This Is Why You Should Never Cheap Out On Tires

For the track, buy the very most expensive tires so you can completely burn them up in one morning at the track and then disintegrate the remaining useless tires doing smoky donuts.
Without sponsorship, new ultra high performance tires can be a major expense

"If your shoes cost more than the tires on your car, you have your priorities wrong." says the tire sales guy ;)

Yet your life depends on the tires, not so much on your shoes.

A lot depends on your climate.

Around here it's dry nearly the entire year so inexpensive tires will not be a huge disaster for FWD sedans and crossovers in normal driving.

If you have an M car you would be a fool to put cheap tires on it because the grunt can overpower the best tires, so you would be less safe.

So this happened...

One of Jed's friends has a 2015 Mustang V6 and the Kumho tires were worn out. I've driven that configuration and it's a good set up. The Kumhos have good grip and are very predictable.

The kid goes to the tire store his dad uses and they sell him Delinte tires. I'd never heard of De-lint-tay tires. I guess they are from China. He said the car drove differently.

The Delintes turned the Mustang into an early drifter as you get near the limit with snap oversteer once they give up. Normally you have to be a total moron to get snap oversteer out of a Mustang, apparently Delintes can make that happen a bit too easily.

Fortunately the kid is old-man sensible, but yikes.

Yep. The difference between tires, fair, good and best (forget poor) can be very surprising. Handling differences, wet performance and even noise. Choose wisely. No mystery brands.

Buck is a 17 year-old old man. He's a total throwback to Depression-Era frugality. He has visions of being completely self-sufficient and off grid, but not in the psycho, Chicken Little militia mode. He darns socks for crying out loud. His goal is to work with CalOES some day. He'll probably be my son-in-law someday. He's approaching his disappointing purchase of Delintes with a "Well is they give long tread life, I'll be OK with that." Buck has an old Dodge PowerWagon that he wants to rejuvenate but he won't let me at it. I'd do it for him and absorb the cost just because I like the kid and like the challenge of his project, but he wants to pay for it himself. Fortunately, he does not have his eye on the PowerWagon--it's stored on my lot--I've thought of defying him and just doing it.