No wonder you want to continue to 'believe' that ASEAN made stuff are equally as good. I'm not going to take chances, after all, tyres are the only contact patch between the car and the road.
You get what you pay for. That's what I always say. As for company's QCs, there is this thing called market segmentation... No way will the attention paid to the high end offerings would be the same with the 'cheaper' offerings. It's called budget for a reason.
Completely agree with you. The reason why the production is moved elsewhere is because of price. How do they want to cut price? In many ways, and they do it as 'invisible' to public as possible. If they can continue selling at higher price while still having the market demand, I don't see any reason why they want to move their production line. If the labour cost increases, then just have to increase the price! They have to move because of the cost increase, and most consumers are not willing to pay for the increase. That's why some items are still being made in the origin, while the lower ends are moved. Tyres are one of the best example. Bridgestone Potenza RE-11, the latest ultra high performance tyres are still made in Japan, extremely expensive, more than RM1000 per tyre if I'm not mistaken. Or maybe something that you are familiar with, D300 made in Thailand. D3 made in Japan. See the trend yet?
I did remember an article bout the information written on the tires especially on manufacturing datecodes.. not sure where they are now. The thing is some tires are on sales because they are nearing expiring dates. Tires got lifespan of about 4 years so have to watch for this. If they are nearing their lifespan, they don't buy those cause, the rubber there would not be as good. Correct me if I am wrong...
yes, tires degrade over time, but i dunno the life span. 4-5 years i guess. anything older than that you gotta watch out.
Yup, but very seldom you will find old tyres. Just make sure the tyres are not more than 2 years old. Manufacturing date should be in Week/Year format.
Just bought Yokohama A.drive tyres. RM 200 (US$ 61.50) each. Seems okay but haven't tried it in the wets yet. It is quite noisy though.
You can consider that budget tyres. Yokohama has started moving all their production to ASEAN countries. No surprise if quality dropped.
My ST115 is getting noisier everyday, but the grip is excellent, far better than any tyres I've used in the past. Whether it's wet or dry. Aquaplaning resistant is quite good, gives you a lot of confidence driving in the rain. My next tyre will most probably be Michelin Pilot Preceda 2.
I think I will go with Bridgestone Potenza next time. I think they are a lot quieter than these Yokohamas.
I accidentally scratched my rims and apparently, it costs me almost 1K just to get one of the same stock rim since it's imported from Japan. Gosh. Might as well change to 3rd party sports rims! I'll do that later on but my questions is... If I do change the sports rims. do i stick to 15" rims? any advantages of using bigger rims other than costing more Haha Total car Noob here.
More expensive, better tyre choices, more expensive, easier to dent rims, more expensive, harsher ride, more expensive, better handling due to less tyre flexing, more expensive.
I would go for 16" if I can afford light weight forged rims and good 16" tyres. But then again, I'm perfectly happy with my 15" SSR, but tyre choices are getting worse... Fuel consumption may be affected due to higher grip tyres or heavier rims.
