Brand v.s. House Brand Tires (LifeSpan)

[steppinthrax]

Just pulled into Mr. Tire today. Got a price for 4 Yokohama Tires to be around 560 (with road hazard and Alignment). They said they can do "house brand" tires for about 370 or so. They indicated that the HB tires had a 40K mile warranty while the Yokohama AVIDs where 80K (double).

I read that the tire warranty doesn't really indicate the actual tire lifespan, is it worth it to get the "brand name" tires. Am I paying for the name?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

not only would i not buy or use no-name tires, i wouldn't use what appear to be factory-spec tires from bj's, costco, et cetera, because although they are marked the same they are inferior.

they cost exactly the same to make and transport - the lower price to you is due to lower quality commanding lower value.

 

[Zenmervolt]

they cost exactly the same to make and transport - the lower price to you is due to lower quality commanding lower value.

Most "house brand" tires are made by the "name brand" companies.

The lower price is usually because the "house brand" tires are a generation or two older in terms of design so they might be slightly louder or slightly less grippy than the newest models of name brand tires, but they're still perfectly safe. For normal driving with a basic grocery getter Accord/Camry/Civic/Corolla/Fusion/Focus/etc. there's really very little reason for a person to choose a "name brand" tire over a house brand.

To the OP's question, while the treadwear warranty is not the same as expected tread life, there is absolutely no way that a tire with a 40,000 mile treadwear warranty will last as long as a tire with an 80,000 mile treadwear warranty.

If you were looking at the difference between a tire with a 40,000 mile warranty and one with a 50,000 mile warranty, I'd say the difference didn't matter much. But with the extreme difference in treadwear warranties you're looking at, it's clear that the house brand tire is a more sporting design with a softer compound and is not really the same type of tire as the 80,000 mile warranty Yokohamas.

ZV

 

[AgentUnknown]

You get what you pay for. Would you trust the tires when you are driving your family around? All the major brands have expensive tires and also a cheaper line of tires. Ever bought Michelin ps2s that can cost 600 per tire?

 

[steppinthrax]

Most "house brand" tires are made by the "name brand" companies.

The lower price is usually because the "house brand" tires are a generation or two older in terms of design so they might be slightly louder or slightly less grippy than the newest models of name brand tires, but they're still perfectly safe. For normal driving with a basic grocery getter Accord/Camry/Civic/Corolla/Fusion/Focus/etc. there's really very little reason for a person to choose a "name brand" tire over a house brand.

To the OP's question, while the treadwear warranty is not the same as expected tread life, there is absolutely no way that a tire with a 40,000 mile treadwear warranty will last as long as a tire with an 80,000 mile treadwear warranty.

If you were looking at the difference between a tire with a 40,000 mile warranty and one with a 50,000 mile warranty, I'd say the difference didn't matter much. But with the extreme difference in treadwear warranties you're looking at, it's clear that the house brand tire is a more sporting design with a softer compound and is not really the same type of tire as the 80,000 mile warranty Yokohamas.

ZV

Thanks

 

[steppinthrax]

You get what you pay for. Would you trust the tires when you are driving your family around? All the major brands have expensive tires and also a cheaper line of tires. Ever bought Michelin ps2s that can cost 600 per tire?

This is for a Toyota Camry with around 120K on it. I don't know if I will keep it to 200K or beyond? I use it as a daily driver to<--->work......

This is why i'm curious in not putting too much in it?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

yes, no-name tires are made by the same big tire companies. no, i don't expect them to perform as well as dealership/retail sourced factory spec, in terms of braking distance, lateral grip or water-clearing, never mind comfort features like noise or ride quality.

 

[Ferzerp]

I must be a weirdo. Lifespan is the absolute last factor in my choice of tires. I will always take performance in to account far above the other factors. Next, comfort. After that, noise. Then price. Then a distant last is longevity.

When my life is on the line (which it easily can be with tire choice), skimping just seems silly. That tiny contact patch is all that exists between you and messy death any time you drive reasonably fast.

 

[senseamp]

I'd go with Yokohama in this situation. You aren't just paying for brand, the tire sounds superior, and worth the extra price. If they were equally specced, I'd have to do some more research and find some reviews. I'd pay more for a brand name just because they have more to lose if they screw up, but there is a limit to how much more.

 

[996GT2]

not only would i not buy or use no-name tires, i wouldn't use what appear to be factory-spec tires from bj's, costco, et cetera, because although they are marked the same they are inferior.

they cost exactly the same to make and transport - the lower price to you is due to lower quality commanding lower value.

Source?

 

[shabby]

You get what you pay for. Would you trust the tires when you are driving your family around?

Are you suggesting cheap house brand tires will blow out and kill your family?

 

[Zenmervolt]

yes, no-name tires are made by the same big tire companies. no, i don't expect them to perform as well as dealership/retail sourced factory spec, in terms of braking distance, lateral grip or water-clearing, never mind comfort features like noise or ride quality.

OE tires are often complete crap, even from "name brand" tire companies. Bridgestone's Potenza RE92 is an infamously awful tire that comes fitted on numerous cars straight from the manufacturer. There are any number of "house brand" tires that would handily out perform the "name brand" and "factory spec" Potenza RE92 tires.

If a crap tire like the RE92 can be just fine for a manufacturer to use on hundreds of millions of cars, there's no reason to assume that the majority of drivers need the absolute best grip or water shedding, etc.

ZV

 

[JulesMaximus]

I must be a weirdo. Lifespan is the absolute last factor in my choice of tires. I will always take performance in to account far above the other factors. Next, comfort. After that, noise. Then price. Then a distant last is longevity.

When my life is on the line (which it easily can be with tire choice), skimping just seems silly. That tiny contact patch is all that exists between you and messy death any time you drive reasonably fast.

Well, you're driving a brand new Corvette that will do 190mph, the OP is talking about a 10 year old Toyota Camry with 120,000 miles on it. Let's try to keep a little perspective here shall we?

I highly doubt the OP would notice any difference between the HB tires and the name brand tires. The second set of tires I put on my Maxima were Michelin Pilot Sports, the third set were Riken Raptors from Discount Tire. Honestly, the third set were awesome tires. Quieter than the Michelins and at least as much grip and they were decent in the wet and they wore well... plus they were almost half what the Michelins cost.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

I put "Fisk classic" Discount Tire house brand tires on my moms beater 1999 Infiniti I30 like 2 years back and they are still kicking. Drives well enough in the scant rain we get here.

Seeing as they were like 350 installed for a set of 4 they work fine for the price paid.

 

[Spec412]

You need to find out who makes them

In the old days , house brand tires used to be made by the big tire mfgr. But in the past few years the house brand tires are from china suppliers . You don't want those . That's why tire rack list country of manufacturer

 

[pauldun170]

If you get snow or live in an area that gets harsh weather, don't cheap out on tires. Research the best tires for your car and weather that fits in your budget. Personally the only house brand tire I have is on my spare tires but I get real weather.
If you don't deal with harsh weather you can consider house brand but do you research. You don't want a tire that ends up turning to crap with just a little wear on it.

There is also no difference between tires sold in Costco, bjs or Sam's club and the ones pushed by your mechanic or dealer.
A Michelin MX whaterever is identical no matter the seller. The difference falls in the mark up the seller is adding to cover their overhead.

 

[Meghan54]

That's why the tire has the country it was made in molded into the sidewall.

ftfy

 

[phucheneh]

Most "house brand" tires are made by the "name brand" companies.

This used to be the case, but is becoming a lot less common. 'House brands' now seem to be mostly Korean. And I don't even mean Hankooks.

I would take the cheapest Goodyear or Bridgestone available before I would put some of that crap on my car. Those crappy OE tires do one thing: they don't get them sued. I have my doubts that someone like Nexen could manage the same, as their tires basically only adhere to one criteria; they are made of rubber.

It's worth mentioning, also, that the OP is looking at saving, what, like 25%? For that, he gets house brand tires that probably will NOT last the warranty period, versus Yokos that actually DO last 80k. Avid TRZ's and their newer replacement (Avid Ascend) are about the hardest wearing tire out there.

 

[JulesMaximus]

This used to be the case, but is becoming a lot less common. 'House brands' now seem to be mostly Korean. And I don't even mean Hankooks.

I would take the cheapest Goodyear or Bridgestone available before I would put some of that crap on my car. Those crappy OE tires do one thing: they don't get them sued. I have my doubts that someone like Nexen could manage the same, as their tires basically only adhere to one criteria; they are made of rubber.

It's worth mentioning, also, that the OP is looking at saving, what, like 25%? For that, he gets house brand tires that probably will NOT last the warranty period, versus Yokos that actually DO last 80k. Avid TRZ's and their newer replacement (Avid Ascend) are about the hardest wearing tire out there.

I had Riken Raptors on my last car and they were excellent tires. I'd definitely get them again and they get very high ratings in all the reviews I've read.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

As phuc stated, most 'house brand' tires are asian no-names. This is different from 10-20 years ago where house brand were old molds with different compounds from name brand.

"They may not be as grippy but they're perfectly safe".... I vehemently disagree with this. There are plenty of car things you can skimp on... washing it improperly, cheap spark plugs/filter.... Who cares if they wear out early or fail? This is entirely different from brakes/tires (and suspension) where quality parts can quite literally mean life or death.

What if a loved one got into some terrible accident in the rain, and left you wondering if maybe those $100 better tires would've saved their life?

Over the 3-5 year general lifespan of a set of tires that extra ~$200 is trivial. There is a HUGE different between quality tires and cheap tires.

I've tried tons of different tire types, and nowadays I rarely use anything for the family cars other than michelin pilots or LTX m/s.

Regarding the 'big box' store tires being different... I have only heard this being the case at walmart. I know for sure that costco pilots and ltx have the same treadwear and other ratings as my independent tire shop.

 

[phucheneh]

Rikens are supposed to be made my Michelin. At least, that's what I've always heard. Pretty sure it was at least true at one time, but no idea if they still are.

I wouldn't necessarily call crappy tires 'unsafe.' I'd rather someone have them than a bald name brand...for me, the biggest concern is wet performance, and cheap tires do often shed water pretty well due to simple tread patterns with giant tread grooves.

Used to be, when I thought of house brand tires, I thought of generic designs like this:

Those are Dayton Quadras, which were the lowest-end thing Firestone carried. They were S-rated tires generally made for econocars or older domestics with 14-15" wheels. The sidewalls were about as stiff as butter and they didn't last terribly long. But they seemed to grip decently enough, as far as a generic cheap all-season tire was concerned.

If you had something bigger than 16's on your car, however, you paid up for something better because you had no other choice.

Now, cars are rolling out of tire shops on 17-18"+ wheels sporting this kind of trash:

And that shit scares me. Those are terrible, awful tires with bad tread design, bad compound, bad everything. In general, cheapo summer tires have become way too prevalent around here...not to start 'yet another snow driving debate,' but having tires that, at low temperatures, might as well be smooth pieces of hard plastic...that's not something that's helping the stereotype of southerners not being able to drive.

And at any temperature, they serve to enhance my biggest complaint with the newer trends toward big wheels on everything...short, stiff sidewalls enhance responsiveness, yeah, but overall grip seems a lot more dependent on having a decent tire. While these tires might be a +1 in responsiveness, they're a -20 in not breaking traction in a sudden, unexpected manner.

 

[jagec]

I have Yoko Avids on the wife's 97 Civic. It's a good tire for an econobox, and they do last a good long time.

 

[Zenmervolt]

What if a loved one got into some terrible accident in the rain, and left you wondering if maybe those $100 better tires would've saved their life?

And what if you bought a set of name-brand "grand touring all-season" tires and a loved one got into some terrible accident in the rain, and left you wondering if maybe those $100 better "high-performance all-season" tires from the same name brand would've saved their life?

Or what if you bought those "high-performance all-season" tires and they still got in the accident and you're left wondering if maybe spending $300 more on the ultra-super-grippy summer-only tires with the best wet traction rating ever would have saved their lives?

You see what I'm getting at here?

There is always some option for a tire that will grip better or shed water better. At some point it becomes patently ridiculous to sit around worrying about having the absolute best for every possible condition.

When I put new tires on my Volvo late last year I replaced a set of Potenza G009 tires with a set of Turanza Serenity Plus tires. The Turanzas have noticeably less grip than the Potenzas did because the Turanzas are not designed to be a high-performance tire. However, the Turanzas will last almost twice as long and still provide more than enough grip for driving on public roads.

On the Porsche I can justify having short-lived, super-grippy tires that are worn out before 30,000 miles. On the grocery-getter Volvo, it just doesn't make any sense at all to go that route and instead I've chosen to move to a set of 80,000 mile tires that are better suited to everyday on-road use.

The bottom line is that once a certain threshold has been reached it becomes silly to ask for more. House brand tires reach this threshold without issue.

As for phucheneh's comments about people running summer-only tires in cold weather, that's a completely separate issue from the whole name-brand/house-brand debate. The name-brand Bridgestone summer-only tires on my 951 are worthless in cold weather too. All summer-only tires have problems when the temperature drops below about 50 degrees because the compounds they use don't deal well with cold, that's not unique to house-brand tires.

ZV

 

[JulesMaximus]

"They may not be as grippy but they're perfectly safe".... I vehemently disagree with this. There are plenty of car things you can skimp on... washing it improperly, cheap spark plugs/filter.... Who cares if they wear out early or fail? This is entirely different from brakes/tires (and suspension) where quality parts can quite literally mean life or death.

What if a loved one got into some terrible accident in the rain, and left you wondering if maybe those $100 better tires would've saved their life?

By that logic I should have a set of full wets, intermediate wets and dry tires (3-4 different compounds for different temperature conditions) for each of my cars.

You want to know how to keep from getting into an accident in the rain? Two words: SLOW DOWN!

 

[phucheneh]

As for phucheneh's comments about people running summer-only tires in cold weather, that's a completely separate issue from the whole name-brand/house-brand debate. The name-brand Bridgestone summer-only tires on my 951 are worthless in cold weather too. All summer-only tires have problems when the temperature drops below about 50 degrees because the compounds they use don't deal well with cold, that's not unique to house-brand tires.

ZV

I was just saying that you never used to see beater cars leaving shops with a fresh set of performance summer tires, because that would've been cost-prohibitive. But now I see an increasing use of off-brand summer tires as the bottom rung offering.

My guess is there may be some DOT or other standards at play? As in, said el-cheapo tires can't be sold as all-seasons, so they just get labeled 'summer' and unfortunately are going to end up getting sold to a consumer who doesn't know any better. I've wondered before what kind of criteria new tires have to meet, and if there is any actual testing involved.