I use Kenda mountain bicycle tires and get excellent results if that’s of any use. Kenda is considered an excellent quality brand for mt. bicycle tires.
Who sells Kenda tires? Go to their site and read reviews.
Locally CarX. Their site doesn’t have tire reviews but a quick web search turned up a couple of places on the east coast that do. All the reviews, assuming they’re real, were positive. Cooper has been the US distributor for Kenda since 2004 so presumably they’re available to any shop that wants to sell them.
If you are buying 4 tires at the same time good idea beforehand to surf the various manufacturer’s websites, as it is pretty common that some of them are offering rebate coupons, usually around $60 when you buy 4 tires. Firestone for example offered a $60 rebate last month, October , as I recall.
Thanks. CarX is already offering a $50 mail in rebate on four tires. I just checked and couldn’t find anything else though.
$50 rebate is pretty good too. These tire rebate deals are sort of like airplane fares, no way to predict in advance, appearing and disappearing all the time.
Yeah, their previous promotion was get the fourth tire free on select products. That would’ve been even better but I’m reasonably happy with the deal I’m getting.
Why not put top of the line Michelin’s on it?. The car is at the halfway point of its service life. Good tires will actually help the suspension, and help it drive better. Two factors that will encourage you to hang on the car longer which will potentially save you a lot of money. Even if its a question of selling the car in a year or two you will get more money for it if it has MIchelins on it rather than WingLing or in your case Primewell or whatever they are called. At that point the notion that spending an extra 200 or 250 on quality tires will not seem so crazy.
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I am also just going to add that Firestone shops are not in my opinion the best for tires. If you want a good mid-range tire for quality and performance Cooper’s are pretty good.
Should also raise the point that on a vehicle like the Corolla the top of the line versions got the big rims and consequently the stiffest suspension. The 17’’ option will be more expensive and provide a less comfortable ride than a version with 16’’ rims and tire size.
You may also want to learn more about tires so that you understand load and speed ratings, differences among tire types summer, all season, winter, all weather, performance, run flats…rubber compounds and wear ratings.
There’s no need for top of the line Michelins IMHO. Any good midrange tire will be fine. If I drove a BMW maybe but for a Corolla… They certainly wouldn’t add appreciably to the trade-in/resale value FWIW, I ended up buying Kenda, or as you’d call them, WingLing. My old tires were 65000 mile Firestones. At the end of 31000 miles they had a tad less than 1/8" of tread left and they’d been on the car for 5 years, almost to the day. Since I can expect some bad weather in the next few months I went ahead and replaced them on principle. If I can get 30000 from these I’ll be happy.
The car rides maybe a tad stiffer now but the difference is minimal. Contrary to what you’ve assumed I do understand speed ratings and I know it doesn’t matter in my case. My new tires are H rated but the only way a car like mine would achieve 130 mph would be if you dropped it from a cargo plane. I didn’t look at anything below T and again this car couldn’t go 118 mph downhill with a tailwind. It’s a passenger car not a semi truck so again load rating isn’t a huge factor. 91, which is what these tires are rated, is good for more than 1350 lbs. The day I try to carry more than a ton in a Corolla is the day I’ll be ready to hang up my keys. These are all season tires because I don’t care to invest in duplicate sets for winter and summer. And I clearly don’t want performance tires on a car like mine. It’s not a top line version and it has 195/65-15’s.
H rated tires are generally a sturdier construction than T rated, with more plies.
That would account for the stiffer ride, at least in part.
So even if you never go over 80mph there’s a difference.
One should never put tires on a vehicle with a lower speed rating than original, even if it’s only driven at low speeds.
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Primewell is Firestone’s “house brand” entry level tire. They are at the bottom of the price range and the quality corresponds to that as well. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s a customer and a need for every price point. But my experience backs up the balancing claim.
I have a vehicle with a set of Primewell tires. It seems I have to rebalance the left front tire every thousand miles or so. Not an issue for me since I can do that myself. But since they are on an 89 Chevy pickup that sits for months at a time I’m not concerned. I purposely bought cheap tires knowing that the sidewalls will rot out before the tread is halfway worn. I doubt I drive the pickup 1000 miles a year anymore so for this vehicle the best tire is one that is round and black and holds air.
Would I put that tire on any other car in my family? Nope.
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To be honest, the difference in stiffness could easily be my imagination. I bought the car with 58k on the odometer so it was probably on at least its second set of tires. From what I can tell it probably had Continental ContiProContacts on it when it was new, with an H rating and a 91 load index, so it should ride pretty much the way it always did.
I bought a set of P195/65R15 Michelin Tour X tires last year from Costco for about $300 for my 1996 Dodge Stratus. Also a set of 185/65R15 Michelin Defenders for the same amount.
Costco currently has a $70 discount offer on Michelin tires and free installation ($80 off).
These tires are quiet, ride smooth and have better traction than the other tires that I have been using on these cars. I am cheep but I don’t mind paying $100 more for better tires.
That’s great for you but I don’t have a Costco membership and in my area (suburban St. Louis) a good set of 195/65R15s costs close to half a grand mounted and balanced if not more. Maybe that’s a ripoff but it’s the price range I found.
I agree with that.
3 years ago I bought a 2012Camry Se with 90,000 miles very reasonably priced from a Toyota dealer. I told the dealer the car was just getting broken in. Now at 105,000 miles the car still feels like new. It came with most of the XLE options.
Tires that last a long time aren’t better in the long run. The 5 year old Michelins on my Camry started to dry out lose traction. They had a lot of tread life left but were becoming dangerous.
Speed rating tends to coincide with sidewall stiffeness. You will notice a difference in an H rated tires vs a Q, S or T. You will notice it even more if and when you have to do an emergency maneuver at high way speeds. Different rubber compounds will also affect the ride, handling and noise level. If you can afford them you will not regret the Michelins. That said my nephew does not mind the Black Lion chinese tires I found used for him, and by and large their product offerings have improved.
Then buy them online or call around tire dealers in your area. There is no way a set of 15’’ tires costs you more than 500. 600 max and we are talking the best money will buy at 195/65/15 size.