CHINESE TYRES vs BRAND NAME

[amunra]

hey guys, reference. ** driving stock golf r mk7 **

after having my original bridgestone potenza (terrible from new, poor traction and durability) followed by 2x sets of goodyear f1 assymetric 2 ( great tyre even when bald and highly recommend).

i've decided to put the old chinese brand vs brand known tyre debate to the test and see if i could find something that resembles a good chinese TYRE while i have the feeling of GOODYEAR F1 fresh in my muscle memory..

after doing a bit of scouring on the internet based on what was available for my tyre size...

i decided to go with KINFOREST KF550 which surprisingly gets great reviews on performance cars by just about everyone on the internet unlike all the other 'major' chinese tyre brands which you'd want to keep clear from performance cars....

Kinforest KF550 Tire UHP Review

for 1 / 3 - 1 / 4 of the price of goodyear assymetric 3 or michelin PS4S for a set of 4x they could turn out to be a great budget tyre... especially for these horrible sydney roads which are extremely punishing and probably dont let you really appreciate a great tyre.


will let everyone know how they go over time with feedback on (handling, aquaplane, loss of traction on haldex) e.t.c and if anything bad arises.


feel free to post if you have any similar experiences with these tyres in particular or chinese tyres... good or bad

[LibraR]

What car are you driving? If it's a performance model and knowing how well they respond to good tyres compared to poor ones, why would you risk it to save a few $$... maybe...? Four small patches of tyre is all that stands between smiles and tears.

Good tyres get rave reviews for a reason. Cheap ones must have corners cut somewhere. And shopping around allows some great deals to be found on some awesome tyres.

If it were me, I'd work out how many cups of coffee is the difference between the best price on good tyres and the Chinese ones, and set the goal to cut down coffees...

Just my opinion, which I gather is what you were seeking - others' views...

[Kachingg]

Please keep updating the thread 1mth in 3mths ect ect
I will be vry interested to see how you go as i have 235/35/19smyself a good cheap tyre would be a find
How much are they per tyre?

[Transporter]

I prefer to stay safe and would always go with a proven known brand. No Chinese tyres for our family own cars.

[ope126]

I prefer to stay safe and would always go with a proven known brand. No Chinese tyres for our family own cars.

That there is the truth, ruth!!!

[gldgti]

Assuming your car was fitted with the RE050 (marketed as high performance tyre, but its really more of an all occasions tyre) then there are lots of tyres to give you a better experience, and its not likely any of them are going to be no-name brands.

Even among the Potenza lineup, the best tyre is going to be the RE003, much different in reality than the RE050.

Cheap tyres feel good on the day you buy them, but in my experience they leave you dissappointed in the long run (or worse).

The best tyre advice is - buy the most expensive tyres you can afford at the best price you can find them.... - i.e. shop around for the best deal on the best tyre.

[IsDon]

Don't go near them.

I thought along those lines. Once.

My wife's Mazda3 needed new tyres. The old Bridgestones weren't even worn out, the car was used so infrequently they were showing signs of cracking but they still had half tread.

I thought, for the shopping trolley, that Chinese tyres would be perfectly ok.

In truth they were so much worse than the old cracked Bridgestones they were replacing I almost swapped them back.

I drove the car around for a few months but then came my first drive in the wet with them. They were like driving on ice skates. When they totally lost grip at slow speed on a roundabout and I all but ploughed into the gutter, enough was enough!

I drove straight to a tyre shop and put a set of Pirellis all round.

I chalked the money wasted on the Chinese crap up to experience. I only lost a few hundred bucks. I could have lost my life or that of my family's.


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[amunra]

great response so far .. yet noone has named WHICH brand chinese tyre they are saying are bad or whether they've had them on their GOLF GTI / R .. i think that would help bring more clarity or integrity to this discussion.... thus why i started it. maybe we could all learn something or just HELP someone who might not have $1000 - 1400 for a set of premium tyres for whatever reason but still want to enjoy their car or simply use it for day to day or goto work.

i've actually read on a sister site to this that these tyres in particular are some of the best BANG FOR BUCK tyres for track and are really popular in canada which has horrible weather compared to here...


for those who missed it.. ive clearly stated at the top im driving a STOCK GOLF R Mk7 for a reference point to all this testing.

the tyres ive bought in particular are KINFOREST KF550 UHP 235 / 35 / 19 for the stock 19" cadiz as they get great reviews for higher power cars & high performance applications... all over the internet . unlike all the other chinese companies... they have worked along side and had associations with other big tyre companies over the years in terms of technology and materials ( CONTINENTAL & FIRESTONE).... as good developing companies should.


so thanks for all the internet dads out there with the " dont go near them " comments who probably did 0 research and probably just wanted to save a buck.. but i've already got 4 of them on my car and ill be near them everyday on the road as i've already stated..

back to the review..

the drive home from the shop was OK. i dont necessarily like the feel of new tyres but these were no better or worse than the last sets of new tyres ive bought...

2nd drive last night.... after inflating all 4 tyres to 42psi i found the ride quality ALOT better as one was down at 36psi from the store.. this is a good sign as it was noticable in the same way with my GOODYEARS ALSO..

for the next 20 - 30 min of drive i found.

0 loss of traction at all points of the route that i took ( im yet to test at certain points where i lost traction with potenza 100% of the time even in dry) . takes bumps well . feels good on the freeway at 100km/h.. no swaying or twitching and good response.

my main concern is to see if the quality of the rubber compound deteriorates and how it will hold up over the months ..... i think thats the main issue for all these chinese tyres and if this company happens to source its compound and uses similar procedures from the same places as the more higher end tyres i think we may be onto a winner.

[amunra]

CHINESE TYRES vs BRAND NAME

heres some more feedback..

just spent 3 hours in the light but continuous drizzle under different driving conditions (mix of city traffic .. bit of open road and different speeded roads , turns / roundabouts.... car definately feels good and stable... good under light and also sharp braking.. and no unusual movements and most importantly NO WHEEL SPIN under a good amount of throttle from N to 1 to 2

they heated up and nicely and evenly.. were all 42psi when i pressure tested them after 2 hours

i will next feedback when i've experienced heavy rain and also heavy braking situations.

but for the initial 5 hours ive spent in the car they've been good... for a layman like most would be on this forum it would hard to distinguish between these and with goodyear assymentric for out of the shop for ride quality and characteristics. Definately keen to see how they wear in and will be performing after 1000 - 5000 KM's

[pocketpunch]

Tyres are a thing you dont cheap out on.
Im glad they're working well for you but with past exp cheap tyres will work magic for 5,000 ks and then they'll be slipping st every opportunity.
Atleast you have awd tho.

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[Kachingg]

Indeed i for 1 am interested in the long term result it will def be a long term result 5000k+ to really determine the outcome

[theresanothersteve]

The only thing I can add is from the mouth of a mate who was a franchisee from one of the major tyre chains.

I asked him about Chinese tyres a few years back and his comment was at the time they were fairly good value for money. Most of the factories were new and producing tyres that were close to their intended tolerance, so from a manufacturing perspective (one of the concerns a lot of people have about Chinese products) they were good.

The unfortunate part of Chinese manufacture is their willingness to substitute (as Mattel (or Google it) about substituting lead based paint on toys). This means although the goods are well made and within tolerance the material used might be sub standard.

So you get what you paid for (maybe a little more due to the good tolerances). Let the buyer beware. Did I/ Do I/ Will I buy Chinese tyres? No.

[SteveMc]

Keen to hear the outcome, mate. I for one am always glad to see small startup companies compete with the legacy brands, even if they're from China. Society's obsession with brand names and labels costs us extra in the long run, for sure.

[The_Hawk]

How many dollars are these tyres actually costing? I know you've said 1/3 - 1/4, but what is that in actual dollars? This allows us to compare them more easily to other things that might be available. I'm running RE003's in 225/40/R18 which cost me $980 fitted (in september 2015).

Having read one to two tyre reviews over the years as well as talking to people around the industry I've come to understand a few things.

Reputable tyre tests are usually done in a reasonable fashion, but they also tend to source tyres directly from the manufacturers which means you're getting brand new fresh tyres which isn't always the case in your local shop (depending on how popular they are they could be older stock). This means that they will be performing as well as they ever will and will only get worse over time...

In very broad terms tyres that grip better are softer and wear faster vs harder compounds which wear really well as the expense of grip. It's also worth noting that soft tyres tend to get harder as they age so you want something that maintains it's properties over it's useful life.

For those reasons (and as someone has already said) even low KM cars should have their shoes replaced at regular intervals to ensure the tyres are still doing their jobs.

Here is one example of some testing that's worth having a look at, it's last years test as I didn't see this years online yet.
Best Performance Tyres Test 2016 | MOTOR Performance Tyre Reviews | MOTOR

In any case it's interesting, there is about 20% in both wet and dry braking tests but it's less than 10% for the other tests. In real numbers that is 13.96m in the wet braking test vs 16.54m and 34.75m vs 41.75m in the dry tests.

Here is another one:
The best and worst tyres for your car

This review includes at least a passing reference to an old tyre. It doesn't say what brand/model it is, but the summary was it was reasonable in the dry but sucked hard in the wet, presumably this is simply down to the amount of water able to be displaced by the depth of the tread (or lack there of).

I'd love to see the same tests done to the same tyres in 24 months or 20,000km or something to get a real world story on age.

Here is another article talking about older tyres and little about the science:
How Old - and Dangerous - Are Your Tires?

and another:
The Science of Tire Aging


Bottom line, normal people are unlikely to ever be able to test more than "seat of the pants". Those 10% differences in driving are unlikely to be really felt on the streets. Even the 20% difference in braking is only a couple of car lengths and aren't the sort of thing you tend to do in real life (except when it's probably more important that it all works... like in an emergency). It would be great to see this end of the market included in some of these more scientific tests.

It would have been interesting if the OP has done a few dry brake tests on the old tyres then the same on the new ones at the same location... but then finding somewhere it's safe (and/or) legal to do that can be interesting too

Again, for most people, most of the time anything round and black is probably OK as we tend to not drive to the limit or be put in situations where it matters too much.... but then it's sort of like insurance. You don't pay for it because you think you won't crash, you pay for it in case you do. Plenty of people choose to self-insure and come out in front, even after an accident... others hit a Porsche on the way to the shops.

[sambb]

I think the reaction of some people on here at what your doing come from the fact that the '10% of people' thing might apply to camry's etc but you're in a mk7 golf R doing some serious speeds in the blink of an eye, which kind of changes the risk/benefit relationship. A lot can go wrong fast and is more likely to with turd tyres. You can feel even premium brand tyres go off over time. There's also the simple fact that if you're under the load and speed ratings of the oem tyres and have a big one, the insurance company could wipe you.