I remember my dad putting a set of Hercules tires on a suburban in the mid 80's, and by the mid 90's they had migrated through my S10 to a Bronco. Still had good tread and grip IIRC. The name is still around, but I have no clue on quality or content.
At the recommendation of my local tire shop I put a new set of Hercules AT tires on my Sierra Denali. They recommended them over the equivalent General tire. The reasoning was that they were having issues with the new generals going out of round and in turn out of balance.
I have had the Hercules on the truck now through a decent snow and some serious rain and they are great. A side bonus is they are very quiet on dry pavement and Handel really well on dry pavement. I was expecting some noise due to the AT tred patterns but was surprised that they are as quiet as the Michelins I took off. Snow and rain traction is excellent. Another thing is they were recommended them to me even after I told them I was putting a plow on the truck. They said to up the front tire pressure to 40 psi with the plow on. So far so good. They were excellent when plowing.
I am completely sold on these tires. Oh and I was out the door for less than $550 mounted balanced installed and old tires disposed of. And even though the were a special order they got them in the next day.
I asked about these tires and my tire guy told me that Hercules gets there tires made by various big brand tire company's and just has them branded Hercules. So there tires lines are a mix of manufacturers. He also told me that they do not advertise at all. They only sell at tire stores and rely on word of mouth to sell there tires.
This is the tire I got.
Hercules Terra Trac A/T II
My experience with off-brand tires is so long ago it shouldn't be relevant, except the products I used in the early 90s are still available today:
The Mastercraft A/S IV passenger tire with white side wall in sizes to fit old cars and the
Kenda Challenger K657 motorcycle tire.
Both had risen to the top of the heap of cheap stuff I had tried up to that point (Cheng Shin motorcycle tires) and various other passenger tires.
When I got a few dollars in my pocket, I switched to the major brands and haven't really looked back, though I've only had modern vehicles since.
If my truck was newer I would have probably put another set of Michelins on it but at over 300 k miles I was looking for somthing a little less expensive.
At work we used to deal with a small independent tire store that provided us with Wild Country tires for our trucks. We joked about them constantly, but they were pretty good tires.
dean1484 wrote: If my truck was newer I would have probably put another set of Michelins on it but at over 300 k miles I was looking for somthing a little less expensive.
One of my co-workers will only put Michelins on his 4runners. He gets a lot of miles out of them, which is good with his 60 mile commute.
I've had good luck with Continental, Yokohama, Nitto, and BF Goodrich tires. I've had bad luck with Cooper, and mixed experiences with Kumho and Bridgestone tires. I really like Bridgestone's winter tires, but I had a set of the infamous RE92's on my first WRX and they were scary bad.
I did have Michelins once, on a 2002 Jetta. They came with them new, and they were completely dry rotted by 20k miles. My parents had the same tires on their 1996 Maxima at the time, and they did the same thing (Michelin Energy MXV4's).
Also, I love the names of off-brand tires. They always make me laugh. My favorites of all time are the American Deluxe Classic LX whitewalls that came on my friend's '72 Dodge D100. It's like they took a bunch of words that would appeal to an old guy and slapped them together on a whitewall, because it'll SOUND like a quality tire!
The Nexen Roadian truck tires are a close second. Roadian sounds like a terrible 3rd party Atari 2600 game, or a made-up enemy of Godzilla. 
In reply to SilverFleet:
Michelin dry rot seems to be a big problem on their all seasons. Their performance tires and snows seem to be worlds apart in that respect.
I had a set of Hercules winter tires on my car about 10 years ago. They were one of the best winter tires I've ever known. Couldn't find them again when it was time to change.
When I bought my old Saabaru, it came with a set of Linglong. The best I can say is that they were comfortable for a "performance" tire.
My first Spec-V came with a set of Akina tires. Auto-x on them was hilarious. Absolutly no grip. But they didn't overheat and lasted well.
i usually go with treadwright re-caps for truck/suv tires since they are cheap and you can get anything from mild AT's to meaty MT's in pretty much any load rating you want. and they are made (or i guess re-capped) in 'merica 
I couple of years ago, I bought a set of Kenda Kineticas for an old Saturn, based on good experience with Kenda motorcycle tires. They weren't bad in dry conditions, but weren't great in the rain and were lousy in snow. If I'd had it to do over, I'd have ordered a set of Kumhos or Hankooks from Tire Rack for the same price and accepted the hassle of mail order and separate installation.
Linglongs make me think of the noble Chinese-Americans who helped build the Trans-Continental Railroad. They managed to lay ten miles of track in twelve hours while singing "I've been working on the railroad, all the Ling-Long day."
I'm running a set of Windforce Catchfors MTs I got on sponsorship on the Samurai. Chinese-made tire, looking them up online, I only found info on them from a South African dealership's site. Probably not a tire I would've bought if I had walked into a shop and had to spend my own money on them.
But after driving on them...they're pretty good, traction on pavement isn't the best (especially when new) but it's in the same ballpark as other mud tires I've run. Mud traction is excellent, the grippiest tires in the mud I've had on yet (vs. Dunlop Grandtrek MTs and Hankook Dynapro MTs).
Here's another weird brand I've driven on, Sailun. My sister put these on her NB because she treats cars like she just stole them in Grand Theft Auto.
They aren't remarkably bad in the dry for no-seasons, but these tires could easily kill an average driver in the rain (she's hardly driven on these tires because my mom gave her a car, I guess for being so responsible). Just rolling onto the throttle at highway speed is enough to break traction in the wet and any hint of lateral motion at that moment is enough to start the car rotating sideways. Front tires also float side to side in the rain if the road is rough.
On the positive side, they're dirt cheap so they might make sense as disposables on the back of a drift car, but I can't recommend them for anything else.
I ran a set of Sunny snow tires on my old MR-S for a season. I was pretty happy with those. The dry grip was a little low but it made skids easy 
Blacklion
Advanta
EZMile (maybe ten miles, it was brand new with a huge bulge in the sidewall)
Tires are one thing I will never trust to an "off-brand."
I picked up a set of Hercules winter tires for #2 Daughter's Toyota Echo because the price was right. That thing can go through anything now. Colour me impressed.
mndsm wrote: Kenda did/does a lot of bicycle tires.
Scooter and small motorcycle tires, as well.
The Camaro came with Fuzion ZRi or some such crap on it when I got it. OK in the dry, not great in the rain, but man was that one time I drove on them with just the slightest dusting of snow scary. Granted, I think they're supposed to be summer tires and were probably quite old at the time I bought the car, but still not an experience I'd like to repeat.
I've had Treadwright's Guard Dogs on the XJ since about July and I've been happy so far. Fine in the dry, decent in the wet, and actually really impressive in the couple inches of snow we got last weekend. They're definitely not as cheap as they were a few years ago, but I've also noticed the pricing tends to fluctuate quite a bit. Like, in the couple months leading up to my purchase, I think I saw the 31 10.5 15 Guard Dogs listed anywhere from $125-150 a piece. Not sure why that is. I also think their manufacturing process may have been changed recently because now the side walls are totally molded over with their own insignia, rather than the carcass's original branding.
Ok, for performance/racing go with tyres you know or some one else knows.
For the street I'll run just about anything that my tyre shop sells (Simply Tyre in Toronto). The Saab is on Fuzion all seasons and Barum snows. My wife's LTZ Turbo Sonic is on cheap off brand tyres. We just drove it to Montreal and it was a tank on Chinese snows.
Find a good shop and run their cheap tyres. If they're good the tyres will be fine.
We ended up going with a set of Kelly tires- the shop near us initially recommended Yokohamas for the Mariner but then recommended the Kellys when I was a bit hesitant at the price of the Yokos. More than I'd liked to have paid for them, but with needing them fast and having to work around SWMBO's schedule it was probably the best approach as we dropped the car off right before they closed and then dropped her off on my way in to work a few hours after they opened to pick it up. She's really happy with it from what she's driven it today, and it will be nice having new tires and a fresh alignment for the drive up into a foot or more of snow this weekend.
It's been amusing seeing the variety of bizarre tire brands.
Those Kellys should work well for you. They are a subsidiary of Goodyear. The quality should be near Goodyear tire standard, but the overall performance will be a little less.
I ran a set of Wanli Winter Challengers on my 02 WRX for 3 years.
They are a knock-off of the Altimax Arctic.
Ran them year round without any issues.
I looked at a coworkers car today and it has a set of "Ling Long" tires on it. I thought of this thread and laughed.
Kelly Tires have been in business over 100 years, started as Kelly-Springfield then later bought by Goodyear. I remember dad buying Kelly tires back in the 60's.
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