Cheap Tires?

Bobzilla wrote: Fuzion HRi: Absolutely the WORST tire I've owned this side of a General Ameritrak. Lasted forever though. 40k miles of horrific road noise, terrible wet traction, mediocre dry traction and terrible snow traction. This on a car with 90hp at the flywheel.

OH HOLY CRAP. I had a set of Fuzion HRis on my Ford Escort LeMons car. They were like-new when I bought the set (complete with wheels) for $80. Deep tread, so I figured they'd be the rain tires. We had Azenis for the dry. And then we tried them on a rainy race.

The car was un-berkeleying-drivable. No traction. All the understeer, then snap oversteer. Slide everywhere. It was close to driving on ice. Other teams thought we were awful drivers, or that our car had drivability issues. It was just all over the place.

While Altimax HP's may be an adequate performing cheap tire for sedate commuting, overall they were exceedingly mediocre in pretty much everything they did...Which is fine if that's all you are looking for from a cheap tire. However mine came on a Miata, and there was certainly nothing 'HP' about them. Ultimately their best attribute was that they had such soft sidewalls and such low grip in all-seasons that they really accentuated the legal to nearly legal fun feeling of 'driving a slow car fast'. Thus I suppose they did make autoxing a bone stock 1.6L open diff Miata feel a bit more 'exciting'.

Along the same lines, the affordable Hankook Optimo H727 have been at least as acceptable thus far on my wife's DD.

Do a quick search on tire rack for the 350Z. Sorting by max performance tires, the Sumitomo ZIII is the cheapest at $476 plus a $50 mail in rebate. I have a set on my RX-8 and I'm happy with them. Check out tire rack's test results, they compare very favourably in the dry and are pretty good in the wet.

Goodride sp06 = worst tire ever in the rain, or anytime for that matter.

Driven5 wrote: While Altimax HP's may be an adequate performing cheap tire for sedate commuting, overall they were exceedingly mediocre in pretty much everything they did...Which is fine if that's all you are looking for from a cheap tire. However mine came on a Miata, and there was certainly nothing 'HP' about them. Ultimately their best attribute was that they had such soft sidewalls and such low grip in all-seasons that they really accentuated the legal to nearly legal fun feeling of 'driving a slow car fast'. Thus I suppose they did make autoxing a bone stock 1.6L open diff Miata feel a bit more 'exciting'. Along the same lines, the affordable Hankook Optimo H727 have been at least as acceptable thus far on my wife's DD.

What the hell kind of cheap all seasons do you run to call that tire low grip? Were they 5 years old and stored in an attic in Arizona or something? Sticks like glue to anything paved I've ever driven on, even has some semblance of traction on ice.

Dusterbd13 wrote: most of the cheap federals suck. the 595 has been ploeasantly suprizing though. the avons on my elky suck like the vacuum of space. i will NEVER buy another set of fuzions, or of sumitomos, or pep-boys tires. i forget pep-boys brand name for good reason. these three were the worst investment i have EVER made (more than the $28 cadillac), and were removed from the car shortly after they were installed. i have run plenty of nexens, kumhos, falkens, bfg, dunlop, federals (only liked the 595), and a set of phaser's. those phasers really shocked me.....

So the phasers were set to stun...

Can't really say I've been impressed with any no-name cheap tires as I tend to go with high performance yet lower priced tires (bang/buck high performance tires). I will say I love the Kumho Ecsta LE Sports on my Tacoma and plan to put them on my FR-S because for $80 a tire they are an awesome DD tire dry or wet and should outperform the stock Michelin Primacy HP's in every aspect yet still be at a similar level compared to something like the Ecsta XS, which I don't like for the street (excessive grip for the car...changes its handling too much in the wrong way. Excellent for track where you are pushing it hard, not excellent for the street where pushing it hard enough to be fun would result in a long jail sentence along with car confiscated/destroyed...)

I would like to see a test article done on no-name brand tires though, like is done with the street and race class tire tests; could be informative, may find a surprising new tire, and no matter what it should be entertaining at least...

I've had good luck with Cooper tires. Not the absolute cheapest on the block, but for 'standard' DD tires I've been happy with them. Kelly has some decent stuff too.

Javelin wrote:

SilverFleet wrote: A close second for me would be the Nexen "Roadian" off road tires. What the hell is a Roadian? Sounds like an Atari 2600 game or something.

Rodian:

So beat me to it.....

Alan Cesar wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: Fuzion HRi: Absolutely the WORST tire I've owned this side of a General Ameritrak. Lasted forever though. 40k miles of horrific road noise, terrible wet traction, mediocre dry traction and terrible snow traction. This on a car with 90hp at the flywheel.

OH HOLY CRAP. I had a set of Fuzion HRis on my Ford Escort LeMons car. They were like-new when I bought the set (complete with wheels) for $80. Deep tread, so I figured they'd be the rain tires. We had Azenis for the dry. And then we tried them on a rainy race. The car was un-berkeleying-drivable. No traction. All the understeer, then snap oversteer. Slide everywhere. It was close to driving on ice. Other teams thought we were awful drivers, or that our car had drivability issues. It was just all over the place.

I have these on my Dakota and they handle exactly the same. They are quiet down the road though, but a straight through Magnaflow and no tailpipe might be blocking that out.

Toyman01 wrote: My work van has Hankooks on it, I love them.

Model man, WHATS THE MODEL?

I need truck tires for the tow rig and don't feel like shelling out $1k shipped for Michelin LTX's

Currently running Fuzion HRis on the Outback(used from Pseudosport, so extra cheap) and Sumitomo HTRs on the wife's Forester.

The HRis are surprising. Yes, loud, but good in rain, stiff carcass, pretty decent snow traction, wide for the size. I'm sure they're terrible on a lighter car.

Just bought the HTRs, fairly pleased with them thus far. Good ride, don't squeal at 2mph like a chase scene from CHiPS, decent rain traction, sort of narrow for the size. Fine for a bloated grocery wagon.

I had the ZRis on my WRX for a while. I hated the way they felt, but they were fast, I think I set my top time ever in that car on them.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: What the hell kind of cheap all seasons do you run to call that tire low grip? Were they 5 years old and stored in an attic in Arizona or something? Sticks like glue to anything paved I've ever driven on, even has some semblance of traction on ice.

Sure they may seem amazing if only being compared against the cheapest/crappiest tires on the market. But that alone is not a good enough measure for me. In the big picture, they are what they are: Which is to say, a solid bang for your buck 'grand touring all-season' tire for daily driving, where the buck is weighted more heavily than the bang. Nothing more. Nothing less...And nothing that I personally would particularly desire for any type of sporting intent, regardless of how cheap they may be.

A tireshop went out of business and a bunch of guys bought a sea container full of LingLongs for a price of under $5 a tire. I ended up with a set of L688's 235's on the back of my FC. (They came with the wheels I bought off one of the guys - Advan SA3R's). I can safely say that they are the worst tire known to man. I was tire shopping the next day. I should not be able to go sideways in an NA FC in the dry at 10km/h.

LingLongs website is amazing - http://en.linglong.cn/products_detail/&productId=4b98110a-867b-4d40-9090-1839ac7687a7.html

Not sure if the Hercules brand has any performance sizes in their arsenal but we mounted a set of them on our '03 Envoy XL. Slippery when wet and they must be rotated every 3k to avoid strange wear patterns. Fair weather tire for sure but cheap and quiet.

HiTempguy wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: My work van has Hankooks on it, I love them.

Model man, WHATS THE MODEL? I need truck tires for the tow rig and don't feel like shelling out $1k shipped for Michelin LTX's

I felt the same way when I needed tires on the truck. We had been selling the Kumho Road Venture KL51's for a while on some acura's. 30k miles later and they are still good tires. Definately recommend.

Driven5 wrote: While Altimax HP's may be an adequate performing cheap tire for sedate commuting, overall they were exceedingly mediocre in pretty much everything they did...Which is fine if that's all you are looking for from a cheap tire. However mine came on a Miata, and there was certainly nothing 'HP' about them. Ultimately their best attribute was that they had such soft sidewalls and such low grip in all-seasons that they really accentuated the legal to nearly legal fun feeling of 'driving a slow car fast'. Thus I suppose they did make autoxing a bone stock 1.6L open diff Miata feel a bit more 'exciting'. Along the same lines, the affordable Hankook Optimo H727 have been at least as acceptable thus far on my wife's DD.

Agreed. If you've never had a "good" tire, they probably seem great. If you've ever had a great tire, they are mediocre at best.

Mmadness wrote: The minivan has Kumho SPTs on it and in terms of quality, they really aren't that great. While they're miles better than the Lincoln Town Car tires (no joke) that came as OE they do have a few flaws. The rubber has become like a cheap Chinese eraser over time even though the tires are under 3 years old and the tired have bizarre wear patterns. On the tread their are dozens of "slashes" in no discernible pattern. It is almost like splicing but they are much smaller (and less deap) and at varrying angles.

Why the hell does a minivan have directional summer tires with a low load rating? (BTW, that would explain your weird wear)

I damn near bought some Accelera Alphas a month or so again until i came across a deal on some near-new Dunlop DZ101 (which i have owned numerous sets of in spite of the fact that i dont like them! ). I guess i just knew what i was getting, and i like their deep 'rim protector' lip.

I REALLY want to try some of those $75 Federal 595 RS-Rs.

Driven5 wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote: What the hell kind of cheap all seasons do you run to call that tire low grip? Were they 5 years old and stored in an attic in Arizona or something? Sticks like glue to anything paved I've ever driven on, even has some semblance of traction on ice.

Sure they may seem amazing if only being compared against the cheapest/crappiest tires on the market. But that alone is not a good enough measure for me. In the big picture, they are what they are: Which is to say, a solid bang for your buck 'grand touring all-season' tire for daily driving, where the buck is weighted more heavily than the bang. Nothing more. Nothing less...And nothing that I personally would particularly desire for any type of sporting intent, regardless of how cheap they may be.

Name me a better performing all season tire for anywhere near the same money. You cant go comparing a touring tire to R comps and UHPs.

That argument is a bit of a logical fallacy, that ultimately leads to a slippery slope.

In other words, name a better performing all season tire for anywhere near the same money as the Fuzion Touring? In the variety of sizes I quickly checked on Tire Rack, even sizes of the Altimax HP that were on sale were at least 25% more expensive while the standard pricing runs up to 50% more expensive. Any argument you can make in favor of the Altimax HP over the Fuzion Touring, can just as easily be applied to equivalently better tires costing equivalently more than the Altimax HP as well. Like the Continental Extreme Contact DWS for example...Name a better performing all season tire than that one for anywhere near the same money.

Of course, that's also completely neglecting the vast ambiguity of the terms "better performing" and "anywhere near the same money". As I originally noted, the Hankook Optimo H727 generally seems to be near the same price to the Altimax HP. It performs a little better in some categories, and a little worse in others, but is at least equal for all around bang for the buck. In fact I would think it to be a superior for a year round daily driver tire for many motorists, which is precisely why we picked it for my wife's daily driver specifically over the Altimax HP's which I previously had.

Also why do recommendations for cheap tires that don't suck, on a forum supposedly filled with driving enthusiasts, seem to specifically be related to all-season tires? Tires are actually not a one-size-fits-all type of product, and if sporty driving is important maybe the best recommendation isn't all-season tires at all. Part of the point here is that ultimately any 'touring' all-season tire is going to suck for anybody desiring any real level grip or responsiveness. So why not also expand to look at higher grip 'summer' tires like the Ecsta LE Sport or Direzza DZ101? While neither may not be overly well rated within their respective performance categories, or safe to use as a single set of tires in climates that get snow, they are both generally cheaper than the Altimax HP while simultaneously kicking it square in the nuts regarding any supposed glue-like traction or general sporting handling qualities.

As is often the case, it really just comes down to the differing needs, priorities, and compromises of every individual, since there is no one-size-fits-all 'best' answer...Not even the Altimax HP.

FWIW, my set of spare wheels came with a set of Altimaxes that I've actually enjoyed quite a bit, especially in the wear department.
(NA Miata, close to stock) Fairly sticky, not terrible in the wet, have worn very slowly...

Would certainly consider another set.

So why not also expand to look at higher grip 'summer' tires like the Ecsta LE Sport or Direzza DZ101? While neither may not be overly well rated within their respective performance categories, or safe to use as a single set of tires in climates that get snow, they are both generally cheaper than the Altimax HP while simultaneously kicking it square in the nuts regarding any supposed glue-like traction or general sporting handling qualities.

I already know what i dont like about the DZ101s (floppy, not great traction), so if someone offered me a straight up trade for same-size Altimax HPs, id probably take it just to try something new. And i wouldnt be that surprised if they were just as good of a sporty tire as a DZ101.

One of my cars that has DZ101s on it (i have more than one car with DZ101s..sigh..), they replaced Nexen N3000, and i liked the Nexens better. The very FIRST set of DZ101s i ever owned (when they were new design and $50/pc) replaced a set of VERY worn out Yokohama AVS ES100s and it was a big letdown compared to the Yokos which are now considered ancient.

I had some Rocky Mountain All Seasons on my old Civic, to replace 2 tires that got slashed on New Year's Eve. They were pretty awful.

I eventually replaced all 4 tires with some kind of OEM Kumhos that were pretty good.

Then on my old Buick I replaced some 8 year old tires with Kumho Solus KR21s... they were not good (scary in wet/snow).

I haven't bought any tires since then (2008) but I plan on reading more reviews when the next time comes around.

McTinkerson wrote: A tireshop went out of business and a bunch of guys bought a sea container full of LingLongs for a price of under $5 a tire. I ended up with a set of L688's 235's on the back of my FC. (They came with the wheels I bought off one of the guys - Advan SA3R's). I can safely say that they are the worst tire known to man. I was tire shopping the next day. I should not be able to go sideways in an NA FC in the dry at 10km/h. LingLongs website is amazing - http://en.linglong.cn/products_detail/&productId=4b98110a-867b-4d40-9090-1839ac7687a7.html

When I bought my Saabaru, it came on a set of those Linglongs. I didn't think they were the worst tire ever. But then, the only good thing I can say about them was that they were quiet and comfortable. For what is suppose to be a "performance" tire, I guess that's not very good.

You also have to be careful with cheap tires when you install them. They all seem (Akina, Linglong, Nankang, etc.) to use an insane amount of release agent or something, because they are very greasy at first. And they seem to harden very fast too.