5 CHEAP Tire Brands EVERYONE IGNORES (But They're Absolute GOLDMINES)

🔗 Save $10,000 A Year on Car Repairs — Get The Books Here: https://mikeautoshops.netlify.app/ A customer came into my shop last spring with a set of tires he had just bought online. Two hundred and eighty dollars for four tires, mounted and balanced. He was proud of the deal. I looked at the sidewall for about thirty seconds and told him to take them back. The manufacturing date code stamped on the sidewall read 0418. Week four of 2018. His tires were six years old before he ever put them on the road, sitting in a warehouse the entire time losing structural integrity through oxidation of the rubber compounds. He did not know tires had date codes. The website he bought them from did not mention it. The shop that mounted them did not mention it. This is the problem with cheap tires, and I want to be clear that it is not the price that makes a tire dangerous. It is not knowing what you are buying. In this video I show you five tire brands that most people walk past without a second look because they do not recognize the name or assume a lower price means lower quality. In several cases that assumption is wrong in ways that a mechanic with twenty-two years of experience finds genuinely impressive. Before I get into the brands I cover the framework that changes how you evaluate any tire purchase. Every tire legally sold in the United States must meet the same federal safety standards set by the NHTSA regardless of price. The floor is not nothing. And the tire industry has consolidated dramatically in ways most consumers do not know about. Michelin owns BF Goodrich and Uniroyal. Continental owns General Tire. Bridgestone owns Firestone and Fuzion. Goodyear owns Kelly and Dunlop. When you buy a General tire or a Fuzion tire you are buying a tire manufactured by the same company that makes the premium brand above it, sometimes in the same plant, with shared quality control systems. The five brands are Falken, General, Cooper, Nexen, and Hankook. For each one I tell you the specific tire that represents the best value in that lineup, the independent test results that back it up, the price difference versus the premium equivalent, and the honest trade-off you are making, because every value brand has one and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Falken's Wildpeak AT3W has become a word-of-mouth phenomenon in the truck and SUV community, matching BF Goodrich All-Terrain KO2 performance in independent testing at two hundred to four hundred dollars less for a set of four. Hankook is original equipment on BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi vehicles, and their Kinergy GT touring tire places within a few percentage points of the Michelin Defender in independent testing at fifteen to twenty-five percent less money. I also cover the complete buying framework so you never repeat what my customer did. How to read the DOT date code on any tire sidewall and what age is too old. How to verify load index and speed rating against your door jamb sticker. Why buying one tire at a time on an axle creates handling imbalances. And how to check manufacturing dates when buying online, where the best prices consistently are, without ending up with old warehouse inventory. The savings from choosing a well-researched value brand over a premium brand on a set of four tires typically runs between one hundred and fifty and three hundred dollars. Over two sets of tires in a vehicle's life that is three hundred to six hundred dollars you either spend on marketing or keep for yourself. Tell me in the comments what tires you are currently running, what vehicle they are on, and whether you have had a genuinely good or bad experience with any of the brands I covered. I read every single one. Next video I am covering tire rotation patterns by drivetrain type and the pressure setting mistake that costs people tread life every single day without them knowing it. Subscribe so you do not miss it. #CheapTires #BestTireValue #TireBrands #MikesMechanicSecrets #SaveMoneyOnTires #FalkenTires #HankookTires #GeneralTires #CooperTires #NexenTires #CarMaintenance #TireBuying #DIYCarRepair #MechanicSecrets #TireSafety