He is 100% correct, or at least that is the way it used to be… Go buy a Goodyear Viva from Walmart and take it to a Goodyear dealer with an issue, They will flat out tell you it is NOT a real Goodyear…
Measure the tread depth on a Michelin tire from Walmart and then go measure the tread depth at a Michelin dealer and measure the tread depth, some will be about 2/32 less tread.. Bridgestone used to sell tires that had been discontinued for years to Walmart that were from old molds that used more basic rubber and not the same technology of the OG tires… Tire manufactures do have tires made just for the discount stores that differ from your (real) tire shops in one way or another…
Now, are all the tires like that?, I don’t know, but as of my retiring (late 2021) from a tire manufacture after 17 years, that is what was going on… Not up to date on current offerings and specs of tires… Post Covid changed a lot of things…
Would you, then, suggest buying tires only from a place with a large blimp or burning ‘F’ sign out front and use Town Fair or other such tire place for the European and Asian brand tires?
By the way, the practices you describe remind me of what I read about consumer electronics also:
TV mfgs might make store-specific models they sell to Walmart, Target etc cheap for Black Friday, but then won’t support post-purchase. You know, like a 90 inch Samsung 4k OLED panel for only $200 on Black Friday.
Because Walmart shoppers tend to be price conscious more than quality conscious. Not that I don’t buy things at Walmart, but I buy what I like and what I want, not because the item costs less.
The Viva or Viva 2 was the first thing that came to my mind. I think they’re discontinued now, which is a good thing. I once bought a car with Vivas on them, what a crappy riding tire. Walmart does still sell Goodyear Wrangler tires, same thing…Goodyear name but not the same quality you’d get from a mainline Goodyear tire. Most Walmart tire shoppers don’t care though, they just need a tire that’s black and round.
Think snapper mowers and their experience. You sit waiting to meet with the buyer. Then the buyer tells you at what price point you need to provide the product. No negotiating. The buyer is under pressure to produce also. I believe Goodyear supplies tires but no idea what plant or what specs are used. I don’t keep notes on who mentions what over 20 years, but Walmart is a glorified k mart without th3 Carmel corn. So buyer beware.
New Balance does (or did) the same thing, the the “real” New Balance shoes are made in there main factory, the discount ones, like sold at Shoe Carnival, are made on the same campus but at a smaller factory, the shoes look 100% the same except for the number on them (used to be like a 323 vs 626 etc)… I had a nice conversation with New Balance some years ago…
Tire Discounters, Discount Tire, Best One, General Tire, Independent Tire Shops, etc etc that carry multiple branded tires all carry real name brand tires also… Most ( a lot of) tire shops also carry house brand tires…
As with most things, you get what you pay for…
They are now Viva3’s… lol And yes absolutely junk tires, No wet weather traction to speak of… Yes I tried them once, never again… Test driven many cars with them, still junk tires…
I also remember back when I had my shop buying a Sams Club cheapo tire and installed them on a customers car, they turned around and came right back asking WTF did you do to my car? They were the closest thing to a square tire you could get and still be round… lol… Swapped them out for some Kelly Springfields and the car road great again…
I have installed big name brand tires on friends vehicles/neighbors vehicles that had always bought from the discount stores and thought they were in a different vehicle it road so much better…
All tires are round and hold air, what makes them different is the technology in the rubber compound… One big difference some years ago between the Bridgestone/Firestone brands and others was that they were all good when new, but at 1/2 tread the others (mostly) had lost 30-40% of their wet weather traction, whereas the Stone’s had only lost about 5% of their wet weather traction, it was like a second layer starting over again, so the tire handles the same through out its life, the others sometimes even handles better with full tread, but fell off on a downward slop for the life of the tire and therefor much worse wet weather traction at low tread… That is one reason we called Goodyear tires Oneyear tires… lol
When Firestone was still making drag tires, the sponsored or better funded drag racers said that their cars had lower ET’s when running a New set of Goodyears, but the cars ET’s slowed down a tad ever race, if they ran F’stones, the ET’s were a tad slower when new, but stayed consistent through out the life of the tires… Big money teams still run Goodyears a few runs and then sell them to the budget teams, but the other teams looking for a more consistent ET though out the life of the tires run Hoosier’s for example…
I think they generally meet the expectations of their intended audience. Remember, not every tire needs to have good wet traction or a quiet ride. Some people just need something that’s round and holds air. I’ve sold many a budget brand tire with the expectation that the tire will outlast the car.
There are two things on a car that you should never cheap out on. One is tires and the other is brakes. Those things keep you on the road and stop you. While your budget may be tight, it is still cheaper to spend money on tires than hospital bills, missed work, and (potentially) a funeral. You want to buy cheap spark plugs? Not advisable, but they won’t send you into oncoming traffic.
Allow me to explain how making tires for WalMart works.
The tires at Walmart are made exclusively for WalMart. As such, other retailers can not do any warranty work on them. The work has to be done at WalMart. It has nothing to do with the quality of the tires.
Other retailers get a different selection of tires - and that includes Goodyear franchise stores. The same applies to Firestone. What is available at the Firestone franchise stores will be different than elsewhere.
Are tires at WalMart a lower quality? Look at the UTQG ratings to see what the quality level is. Some will have low ratings for some things and some will have higher quality for others. And it varies.
In the case of the Goodyear Viva3 tires, the UTQG is 500 A B. 500 is a fairly low treadwear rating for an all season tire. A traction is OK, AA is best. B temperature rating is low. The speed rating is H, so the tire must barely pass H. Not a good indicator of quality.
Not only does Walmart set specifications for many products they sell, but they also tell the manufacturer where they can manufacture the product. Walmart is the has forced many companies to move the production of their products overseas. They’ve been doing this for decades.
Why would they care? They set a price point. That may drive the supplier to offshore the product to reduce costs to meet the price point. But why would any buyer care where it was produced as long as the requested price is met?
Now, if the buyer is paying any import tariffs, they may dictate the point of manufacture to reduce that exposure. but there are no tariffs on domestically produced products, sold domestically.
You can not tell anything about the ride qualities of a tire from the UTQG ratings. The only way to assess the ride quality is what either someone testing the tire tells you or from the advertising - which can be quite unreliable .
Cost. Walmart is looking for manufacturers to sell their product to them at lower costs. To do business with Walmart - Walmart actually sits with their suppliers and Walmart analyses their production costs and make suggestions on where to trim production to meet Walmart’s buying price point. Walmart has people in Asia that seek out manufacturers for American companies to offshore their manufacturing to. https://www.demos.org/policy-briefs/not-made-america-top-10-ways-walmart-destroys-us-manufacturing-jobs