What is up with tire mfgs lately?
 

I used to work at my friends shop and did many new tire installations, repairs, etc. So i have experience. However i left the game in 2008 when i had to move.

I had to get some new tires for my 2018 Nissan Frontier. My "go to" tires back in the day were basically any good named manufacturer. the best results i had were with Pirelli's and Michelins.
So i decided to order some Michelins Defender LTX M/S. Saw some reviews.
OMG.... the amount of wheel weights they needed to used.
The "kid" comes haul'n butt from the shop area, calls me, says look here you have bent rims, i said WTF you are talking about, he spins the tire and it wobbling up and down. he said i reset the bead and rotated a few times, your rim is bad. i sad NO, you have bad tires. Then i show them how to look at the rim, and start talking. They look at me and say, you know about this stuff, so i said yes, i was/am a mechanic.
Shop manager comes over, tells them get the last tire in stock and put it on, he tells me tire MFG's no longer quality check, they leave it to the shop now.
So, he puts the new one on, and its better, but the amount of weights it needs to me is unreal.
I never had this problem in the past unless we used knock off tire brands, aka cheap tires, or, someone like me had an older truck with sorta rusted out steel wheels. I remember less than 4 new tires that i deemed no good when i did tires (and i did a lot). most used just a small tab of wheel weights, unless there was obvious rim damage.
i even said to the installers, when you took off the original tires (Hankook is what Nissan used) were there a lot of weights, they said no, i said see, bad batch of tires. They were dumb founded.
anyway i am fighting with Discount Tires and Michelin on this issue. I just don't like that they had to put some really big weights on my $1400 set of tires.

I'm now reading reviews where people are complaining a lot about things like this, from various mfgs, especially Mickey Thompson tires.

What have you guys been seeing/dealing with?
I know new car mfg's probably QC things better
the skill/professionalism of the new breed of workers.... I don't know, do i just have to get used to it?
i get these shops are crank em in, crank em out, but man... where has quality control gone?
I don't have any small ma/pa type workshops here, so i guess do i suck it up and go to the dealer and hope they do better?
I need new tires for our Accord and My TA.
For the TA i will just get through Summit, but am really concerned about what crap i will wind up with.
and.... tires are NOT cheap anymore.

I bought Riken Raptors on recommendation from Tirerack. They only have about 4000 miles on them as my car is down but they rode hood and seemed to be sticky for a street tire

Haven't seen anything on my end. My son just bought a set of Nitto 555's for his mustang. I mount and balance them here myself and they were perfect. None of them needed anymore than 1.25 ounces of weight.

We run Mickey Thompsons on 2 of the cars including one of mine, dad has a fairly fresh set on his. No problems to date. I think he's getting ready to buy another set of Michelins for his truck, and the first set were perfect. :noidea:

I mount and balance a fair number of tires a year. About 200 or so. I have to say I haven't noticed a particular problem with Michelin branded tires. Most of my customers can't afford Michelin tires so they are only about 10% or so of my sales. The only brand that sticks out as consistently lousy is Goodyear. I try to steer customers toward any other brand in a given price range. Goodyear tires are generally out of round and require excessive weight to balance. They also within category, do not wear well. They are often OE on many cars and have a nice look so many customers want to stay with them. They are the ONLY manufacturer who has EVER questioned my methods, the quality of Hunter Brand equipment and discount the entire process of road force type balancing and it's value. In other words, rather than produce a quality tire, they would rather make excuses and bash the equipment manufacturers for exposing their low quality tires. I sell basically every brand Tire Rack sells and have not seen a particular pattern of low quality across other brands. Every tire now must have a country of origin in the sidewall. They are made all over the world. Tire rack has been very good handling my defective tires. They take them back, look them over and issue a credit. I have to send about 5% of them back for one reason or another. Good luck. All auto parts are pretty much a crap shoot now.

We do lots at work as well, Michelins have been good for us. BFG KO2'S have been terrible. we sells lots of them for trucks due to the
ply rating and winter rating, but some are really bad and have had to return them. 24 oz on one tire, even after spinning on rim.
Install new tire and it was down to 4 oz.

This tells you how old I am. When I taught auto mechanics in high school the tires would have marks either on the bead (an indentation) or a paint mark on the sidewall which would tell the lightest side of the tire so it could be mounted on heaviest side of the wheel. That was where the valve stem would be. It made balancing somewhat easier. (I think that was the way)

I was pleasantly surprised by the last I put on my truck...Mastercraft, made by Cooper. Required very little weight, run quiet, aggressive looking tread, very reasonable.
I'll certainly buy them again.

https://i.imgur.com/ravXNzvl.jpg

I run Michelin LTX AT2s on my truck, and they've been great, but they were made in 2018. I feel like almost every company and their quality control dropped off the face of the earth after 2020. Hell mine are on old school steel wheels, and they're smooth as silk.

Tires have been a big pain in the ass lately. Tons of sizes unavailable or in short supply.

Don, did they try breaking them down and rotating them on the wheel?

If they have a road force balancer , should be under 25 lbs. anything more is a defective tire.

Track73
That's how I remember it from my days at Goodyear back in the 60s. Tires going for OEM got a wax dot at the light spot. Was supposed to mount at the valve so less weight would be needed. Dealers didn't want to sell a car with a lot of weight showing. If I walk through a parking lot now, I see a lot of replacement tires with the dot put at random. I guess anyone can mount tires these days.

[QUOTE=Lemans64;6423409]We do lots at work as well, Michelins have been good for us. BFG KO2'S have been terrible. we sells lots of them for trucks due to the

this would explain my death wobble at 55 only...

It's all of them. I deal with 11R22.5 and similar sizes, but it's a total crapshoot. Anything more than about 8 oz and I prefer to break the bead and rotate the tire on the wheel to see if I can get it any better, but the Michelin rep won't take them back unless they require more than 12 oz and I've already flopped it on the rim and then tried another wheel, and shown them that a different tire balances fine on either of those wheels.

Absolutely! And that would be a heavy truck tire. Had a set of Goodyear eagles, 17". Road force, 6, 8, 11, 47 lbs. road force on 4 tires. Think there was a problem with the 47 lb. tire? Not according to Goodyear Rep. "Road force is an unreliable method for determining a defective tire". "Thanks to Hunter, we are having to warranty too many good tires". You have got to be kidding me!! I was done with Goodyear after that encounter. I bought the guy another tire at my expense. I won't use them anymore. If someone else brings them to me I will mount and attempt to balance them. No guarantee, no returns.

I use to run BFG AT and later the K02s on my trucks they worked well, but wore out rather quickly, I figured the weight needed to balance them was due to how large the tires were 315/70/17”(35x12.5x17”) same size as Ford Raptors and GMC H2’s come factory with.
When my new truck needed tires, I decided to switch tires and see if I could get some more tread life.
I can’t believe how much better TOYO Open Country AT3s are in both tread life and quality when it come to tire balance.
I am running 295/60/20 (34.5x11.5 x20”) on the new truck and they are 10 ply and it is only a half ton truck this time but I have put 40,000miles on these tires and they are still measuring at 80-85% tread. BFGs would be under 40% at this point.
They took a lot least weight to balance and have been great in all conditions including winter ice and snow.

On my wife’s car I have Michelin Pilot Sport 3+ and they are also a very very good tire, they are perfect for the car and lasting much longer than the Pirelli run flats they replaced. But that is not much of an accomplishment since those runflats last about 15,000miles. After the car went through 2 sets in first 30,000miles of ownership, I had to find something else or risk financial rune.

Most manufactures still do. Some don't. Most times I find it hasn't really mattered even though I try.

The problem I ran into with the Nitto tires I just mounted a few days ago, is they only put the dot on one side of all four tires, which makes sense, but since they are directional, 2 of the tires had to be mounted with the dot on the inside of the wheel, opposite of the valve stem. To make matters worse once the tire was on the rim it was impossible to rotate the tire before setting the bead. Usually that's not a problem but when you have a low profile tire with very little sidewall there just isn't any wiggle room, even when it's lubricated.

Good news is it didn't matter, they all balanced with just 1.25 ounces or less. Can't complain. Very nice tire.

i tried to get them to do that, they weren't understanding the objective to that.
i can also see how it's not seated properly, which is either on them or again, just defective in the batch i have.

I'm seeing very similar feedback where many weights were needed.

I also agree with what 72projectbird says too

holly cow..... i guess if that is the standard, then i'll stop complaining about my issue

i personally don't recall needing 8 oz or 12 oz

i want to say mine were tad under 3
but i'd have to look, i just know there are some really long weights that were put on, and reminded me of my old truck rims. i know i've never had to do that on any of the aluminum wheels (mostly Honda/Nissan/Toyotas, and typical GM/Ford cars and Jeeps)

LOL I don't even like it when they require more than 4 ounces.

I generally balance with weights just on one side of the wheel (inside) and rarely run into a situation where it takes more than 4 ounces.

Note that my comments referred to 11R22.5 tires, which can weigh 200 lbs when mounted on steel wheels. :D