Good Chinese tire?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Frank B

Frank B

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Posts
1,582
Location
Calgary, Alberta
Thought I would make it home on my TowMax Power King 235 80R 16 tires, but decided against it.  The edges were just too far gone for me to chance the 2,500 KM drive home.  Having had good success with Discount Tire for other services, I tried them.  Wanted Goodyear tires, but man, are they expensive!  As trailer tires don't last a long time anyway (even if the wheels are aligned), I decided to 'cheap out' to get me home, and maybe one more season.  They sold me a set of Contender TT868 tires (apparently made by Greenball of China).  The specs are impressive.

Load range E, and speed rating M.  Pretty impressive for an $86 tire.

Time will tell, and I'll report back if there are any issues.  Reviews are all over the map on tires, from one star to 5 star, so it may depend on the ones that you actually get installed on your trailer.  However, based on some reports, they may work out alright.

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]https://tirereviewsandmore.com/contender-ttt868-reviews/[/font]

Frank.



 
If they work for you that's great but honestly, I am scared to trust cheap tires. I had a blowout at highway speed, it wasn't pretty. Safety first.
 
I have to agree with above two responses, I have read nothing good about Chinese tires and it seems they have a fairly high failure/blow-out rate.  I am one to save a buck when I can, but tires being the only thing between me and/or my vehicles and the road I prefer to spend the extra dollars on excellent tires, to do otherwise IMHO is false economy.
 
We have a lot of people online whom think anything made by the Chinese is junk. I would not bother to listen to the negative online reviews on Chinese goods.
 
8) I bought a set of 6 Rated E tires for my Class C 27"  MH. They were made in China, the dealer said the CT stood for Continental Tire! I drove on them for 7 years and approximately 6,500 miles. Kept my air pressure set at the wheel specs, checked for tire damage every time I parked for a day or so! No problems and I weighed in at about 12,500 lbs. Traveled at 58-62 MPH.  ;D ;D
 
Low priced tires made in China should be suspect, they are made there simply because of price.  Online reviews can be a good thing. if failures are reported they are not all liars.
 
In my opinion...  Merely being made in a Chinese factory does not constitute being a "China Bomb".  Many large, international tire brands have their own factories in China, or outsource some of their tire sizes or models to Chinese factories.  They enforce their design and production quality standards.  They also warranty the tire through their own distribution channels, so you don't have the ship a failed tire back to a Chinese factory. The "country of origin" maybe China, but those name brand tires are made to international standards.

But I would still be wary of ultra-cheap brand x tires from Chinese factories. There is more to cutting prices to the bone than just brand name advertising costs or higher dealer mark-ups. Skimping on production and design quality will increase the risk of getting a tire that is out-of-round or susceptible to internal failure. 80-90% of those tires may be fine for 80%-90% of driving and environmental conditions, but what happens if you happen to be in the other 10-20%? And how much is that worth to you.  There are many excellent brands that don't cost a lot more than the brand x's - you don't have to go with Michelin or Goodyear or Bridgestone to get a good quality tire.
 



If they work for you that's great but honestly, I am scared to trust cheap tires. I had a blowout at highway speed, it wasn't pretty. Safety first.
Click to expand...


Well, I'm hoping that the higher than average E load rating, and the much higher than average M speed rating mean that in 'normal' settings I can get good wear out of them.


IIUC, the Chinese manufacturers have taken a lot of flak (and deservedly so) for sub-standard tires, and are working to 'up their game' as the bad press is bad for business.


The Power King Towmaster tires that I had before were considered to be a 'good' tire, and they too were made in China.  As are Maxxis, IIRC.  In fact, until the Goodyear ST tires hit the market, were not ALL ST tires made in China?  When I contacted Michelin, they denied having ANY ST tires in their lineup, and they refused to give me an LT equivalent.


Anyway, time will tell.  My E rated Chinese tires should carry 3520 lbs each, or 14,080 lbs total.  My trailer is just under 11K fully loaded and wet (of which about 1K is on the hitch, leaving 10K on the tires), which should give me a decent safety margin, particularly considering that I don't travel that fast, and seldom travel in the heat of summer.


In any case, we'll see, I guess!  I'll let you know if I end up in the ditch!  :)


Frank.
 
Anecdotal reports of tires are highly unreliable. Few contain enough factual information to make any judgement about the cause of failures and few owners pay much attention to a tire until it fails. Reports almost universally claim the tire was always inflated "properly", even though they rarely have any notion of what "proper" really is, and few bother to remember whether they drove over a curb months ago or otherwise caused stress.  I'm not claiming all reports are false or wrong, but you have to take them with several grains of salt.

 
Thanks, Gary. It is so nice to have your experience weigh in on this question. While I am sure that there are many substandard Chinese tires on the market, one does need to be reasonable in assessing things.


As mentioned, I will keep an eye on these tires and report back if there are any issues.
 
As someone with numerous years of worldwide manufacturing experience, I have a problem with 'Good' and 'Chinese' in the same sentence. I've dealt with Chinese suppliers, subcontractors, and subsidiary companies since the 70's. Apologies if this offends your favorite Chinese tire manufacturer, but I wouldn't touch a Chinese manufactured tire. You're free to spend your $$$ wherever you wish, but caveat emptor.

No, I didn't visit a Chinese tire manufacturing facility, but it's a cultural issue.
 
Tom:


So, where were your tires manufactured prior to the arrival of the current US-manufactured Goodyear ones?  What brand?  I couldn't find any ST tires that were NOT Chinese.  I did get a set of Duro tires for our previous trailer that were made in Mexico, but couldn't find anything this time.


However, I know what you mean.  I did buy some in-dash entertainment systems for our vehicles that I imported from China.  One was DOA, one died within the year, and the third one I sold with the used car it was in.


Frank.
 
[quote author=Frank B]So, where were your tires manufactured prior to the arrival of the current US-manufactured Goodyear ones?[/quote]

Frank, Our Michelin tires were manufactured in the USA, see here, and I didn't mention Goodyear  ???
 
Tom:


That link didn't work for me. I got a 404 message.


I did try Michelin, but they denied having any ST tires in their lineup at all.


Frank.
 
Who mentioned an ST tire? I didn't. We have a 38 foot coach (DP) that sure doesn't use an ST Tire. Apologies if I confused the discussion.
 
Tom said:
Who mentioned an ST tire? I didn't. We have a 38 foot coach (DP) that sure doesn't use an ST Tire. Apologies if I confused the discussion.
Click to expand...


I thought I mentioned that in the original post where I said I was looking for tires for a trailer.  Also in post #11 where I mentioned that I had tried Michelin, and that they disavowed any knowledge of ST tires.  ;D


Ah well, we've all responded to a thread without reading it all first, I guess.


I love the Michelin AT/X tires on my truck.  They have worn well, and more importantly, have worn dead even right across the face.  Never had that happen before, and I've had 5 sets of tires on this aging '06, if one includes the snow tires.  I was sorely tempted to put LT tires on the trailer this time, but just didn't want to take a chance with insurance if anything DID happen.  Insurance companies will wriggle out of anything if they can.  :-\


Anyway, other than the recent Goodyear ST tires, I know of no other ST tires that are NOT Chinese, including some of the 'better' brands like Maxxis Power King / Towmaster, and so on.


Like I say, if this really doesn't work out, I will let everyone know.


Frank.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 843 (members: 37, guests: 806)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,959
Posts
1,388,207
Members
137,710
Latest member
sassytail
Back
Top Bottom