Very few of us mount our own tires. I can't justify the investment when I buy a set of tires every18 months at best.
Let's call it "good value". I don't mind paying a little more at times but I certainly don't want to get gouged. I try to check out prices before buying anything. Lowest price is not always the cheapest buy.
Ask the guy that has a flat spare because he never check it.
You'd be right if I was driving my '62 Corvair with 13" wheels. I need
245/45R18 and cheap ones ar $92 and go up to $260. I drive enough to justify a good tire over one that just has to go 2 miles to the grocery store.
Questionable. I want a good tire when I hit 100 mph so I;m willing to pay for it.
What is pure profit? Are you talking the difference between the price they pay and the price they sell the tire? That is far from pure. OTOH, if you did a cost analysis of the labor and overhead of running the business I may agree.
I think most of us don't do "hard" things, where we define "hard" any way we want.
For example, probably none of us roof our own homes. Probably none of us pump our own septic systems. Many of us don't even maintain our own pool chemistry.
In the realm of automobile maintenance, most of us don't replace clutches, nor do most of us blueprint an engine. Probably we do basic repairs, but I agree with you that most people consider both mounting tires and aligning the steering and suspension to be jobs we routinely farm out.
Having said that we farm out the "hard" jobs, you'll note that I think your statement is completely incorrect that we can't "justify the investment".
Mounting and balancing tools are about three hundred bucks, where it's trivial to justify that investment based on your cycle of 18 months per vehicle for a set of tires.
At 20 per tire the equipment pays for itself in 15 tires, which for two cars would be about six years (at 18 months per set) if I did the math right.
Likewise, alignment equipment is similarly priced at about three to five hundred bucks, which at a price of alignments at about a hundred bucks out here (on sale), would pay for itself in just a few years for a two-car family.
Everyone "says" they can't justify the price - but the real reason we don't do alignment is that there is a tremendous amount of thinking that has to do on in order to convert length to angles and vice versa.
Similarly, the reason people don't do their own mounting and balancing is not the justification of the price - but it's the hard work involved - and also a bit of learning about technique.
There are no blanket absolutes, where I agree with you that most people zoom into price and price alone as the arbiter of quality.
The main problem I see with humans is that they're basically incapable of handling the detail that is required to get the best price-to-performance value of complex objects.
For example, how many times have you seen someone shop for car batteries by warrantee length, for example? That's ridiculous. Yet people do it. You know why? They can't handle the complexity of amps and amp hours.
Likewise with tires. They buy them by treadwear warrantee claims, as if that was in the least meaningful. You know why? Because people who can't handle detail can still handle numbers. To them, a tire with a 45K mile warrantee is better than a tire with a 35K mile warrantee - simply because they can process the fact that 45K is a larger number than 35K is.
My theory is that the reason why people think that price is an indication of quality is only because they don't know how to determine quality - but - they can figure out price. So, to make their simple minds process the problem set, they immediately assume a $500 tire is better than a $100 tire.
I've seen people who get flats park their car on the shoulder, and call for a ride (or call for AAA). Mostly women, where, I agree, some SUV tires are extremely heavy, and it's not worth getting run over at night in the rain while you're changing a spare tire.
But most of us can change our own tires.
Besides, most of us carry a 12-VDC compressor in the trunk along with the OEM jack, triangle reflectors, chocks, spare tools, a flashlight, etc.
How do you define a "good tire"?
Your argument above seems to assume a $92 tire is worse than a $260 tire. But your argument didn't say a single thing about what you use to determine what a "good tire" is.
Price has absolutely no bearing on quality. Price is only an indication of demand.
There are a *lot* of not-so-intelligent people out there who will pay upwards of tens of thousands of dollars for a diamond-studded watch, but that doesn't mean you get any better of a time piece than a ten-dollar Timex.
AFAIK, no standard passenger car tire is legal to sell in the USA that won't go 112 mph. The "S" rating is the slowest tire that is allowed to be sold in the USA for standard-use passenger on-road tires.
That means you won't be able to find a tire for your car that can't go 100 mph, especially at that size.
Nonetheless, how would you compare these tires at Walmart today?
$73 Milestar MS932 Sport Radial Tire, 245/45R18 100V
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$80 245/45ZR18 100W BSW Radar Dimax R8 Tires
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$81 Rydanz ROADSTER R02 Tire P245/45R18 100W
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$105 Nexen N5000 Plus Tire 245/45R18XL 100V
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$114 Antares Ingens A1 245/45R18 100W Tire
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$115 General GMAX AS-03 Tire 245/45ZR18XL 100W
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$120 Uniroyal Tiger Paw GTZ All Season Tire 245/45ZR18 96W
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$126 Kumho ECSTA 4XII Tire 245/45R18 100W
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$141 General Altimax RT43 Tire 245/45R18 100V Tire
Your question is a fair question, since my original assumption was that tires are a commodity, where it's not the general nature of a commodity to sell much above it's cost.
Let's go back to that number to see what it was saying exactly.
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That PDF says that there are 200 million replacement tires sold each year, where, on page 52 of that document, we find the exact words: "According to a recent Modern Tire Dealer survey of independent retail and wholesale tire dealers, the average profit margin on a passenger tire is 26.4%. For a light truck tire it falls to 24%. The average wholesale passenger tire sales margin is 12.4%."
I think most of us don't do "hard" things, where we define "hard" any way we want.
For example, probably none of us roof our own homes. Probably none of us pump our own septic systems. Many of us don't even maintain our own pool chemistry.
In the realm of automobile maintenance, most of us don't replace clutches, nor do most of us blueprint an engine. Probably we do basic repairs, but I agree with you that most people consider both mounting tires and aligning the steering and suspension to be jobs we routinely farm out.
Having said that we farm out the "hard" jobs, you'll note that I think your statement is completely incorrect that we can't "justify the investment".
Mounting and balancing tools are about three hundred bucks, where it's trivial to justify that investment based on your cycle of 18 months per vehicle for a set of tires.
At 20 per tire the equipment pays for itself in 15 tires, which for two cars would be about six years (at 18 months per set) if I did the math right.
Likewise, alignment equipment is similarly priced at about three to five hundred bucks, which at a price of alignments at about a hundred bucks out here (on sale), would pay for itself in just a few years for a two-car family.
Everyone "says" they can't justify the price - but the real reason we don't do alignment is that there is a tremendous amount of thinking that has to do on in order to convert length to angles and vice versa.
Similarly, the reason people don't do their own mounting and balancing is not the justification of the price - but it's the hard work involved - and also a bit of learning about technique.
There are no blanket absolutes, where I agree with you that most people zoom into price and price alone as the arbiter of quality.
The main problem I see with humans is that they're basically incapable of handling the detail that is required to get the best price-to-performance value of complex objects.
For example, how many times have you seen someone shop for car batteries by warrantee length, for example? That's ridiculous. Yet people do it. You know why? They can't handle the complexity of amps and amp hours.
Likewise with tires. They buy them by treadwear warrantee claims, as if that was in the least meaningful. You know why? Because people who can't handle detail can still handle numbers. To them, a tire with a 45K mile warrantee is better than a tire with a 35K mile warrantee - simply because they can process the fact that 45K is a larger number than 35K is.
My theory is that the reason why people think that price is an indication of quality is only because they don't know how to determine quality - but - they can figure out price. So, to make their simple minds process the problem set, they immediately assume a $500 tire is better than a $100 tire.
I've seen people who get flats park their car on the shoulder, and call for a ride (or call for AAA). Mostly women, where, I agree, some SUV tires are extremely heavy, and it's not worth getting run over at night in the rain while you're changing a spare tire.
But most of us can change our own tires.
Besides, most of us carry a 12-VDC compressor in the trunk along with the OEM jack, triangle reflectors, chocks, spare tools, a flashlight, etc.
How do you define a "good tire"?
Your argument above seems to assume a $92 tire is worse than a $260 tire. But your argument didn't say a single thing about what you use to determine what a "good tire" is.
Price has absolutely no bearing on quality. Price is only an indication of demand.
There are a *lot* of not-so-intelligent people out there who will pay upwards of tens of thousands of dollars for a diamond-studded watch, but that doesn't mean you get any better of a time piece than a ten-dollar Timex.
AFAIK, no standard passenger car tire is legal to sell in the USA that won't go 112 mph. The "S" rating is the slowest tire that is allowed to be sold in the USA for standard-use passenger on-road tires.
That means you won't be able to find a tire for your car that can't go 100 mph, especially at that size.
Nonetheless, how would you compare these tires at Walmart today?
$73 Milestar MS932 Sport Radial Tire, 245/45R18 100V
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$80 245/45ZR18 100W BSW Radar Dimax R8 Tires
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$81 Rydanz ROADSTER R02 Tire P245/45R18 100W
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$105 Nexen N5000 Plus Tire 245/45R18XL 100V
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$114 Antares Ingens A1 245/45R18 100W Tire
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$115 General GMAX AS-03 Tire 245/45ZR18XL 100W
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$120 Uniroyal Tiger Paw GTZ All Season Tire 245/45ZR18 96W
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$126 Kumho ECSTA 4XII Tire 245/45R18 100W
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$141 General Altimax RT43 Tire 245/45R18 100V Tire
That is a pretty small margin, Far from pure profit. You have to take out rent, labor, utilities, insurance, supplies for office, shipping, maintenance,taxes.
There was a time I did all of that stuff. As I got older, I found it easier to write checks than drop a tranny. I still put in the windshield washer fluid though.
On a monetary basis, yes. On a practical basis, no. I'm not willing to invest a lot of time and space to save $20 when I can earn that in less time than it takes to mount the tire.
Work is a factor. Some people actually enjoy the sense of accomplishment more than the money saved. Or perhaps you can do a little part time brain surgery and earn enough in an hour to pay for a full set of tires, including mount and balance.
Given the price difference it may be better, but not 5X better. I find that as price goes up, value goes down. Applies to most everything we buy. Double the price and get 50% better, tops. Is it better to have a fully loaded Chevy or a stripped down Buick at the same price?
My car came with 5 ears of roadside assistance. Last time a tire had to be changed I sat in the car at night in the rain for 20 minutes for the guy to show up. Nice feature. I don't recall the last time I used a lug wrench, but is is over 25 years.
You have quite a list of tires. Some do not give a traction rating though. Of course, I'd want A or AA. What the specs don't show is how well constructed the tire is, how well it rides, how quiet it is. Name brand means little too. There are plenty of lesser known companies that make excellent products.
I a curious as to which one you would buy and why.
As I explained to Ed Pawlowski, my process may differ from yours or his, so, I only present my process as a logical process based on an understanding of the specs and the various tradeoffs, where you can't go wrong in my process because you throw out all tires that don't meet OEM specs (if you believe in the OEM specs, which I do for my tires).
Once you've whittled down the selection to tires that all meet or exceed the OEM specs, then you rank them in the order of trusted specification that you care about most.
If you care most about "road noise", then you're a gonner because you're not going to get that as a reliable spec, even if you read all the boy-racer reviews on the planet.
Likewise, if you care about marketing appeal (e.g., whatever marketing claims you'll get, whether that be blonds smiling at you while you drive by or the safety of not running over the neighbor's kids), you're not gonna be able to reliably rank the tires.
However, if you care about, say, wet traction, well then, you're in luck. The specs on the side of the tire tell you the wet straight-line traction coefficient on both asphalt and concrete.
Also the treadwear gives you the average dry traction coefficient in the ratio of 2.25 divided by the treadwear raised to the 0.15 power.
So that gives you three separate traction coefficients to rank the tiers by first.
Let's say you second-most care about safety, given that all tires sold in the USA are safe. Some are better built than others, where there are a bunch of ratings which give you construction information.
There's the speed rating from the manufacturer (e.g., W versus V), which is really a heat-generation-and-dissipating rating, and there's the temperature rating (e.g., A vs B) which is similar but measured by the government. There's also the load range (e.g., 99 versus 95), and the ply rating (e.g., XL).
And then there's the price which can offset any of those based on your current feeling about dollars.
If money is no object, then you can get the AA A A 100 XL 105W tires, but if money is critical to you, then you still can't go wrong with AA A A 500
99V rated tires.
Once you list the tires by spec that you care about, there is almost never a dead-heat tied, but if there were a tie, I'd use the "soft stuff" as the tie breaker, e.g., white sidewalls, or treadwear warranty, or the smile of the salesman or the taste of their free coffee.
It's the same method as you choose brake pads by the way, or motor oil, or differential lube, or any commodity that has technical merit.
Like you, I used to do more stuff myself. Now I do "deferred maintenance". :)
What you just said is the real reason most people don't mount their own tires and align their suspension. Over a decade, it would cost only $800 for two cars' mounting, and $1000 for alignments.
You can make more than that by not taking the appreciable time that it would take to just LEARN how to do mounting and alignments.
My only beef with that sentiment is that people don't tell the truth to themselves when they say that the reason they don't do it is the cost of the tools.
The reason is, as you said, that they have better things to do. And that's ok.
This is true. It's why people do crossword puzzles. For me, I get a sense of empowerment. I enjoy the freedom and convenience of fixing a flat, for example, at home. So, if the tire is low, I limp home and fix it. And when I put it back on, I feel safe and satisfied.
Absolutely. This is the real reason most people don't align and mount. It's because they have better things to do. All I'm asking is for people to be truthful to themselves.
We're both old men so I don't have to explain that price is an indication of demand only whereas quality may or may not correspond to demand.
Certainly higher-quality food, for example, would be in demand, but, it's well known in the grocery business that when fruits and vegetables are plentiful, the price goes down and the quality goes up.
When it's off season, or if there was a drought, the price goes up and the quality goes down.
My main argument is that anyone who says "you get what you pay for", hasn't thought the problem set through.
You actually get what you get, and you pay what *others* are willing to pay (since the masses set the price ... you don't set the price).
My hypothesis is that those who use price as a major indicator of quality are generally those who don't understand that which they are buying.
They use a number as an indicator of quality only because two numbers are easy for them to measure against (whereas cold cranking amps and amp hours are harder for them to compare for two reasons).
Technical specs need to be understood, in and of themselves
Technical specs often need to be balanced against one another
I may be wrong - but that's my theory.
I can't disagree. Look at how much off-season fruits and vegetables cost.
If we somewhat equate "value" to "quality", we can note that the quality of fruit goes down in the off season, and yet the price goes up.
The quality goes down as the price goes up simply due to supply and demand, where individuals don't get to determine either the supply nor the demand.
As an individual, you either pay that price - or you don't pay that price.
If there are enough people who pay that price, the price stays high.
If there aren't enough people to pay that price, the supply either disappears, or the price goes down.
So, the price isn't any indicator of quality nor value. It's merely an indicator of aggregate demand.
You have a good point which is that for every dollar increase in price, you often get exponentially less increase in value.
So, for example, a one hundred dollar car has a certain price:performance ratio, but a two hundred thousand dollar car probably doesn't have a 2:1 price:performance ratio. It's probably far less than 2:1.
Is it just me, or do we get fewer flats nowadays? I remember, as a kid, that I got flats in my bias-ply tires rather frequently. Now I only get about one or two flats a year.
I find that where I drive has a lot to do with flats. Where I live there is a bunch of new construction, and lots of remodeling and landscaping.
Personally, I think nuts and bolts fall off the truck, but I can't prove that.
My wife has AAA which I'm ok with since it makes her feel good. Truth be known, she calls me and I take care of the problem.
But she feels safer knowing they'll tow her or give her gas or jump her car or fix a flat, or jimmy her locks, or whatever it is that they do.
I even once called them because I parked on a hill in what turned out to be mud and my RWD sedan couldn't back out and I couldn't go forward as the nose was buried into the hillside.
So I called her AAA, and they took it even though I'm not female. I don't think the driver of the tow truck cares, as long as he gets paid. He pulled me out of that mud (sideways!) and I drove off intact.
So AAA has its merits.
Now we get to the point of deciding how to buy a tire! What matters is what matters to you.
But we can assume, as you did, that wet straightline traction is critical.
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For the size you mentioned, you'd probably never want to ever go below A, and you'd almost certainly want AA. A = above 0.47g on wet asphalt, above 0.35g on concrete AA = above 0.54g on wet asphalt, above 0.38g on concrete
The treadwear rating also gives you an average dry friction coefficient using the formula that the average dry friction coefficient is 2.25 divided by the treadwear rating raised to the 0.15 power.
Actually, the specs do tell you how well constructed the tire is.
The load range tells you very much how well constructed the tire is. The speed rating tells you that also. Also the XL designation (aka the ply rating) tells you that. As does the temperature rating.
While Goodyear & Michelin marketing people must hate intelligent thinkers like you and me, I have to agree with you that brand name, for tires, is meaningless.
Just as there are no bad brake pads sold in the US, there are no bad tires sold in the USA.
The specs that must be printed on friction materials tells you what you need to know, and the specs that must be embossed into the tire sidewall tell you what you need to know.
There are just various levels of good.
My selection process is as easy as simple math, but my purely logical selection process requires technical knowledge sufficient to understand the specs printed on the sidewall of every tire.
I didn't look at the sidewall specs of all those tires, but my process would be the same with choosing your tire as with choosing mine.
A. There are no absolutes when tradeoffs are involved, but generally:
I would compare everything against the OEM tire spec!
That is, any tire that meets OEM specs goes on the short list.
And any tire that fails any of the OEM specs, is tossed out.
B. Then I would rate highest what I care about most.
If that is wet traction, then I'd put the AA tires on top.
But if that was treadwear, I'd put the 500s above the 100s.
If it was price, then the cheapest OEM-spec tire would be on top.
One by one, I'd rank the tires in the order of the specs I care about. Assuming it was wettraction/treadwear/price, then I would rank like this: a. AA 500 $150 b. AA 400 $100 c. A 500 $75
There is rarely an exact tie, but if there were an exact tie, then I'd make the decision based on other factors, such as warranty or the smile on the salesman's face, or whatever the "soft" tie-breaker criteria may be.
The problem where most people give up is how to rank those three criteria above on "value".
As you noted, making the value tradeoffs are the bitch here.
For example, I can see myself choosing *any* of those sample tires, based on those value tradeoffs. a. AA 500 $150 has the best wet traction & the best treadwear b. AA 400 $100 has the best wet traction & is a lot cheaper c. A 500 $75 is a lot cheaper and has good wet traction & treadwear
If this was my wife's car, I'd probably choose "a" but if it was mine, I'd probably choose "c"; but my point is that you only look at tires that meet or exceed OEM specs, and then you list the tires by teh specs YOU care about most.
Then you make tradeoffs based on the specs.
The point is that you don't make those tradeoffs based on brand, sidewall color, tread pattern, boy-racer reviews, dealer recommendations, etc., since most people are looking for someone else to tell them how to buy tires, where, my premise is that the sidewall tells you everything you need to know.
Chicken wings used to be cheap. I remember years ago buying a 5 pound bag for a quarter. Yes, 5 cents a pound or in today's money, about 36 cents a pound. Since becoming popular they are selling for about $2,50 a pound. For dinner tonight I'm making thighs on sale for 99 cents.
Far fewer flats. Less destructive too, in a sense. Seems they lose air slower so that nail may be in there and give you a day or two hint you have a problem. (assuming you look at the tires once in a while) Goes low slow so you can drive to a place to take care of it instead of in the dark on the highway.
Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I'll be looking for tires in the fall and will use that process. In the past, snow was a factor, but now that I'm retired, I may never intentionally drive in snow again. Sure, it can happen but planning ahead eliminates 99% of it.
The last set of tires I bought were Cooper CS5's. In part my choice was determined by reviews by boy racers like this:
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I did not chose the OEM tires, Bridgestone Potenza 92E's. While they have acceptable performance on dry pavement, they are a low rolling resistance design that helps Toyota with their fleet mileage statistics. I had two Yaris's that came with the tires and wore them out in under
25,000 miles. I find that unacceptable for a lightweight vehicle.
I won't even start on my process for selecting bike tires, particularly for my dual sport bike. For example, Dunlop D606's are great in mud but howl like a banshee at 80 mph on pavement. Bridgestone Trailwings are civilized on the pavement but only marginally better than any pure street tire in the mud.
Even bicycle tires are not exempt. Want to know the rationale behind my recent purchase of a set of Serfas Drifters?
Not in 26" at the local REI, just 27". The tires I replaced were Continental Town & Country. They were my favorites years ago but then I couldn't find them. They reappeared so I got a set. Meanwhile, Continental had switched production to India or China. I bought them in June of 2015. As I pumped them up to 65 psi this spring, I heard an odd, tearing noise. It was the sidewall cords ripping apart. Looking on the forums, early sidewall failure is common with the new manufacture. So much for T&C.
Before the Contis I'd been running Ritchey Tom Slicks. They'll take a higher pressure and are faster but I found them to be high maintenance. I'll see how the Serfas do. At least running 65 psi instead of 90 softens some of the bumps and I'm not racing.
My other Mtn bike has knobbies and when I do ride on pavement it seems like a lot of work compared to the slicks or inverted tread.
When I was reading about this stuff I couldn't find out anything about DRY traction, which is what we mostly need in SoCal. Can treadwear approximate this? The softer the tire the better the traction but the shorter the lifetime?
Agreed on the Ritchey. That's a Panaracer product; very light, very fast, uniform, smooth ride. A fine weave fabric but doesn't suffer abuse well. Different customer from a Serfas or a Michelin.
Auurgh! Tire reviews. Tire reviews are like people rating their mother's cooking. Everyone is biased toward the tires *they* selected, while some can't stand their mother, no matter what.
The market research I quoted earlier said that 60% of buyers want someone else to choose their tires for them. To me, that's what reviews are for. So some boy racer in a 1968 Camaro can tell you what you should put in your Honda.
The problem with boy-racer reviews is that they're religion and politics wrapped up in false buttmeter readings surrounded by marketing placebos. Oh, and did I mention that there is absolutely zero instrumentation?
Did you ever watch a boy racer take a motorcycle drivers' license test? Everyone one thinks he nailed it, and yet, with a dispassionate observer, a huge proportion actually failed.
A guy spends six hundred bucks for tires, and then he writes a review about it. The review is sort of like how the CIA rates dictators we prop up in South America. Yeah, they're bastards, but they are "our bastards".
Anyway, with that in mind, let's read that review: COOPER TIRE CS5 TIRE REVIEW
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This is getting long so I'll post my observations of that review separately.
You probably do what most people do, including me. The market research I quoted said that most people choose OE tires early in the life of the vehicle, where they stray further and further away as the vehicle ages.
I'm not sure how motorcycle tires differ from passenger-car tires, as it has been a while since I have ridden myself. Last ones I bought I mounted myself though, and didn't bother to balance them.
The problem I have with bicycle tires is that the specs aren't known, so, you're stuck with lousy data to make a decision upon.
Here are my impressions as I read that specific review:
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It's Motor Trend, so, the good is that it's not some kid in a Camaro.
It's Motor Trend which I respect less than I do Car & Driver.
But it's a professional outfit - so they should be ok (let's see).
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They shill for Cooper Tires, which all the mags tend to do
They went to San Antonio, which is the correct place to go in the USA
Apparently they only tested Cooper CS5 Grand Touring & Ultra Touring
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The bad news is that this is gonna only be about very few tires
So how do we use that data to compare with the thirty other tires?
The answer is that we can't - but let's keep reading.
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Yikes. What kind of test are they running? The validity is crazy.
Car A1 is a Ford Mustang fitted with Hankook Optimo H727 touring tires
Car A2 is fitted with Cooper CS5 Grand Touring tires
Car A3 is fitted with Cooper CSS Ultra Touring tires
Car B1 is a Corvette driven by an Indy legend running Cooper Zeon RS3-A tires. (WTF?)
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Then they give us the obligatory marketing bs about silica & siping
Then they describe the skidpad, which is a large lake of wet asphalt
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The author takes the A1 Mustang with Hankook's and gets a "feel".
Then he takes the A1 Mustang with Cooper CS5 Grand Touring tires.
Surprise surprise. With the Cooper marketing guys paying for everything, the author notices a "higher threshold of grip". Ummm... ok.
The only measurement they made was the author's lap time, which, of course, wasn't corrected for his experience increasing with the course.
Then we hear the obligatory non-measured marketing bullshit about "pregoressive" and "communication", all of which is boy-racer talk (especially keeping in mind that Cooper is paying the tab).
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OK. One complete bullshit test finished, where they didn't measure anything meaningful, and they corrected for nothing, and yet, surprise surprise, the test that the Cooper marketing guys designed from start to finish shows that the marketing guys' test "showed how well the tires may handle". Sheesh. I just wasted my time, but I plod onward.
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Now we're on a dry autocross on the Hankook tires.
Surprise surprise. The marketing guys designed a test where "the story is much the same". I'm shocked. Shocked I say. Shocked.
This article reminds me of what a rag MT is, but let's look at this objectively.
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Lo and behold, the Mustang with the Cooper tires was "able to carry a higher speed through teh corners with more driver confidence".
What complete bullshit again.
Again, nothing was tested except speed, which wasn't corrected for with the driver gaining experience in the second run.
Where are the placebo tires, by the way?
What? Placebos? We don't do no stinking placebos in Marketing tests!
Where are the corrections for experience?
We don't do no stinking corrections.
Where are the measurements?
What? We don't report no stinking measurements.
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I'm still plodding through, but this article is complete bullshit.
Even if it wasn't complete bullshit, it still wouldn't prove anything other than the stated Coopers might be better for a couple of things than the stated Hancooks on a Mustang driven the way the marketing guys want you to drive it.
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Now it's lunch time.
After lunch ... huh? Now we move to a BMW 328i? WTF?
Nobody mentioned this BMW before. Oh well, it's a Marketing game.
We're supposed to assume a small bimmer is impressive with Pirelli's I guess.
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Now they take the tiny bimmer on the Pirelli Cinturato P7 tires
Then, same bullshit test, but with the Cooper CS5 Ultra Touring tires.
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They play up the Pirellis, of course, (this is marketing, after all).
Better to beat a better tire, don't you think?
Anyway, even they admit it's not an "apples to apples" test when they say the bimmer went faster than the Mustang did.
This is really getting tedious with all the bullshit.
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OH my. The Pirelli was "much more communicative".
Did they measure anything other than track speed yet.
Nope. WHy would they. This isn't really a tire test after all.
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Tediously, we get to the final test (I hope).
Lo and behold, the "drive was more confident" with the final set of tires.
No measurements again, so, I call bullshit on the test again.
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Back to the wet autocross with the bimmer on Pirellis.
Lo and behold, the Marketing selected tires "returned the most confident laps" (which were always the last laps, of course).
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I love the next statement.
"The best lap times were set with the cooper tires"
Duh. It was always the last lap in a complex loop which the author himself said it took getting used to. (them's marketing guys is no fools!)
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For some reason, we now segue into Unser driving them around in a Corvette. WTF?
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Then we summarize by *repeating* the obligatory marketing bullshit about silica and sipes, complete with brand names for the wear bars.
I didn't know wear bars had brand names!
Look at that, the tires have "durable uniform construction".
The marketing guys must have pissed in their pants hearing that.
Woo hoo! "StabilEdge technology" (hint - those are the sipes, I guess).
Lots of marketing bullshit in that paragraph - but let's move on.
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Oh Jesus. More marketing bullshit about the "wear square".
(As if it's rocket science to know when a tire is worn.)
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Oh shit. Another paragraph of marketing bullshit, this time for the third time they cover "StabilEdge" bumps between the tire grooves.
Does this bullshit never end?
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Now they discuss the asymetrical tread - as if that's a big deal.
They discuss the benefits to rotation ... which is ok stuff.
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Now comes the great Marketing Conclusion.
Guess what?
Cooper is better than Hankook and Pirelli!
Yup. There it is. A shitty test but a great blanket statement> =----------
Guess what! "Cooper *dominated* these tests! Yup. Surprise surprise.
Thank God that was the end.
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Overall, if you haven't guessed my reaction yet, they proved absolutely nothing, and they tested almost absolutely nothing, and they certainly measured only one thing and they didn't even report that measurement.
This was worse than a boy-racer review because it wasted everyone's time except the marketing guys' budget at Cooper.
Then you might as well blindfold yourself and throw darts at the wall.
I doubt the Motor Trend writer is paying for many tires out of his own pocket. Possibly he's getting paid under the table by Cooper but is that worth slagging a couple of other brands that he found inferior?
The must have bought the topspeed author a few beers too:
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But, like the guy said, buying tires is boring. Not sucking completely is the main criteria.
The Bridgestones on the first Yaris were worn and I planned to replace them in the spring with some other brand. However, the Yaris did not survive a head on collision with a snow plow. The second Yaris came with the same tires, which I replaced with Coopers when they wore out. The
92E's are not bad for ride quality, noise, and traction but the tread life sucks and they're quite expensive when you're not Toyota buying them by the boatload.
These days motorcycle tires tend to be designed for specific ends. Dunlop D401's, known as Dunrocks in some circles, have great life. I got over 15,000 on the rear and replaced the front when i got sick of looking at it. However performance suffers. I ran a couple sets of Bridgestone Spitfires. Much better performance, but only about 7500 miles on the rear. You pays your money and you makes your choice. I'm running Pirelli Routes on the Harley now. Decent performance and the jury is out on the mileage. All the boy racers report 10 to 15k, so that's better than the spitfires.
I've been through a few flavors with the DR650. I get about 5000 miles on the rear with D606 which is more oriented to off-road, and around
7000 with the Trailwings, which are more on road. I'm running Kendas now, less aggressive than the D606's and they'll go to about 6000. When I need a front tire it will not be a Kenda. For whatever reason it's a pain in the butt to seat the beads on the Kenda fronts. I do not balance knobbies. I mean, how could you ever tell?
The V-Strom gets Michelin Anakee III's. Good grip, good life, and not completely useless in the dirt if you're careful. After all, what good is an adventure bike if you can't adventure.
The big difference with bikes other than you only have two tires under you so you think a little more about what you're buying, is you're also buying them a lot more frequently and unless you're in a mindless rut can do your own comparisons.
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