My dad always said you don't save money on cheap tires and lubricants. He also used to say the quality will be appreciated long after the price is forgotten. For a long time he bought only Michelin. As far as Chinese tires go they are not all equal. There are good Chinese tires but they are not the very cheap ones. All the major manufactures have plants or JV plants in China. Made in America is a vague and often difficult to establish fact. We regularly unpack containers with known American branded products , the surprise being that the BOL stated that the container was shipped from China.
If you look at a virgin casing of what you think is "made in America" you might be surprised to realize it's not. Most of these tire companies are multi-national. The trailer tire I was looking at was brand new Double Coin trailer tread. After seeing how it wobbled when it was mounted and spun there was no way I was going to try and find some round ones. They broke it down and put it back in the for sale rack for the next customer
We haul sand in pneumatic trailers.. the double coins wore VERY erratically and very quickly. One side would look new, the other side was down into the cords.. weird is a better description. We have only used their trailer tires.
Not to get off topic but all this "American made" talk reminds me of an article I read on Yahoo last week. It referred to the most American made car on the market... The Toyota Camry and Honda Accord were 1 and 2.
Come on man, don't buy anything made in China !!! I do everything possible to buy American made products, a lot of times I'll go way out of my way to purchase American made products. Support our Great Nation, not those ########. As for tires, well you get what you pay for. This is an expensive business to operate, you need to spend the money upfront & not cheap out buying crappy chinese tires. There is a reason why they're way cheaper than good quality American made tires. Do it correctly the first time. Purchase good quality American made Michelins with low rolling resistance. The money that you will be putting in your pocket over the course of a year & not having down time due to cheap tires blowing out will add up big time.
Well all of them get rubber from overseas. I have hauled it to Goodyear and Michelin. And depending on temp they will request a reefer they treat that stuff like gold
