat for tyres. A little harder to do with cars, but I can see them screwing over local importer by just wholesale dumping brands once the quality picture becomes clear to the market. New brand pops up selling the same pig with different lipstick.

Edited April 13, 2024 by GTSBoy

[PranK]

4 hours ago, Duncan said:

 

For me the issue is the variability. I'll bet there are good tyres being made in china, it's just that I don't know which ones they are through personal experience, credible review or brand recognition (in that order of importance).

This is what got me @Duncan. Surely not all of them are terrible so I did my research and found a lot of good things said about the ones I got. 

[Murray_Calavera]

This is a pretty good visual for what we are talking about 

 

 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Like all the AMGs around where I live, 100k+ car, Bing Bong tyres on them.

[PranK]

2 hours ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Like all the AMGs around where I live, 100k+ car, Bing Bong tyres on them.

Yeah I've noticed that too. The more expensive the car the cheaper the tyres. 

 

 

Except in my case... 

[PLYNX]

Been there done that in the good old days when working for Goodyear in their labs as the Asian import tyres started to hit the market.

I tested a wide range with some frightening results with one memorable 4 x 4 tyre flying apart at 120kph.

Passenger tyres were substantially cheaper back then with appalling abrasion resistance with what looked like inferior raw materials.

There first batches were quite good but after that the arse dropped out the quality with the common trend of substituting raw materials.    

[Kinkstaah]

I want to say that I would consider it for a commuter-only-cheap-as-chips-car.

Because the floor for handling in 99.9% of performance is "Can I emergency stop, probably in the wet, once". If there's tyres that can do that, that's all tyres really need to do.

There's also a video of Tyre Reviews man plowing through a human shaped obstacle, so perhaps they can't do that task well enough :p

[GTSBoy]

Tyres also have to stay round, wear evenly, not delaminate, last a reasonable number of km, work in the cold and the hot, on dry and shallow and deep wet surfaces, and then all the things you superficially think they need to do, like stop the car running off the outside of a bend or up the arse of the f**kstain you just pulled in front of you at the lights.

And....most of these cheap as shit Chinese tyres struggle to manage any three of those things, let alone a simple majority of them.

[Kinkstaah]

I should restate, after watching the video I feel bad about my 'Maybe' vote and want to revoke it. My 'Maybe' was basically dependent on scientific testing to know for sure.... and now I know for sure.

So just don't. I don't doubt that some time in the future there will be good tyres that come out of there like pretty much any developing place.

[The Bogan]

Cheap Australian wine = yes

Cheap tyres = no

Simple but effective 

[Murray_Calavera]

1 hour ago, The Bogan said:

Cheap Australian wine = yes

Cheap tyres = no

Simple but effective 

I wish our beer was subsidised the way our wine is lol.

[Predator1]

Personally, I would, but it depends. On my everday car like a swift or corolla, I dont mind, but def not on something that has a bit of power.

I used cheap chinese tyres on my corolla for years.. no issues. Mind you its gutless. The quality of the stuff coming out of china, and the rest of the asian countries def is getting better.

[The Bogan]

My view is to put the best tyres your budget allows for a daily, there is no run off or kitty litter on the street, only cars, bikes, gutters, trees, kids .......as for the track, it's not like street driving where you need to deal with all the thousands of Muppets that are cutting you off, slamming on their brakes for animals or pedestrians that wander into the road

Every mm the tyre brakes better could be the mm's required to not running over a kid who runs out in front of you, especially if it's wet, wet weather is where most cheap tyres fail horribly, either when hard braking, or quick evasive turning even at lower speeds

My Honda came with Tracmax, whilst they worked in the dry doing legal road speeds, in the wet they were rubbish 

After some googling reviews I tried some Hankook Ventus Prime 4's, the difference in the dry is noticeable, but in the wet the difference is chalk and cheese, IIRC they were around $150 a tyre fitted, so for only $600 for 4 news tyres, that are lasting really well, I have tyres that actually work at legal road speeds in the wet

If they save me once from "an unfortunate situation" they have paid for themselves 

Tyres are one of those things that can save your life when driving, and as most of your time driving is in your daily, your daily tyres are more important than a tyre on a performance car that knocks of a second or 2 on the track

My daughter is a copper, she regularly drags dead or injured people out of cars because they lose control, or run up the back of cars in the wet

TL;DR. Buy the best tyres that might help save your life if $hit goes down

https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_australia_monthly_bulletins

 

[admS15]

Agree with Bogan bloke above. I like running quality tyres on my street driven cars. Wife's daily as well as my daily have Michelin PS4, good tyre that does everything you'd expect without fuss and reasonably priced for popular sizes that aren't enormous.

Skyline had Yokohama on it for many years but have recently fitted zestino tyres. Just did a quick Google and they're actually Chinese made (jap designed apparently). Surprisingly they grip really well, wet and dry and haven't died, YET. Obviously on the higher end of CCP tyres but still China nonetheless.