Cheap tires with ALOT of tread or Good tires with less?

mig0s

mig0s

Well-known member
What would you prefer? Let's say you can either put Hakkapelittas with 5/32 or Wanli SuperWinters (lol, or any other cheap tires) with 10/32, what would you choose?
 
Well from my experience good tires with less tread works a lot better than newer cheap tires. That could go for any season too.

I had some decently worn Michelin x-ice last winter and they worked much better than these almost new generic brand tires I had the winter before.
 
depends on what cheap tire. Ice perormance might be better with the lower tread better tire, but snow performance will suck.
 
I'd get good tires with a lot of thread, for winter at least. For summer, good tires with less thread is fine.

I wonder if I should put my hakka 5 on my Civic (for delivery around town mostly), I have nordics right now, I don't really know how they handle in snow (with the 4wd I couldn't care less), on dry pavement they suck but the studded nokian must be so-so on dry too.
 
i've got some Wanli's right now. lots of tread. were great last year.

WanliWinter-Challenger-S1086.jpg


it's kind of a generic tread pattern. Pirelli and General as well as a few others have a tire with a pattern like that. it depends what you're getting really. if it's just some square blocks it's gonna suck shit.

that being said, i only paid $50 for my 4 tires and wheels that had about 20k on them. so i can't go wrong really lol
 
^^ Looks like Hakkapelitta tread pattern! Where did you get them for 50$? That's like 12.50$ each wtf lol
 
eband00 said:
Meh, tires are over-rated. Was delivering pizza on 4 bald nordicks... haha, epic. 1992 civic 4 door :p
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I did it too with my firefly, and I had a few close calls, plus wasted time spinning tires. However, most of the time we are still stuck behind a slow ass even with brand new nokian tires..
 
Taking into consideration that any winter tire (cheap or not) is better than all season tires, and that all seasons were never a problem before the retarded law (i know they weren't a problem for me), i'd suggest cheap tires with lots of thread because i hate hydroplaning.

Besides, ice is ice, when you slide you slide.


Adill said:
Honestly, when it comes to tires you essentially do get what you pay for
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Before they became big here, i used chinese tires and people laughed at me, but they handled as well as the original tires they were copying.
 
Winter tires are only as good as the driver using them.

You could put some 400$ a piece tires on you car and still smash it because you just fail, or get some Canadian Tire cheapos and never have a problem.

This is nothing like summer tires. And with the money you saved on the winters, you could buy better summer tires :D

I say get the cheap brand ones with more tread left.
 
i prefer to buy good used tires

last year i bought a set of toyo garrit kx used for only one winter with barely 5000km on them for 175$. can't go wrong with that for sure
 
Actually, Wanli tires aren't THAT bad. They are knock offs of general's Altimax, almost to a tee. They also go under the name "Sunny". I put them on my mother in law's neon and they worked amazing, I was very impressed because I was doing 120 in a massive snow storm when my wife was having our child. I would reccomend them, being a pretty good price.

And personally, I buy new tires. I don't like putting shit on my vehicles, did that for a couple of years and hated the extra unreliability factor those cars had.. I don't pay stupid amounts like most people for Michelin or hakkapelita for no reason, but I get a decent set.
 
MyRidzPhucked said:
Actually, Wanli tires aren't THAT bad. They are knock offs of general's Altimax, almost to a tee..
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They are not even close.

On the knockoffs, the sidewalls are paper thin, the compound is rock hard, nowhere near as many sipes, and the sipes on the center rib are straight cut instead of zig zag pattern, so even less lateral performance. The Altimax knock offs (Wanli, Sunny) offer significantly poorer performance than the Altimax, and I've seen them wear out much quicker than the General (even though the compound is harder...).

Also, once the knock offs wear out to about 50%, alot of the sipes dissapear and the tire looks more like an all-season than a winter tire. The General on the other hand, maintains its sipage until the tire is nearly bald.

Look closely and you'll see the difference:

General

ge_altimax_arctic_ci1_l.jpg


Sunny and Wanli

sn3860.jpg
 
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As for the original debate on cheap new vs higher quality used, my answer is neither.

After just one winter of use, the heat cycling a tire goes through hardens the compound. Even if the tires lost 10% of their tread, the heat cycling can significantly reduce performance. So it's not just how much tread is left, the compound also matters.

My problem with cheap tires is they offer piss poor performance all the time (wet-dry-snow-ice), and they don't last long.

My problem with used winter tires, is that they are only really good until there's about 60% of the tread left. After that, they're about as good as a cheap new tire (generally speaking, of course there's difference with make and model of the tire). However, you may enjoy better wet-dry performance with a used higher quality tire.

I always run my winter tires for two winter and then sell them and buy new ones...
 
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