nankang vs milestar vs winda vs all

let's discuss super cheap tires. like $304 a set shipped from discount tire direct in 225/60/17 or 235/55/17.

are they safe? i assume they are all chinese. i am looking for all seasons for a daily driver buick that gets 12-15k miles a year put on. it currently has 12 year old continentals that were new takeoffs from a mustang, and are not worn to the bars yet but they're starting to crack. they've been on it for 35k and spent 10k on my crown vic beforehand.

it seems like no tires are as good as they used to be, my nitto grapplers on my avalanche are not 3 years old and are dry cracked, but have a ton of tread left. so are we turning the buick into a death trap putting cheap off brand tires on it, or is it a viable alternative when you have no money but want new tires before winter?

i'm not opposed to buying another set of mustang takeoffs, but i doubt i can get new wheels/tires like i did 12 years ago for under 400 shipped.

I have run three different types of junk Chinese tires and am happy so far: Sailun (might be Korean), Sunny, and Doral (not sure where they are from but man were they cheap, like under 200 shipped for 14s cheap)

I had two Nankang on my old DD for about a year, over all the tires were ok and that's it. Why not go with a 205 tire that should save you a few bucks.

My experience is that whatever compound they use in those really cheap tires are terrible in the rain but seem to have decent treadware. My go to cheap tire is Kumho solus KR21. However they are a little higher than your price range I think but I've never been scared while going 35 in a drizzle either.

I've got ohtsus on my prism.... They're Chinese junk but they ride OK, they're quietish and they were 200$ on the car.

Donebrokeit wrote: I had two Nankang on my old DD for about a year, over all the tires were ok and that's it. Why not go with a 205 tire that should save you a few bucks.

too narrow? the 235's are stretched a bit on the 17x8. i was looking at both sized as the 225 is stock size to the car and the stock wheels are sitting here, and the 235 is stock size for the mustang the wheels came from, and is close enough to original diameter to keep speedo happy. the stockers are 17x6.5 or 7, not sure.

if i can get some 15" wheels to clear the brakes, it can wait until spring as i've got snows here that would work.

I've got nankangs on my volvo. They are wearing great, corner decently for being all-seasons, and feel good in the rain. I think I paid $65/per ( installed and out the door ) from Pep Boys.

Nick_Comstock wrote: My experience is that whatever compound they use in those really cheap tires are terrible in the rain but seem to have decent treadware. My go to cheap tire is Kumho solus KR21. However they are a little higher than your price range I think but I've never been scared while going 35 in a drizzle either.

Those are my choice as well. I got 60k out of a set on my wife's sentra and they never did anything which bothered me...seemed competent in all conditions.

Nankang is Taiwanese and has been around for quite a while. I remember one of my friends had them on his Swift GT about 15 years ago. They also make Milestar. My nephew runs a shop and says Sailun's are a decent tire, the best of the Chinese ones he's seen.

How about Hankooks? They seem to be pretty inexpensive every time I look, and have a decent rep.

some other options:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Fuzion&tireModel=Touring+%28H-+or+V-Speed+Rated%29&partnum=26HR7FZTOUR&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=Signature+II+%28T-Speed+Rated%29&partnum=26TR7SIG2&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Firestone&tireModel=Precision+Touring&partnum=26HR7PTOUR&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Firestone&tireModel=Precision+Touring&partnum=26HR7PTOUR&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

and there are about a half-dozen more on TireRack for $400 or under. All-season tires are freaking cheap....

Hankook is korean if memory serves and makes a number of pretty decent tires. I would put them above the Chinese tires mentioned here.

any reviews from you guys on the fuzions from tire rack? don't think i've ever had any of those.

freaking cheap is relative. normally $400 shipped for 4 tires works great. but currently i'm trying to pay less while staying safe. i've been looking used but people want 50+% of new cost for low tread, or the tread is great while the tires are 5 years old and drying.

I'm not a fan of the super cheap chinese tires. Knew a guy that had some wanlis on his get and they made so much noise he kept trying to figure out which bearing was dying.

Many people will say they are fine, and some are fine, but if someone tells you they are great, they are wrong. If you've only had E36 M3 tires you don't know the difference. I always laugh at the bro dozers out here in the country, they have 35s and 37s on 18 and 20 inch wheels that were put on by the dealer and at the first tire change they put on the cheapest mud tires they can find and tell everyone how great they are. Half the time they don't even have a utqg rating, they shake, and they are louder than my exhaust even before they are all chopped up, which will inevitably happen .

All seasons are generally cheap enough you can get a good one for not much more that will drive better the whole time and probably last longer. I've seen people get well over 100k on premium all seasons (mich and bridgestones) on their beaters.

In the end you gotta do what's in the budget. If 300 is all you can afford go for it, if you are just being cheap, I'd probably pony up a little more and get a mid range tire, them if something does happen you have the backing of the manufacturer.

Opti wrote: I'm not a fan of the super cheap chinese tires. Knew a guy that had some wanlis on his get and they made so much noise he kept trying to figure out which bearing was dying.

This happened to me.

I swore that I had a LF wheel bearing going on my WRX. I changed over to my Winterforces and away went the noise. The Wanli's were really noisy!!!

Both sets of Chinese tires I've thrown on the daily have had internal failures long before the tread was done.

I recently cobbled together a set of fairly recent production used Michelin Primacy MXV4 grand touring tires for my autocross 325i. I spent $135 shipped for two of the tires from a very good eBay seller that listed the DOT date codes. I love these. They actually handle pretty well. Ride great. Improved the gas mileage, and don't seem to be wearing a bit (unlike my $300 set of new Kumho Ecsta XSes).

When I first got this BMW I bought a very cheap set of Falken Ziex ZE-512 "high-performance all-seasons" for it from Discount Tire--when they had the $100 rebate deal. Crappiest pieces of junk ever. No grip, sloppy handling, bad wear, horrible ride.

Now there might be some good cheap tires out there, but most often it is a better deal to just buy the best tire. Like if you want a UHP summer tire, just get the Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Everything else is crappy in one way or the other (says the person who has bought 2 sets of Sumitomo HTR Z IIIs.)

FWIW: Ohtsu, Falken, Sumitomo, and Dunlop are one Japanese company. Hankook means "Korea" in Korean

Ran a set of Fuzion HRi's on the old Accent. They only thing they had going for them was their wear. We put 40k miles on a set. They were terrible in the rain. Terrible in the snow. Had mediocre at best in dry conditions. They were, hands down, the loudest tire I've ever had on a car and getting the road force nmbers to a reasonable level took dismounting 3 of the 4 multiple times to get it to match the wheel enough to work.

So.... I'm not a huge fan of Fuzions. We replaced them with the Kumho Platinum LX (195/60/14) and it was the BEST tire we'd run on a car.

I've ran the Kumho Solus KR21 and the wifes car has the Falken Ziex and both seem ok for DD vehicles as neither car is driven anywhere near any kind of limit (not counting the speed limit).

Falken ziex and nexen n5000 are some of the best cheap all seasons I've run.

Fusion are crap. Absolutely crap. I would not even use one aa an engine carrying tire.

I will second Falken Ziex. I would pay the extra to use those over the cheap Chinese tires. They were first autocross tire we had on the Scirocco.

I bought tires earlier this year for my Mazda and got Kumho Ecsta PA31's for a reasonable price and a $50 rebate. With the rebate, I believe they were under $400 installed. I've run them for about 10k miles and they have been great so far. Decent handling, good wet traction, low noise, and they wear well.

Look out for rebates and online sales on regular name-brand tires and you may be surprised that they may be around the same money as the cheapo Chinese ones. (FWIW, mine are made in China, as many other brands probably are too these days).

I found the Kumho KR21 to degrade quite a bit with some wear... they were scary in wet/snow after 30,000 miles. A friend has a Kia (Soul) that came with Nexen tires, he said they were bad in all conditions. Not sure what model they were though.

FWIW, I believe Doral tires are also made by the same factory as Sumitomo et al.

Matthew Huizing wrote: FWIW: Ohtsu, Falken, Sumitomo, and Dunlop are one Japanese company. Hankook means "Korea" in Korean

Kinda sorta. Ohtsu started falken as a high performance brand, and sumitomo has comtrolling stake in ohtsu last I heard. Dunlop is owned by Goodyear though....BUT Dunlop then sold its name to sumitomo, and sumitomo manufacturers all the asian made dunlops.

There are all kinds of convoluted deals and weird partial ownerships in the tire industry.

I agree with most of what you said, although I love michelins I dont think they are the answer in all situations.

Nankang are a Taiwanese tire. I picked up a cheap set to end out the year on my supercharged 944 and so far they are great. Came in the sizing I needed and 300$ a set, you can't go wrong. I'll be autoXing them in October, should be interesting.