Tires

I need to buy new tires for my 06 Pontiac Vibe. I would like to buy the best American made tire brand out there, but I do not know what it is. Can someone help me out.

Rather than taking random opinions from people on this site, I suggest that you go to the Tire Rack website. On that site, you will be able to see every brand and model of tire that is available for your car, along with ratings from both the Tire Rack staff and from customers who bought a particular tire.

www.tirerack.com

1010tires.com is another good source of consumer feedback.

Harder to satisfy your ‘American-made’ requirement, tires are made all over for all companies, so just a brand name won’t be enough.

Tire rack does give you country of origin when you ‘compare’ several tires, so that should be what you need. As expected, it has little relationship to the company’s home office location. Lots of US-made Michelins, for example.

I just bought bridgestone potenza 960 AS Pole Position for my 2005 camry. They are ultra high performance. Quiet, grippy, amazing. Got them at Discount Tire. I’d highly recommend them. Ran Bridgestone Potenza G009’s before that (also on my accord now). Rated for 40K but can get more if you don’t drive like a nut.

There’s a big difference between an American brand and an American made tire. You’re going to have to be very careful.

I’d suggest you concentrate on buying the best tire for your needs and your driving situation, and not worry so much where the tire was made.

The best American made tires are probably Michelin. They have several plants in North America. My cars have 3 sets of them, all locally made.

I have the RE960’s also and find them incredible tires for Subaru WRX. However they are made in Japan.

Research on tirerack.com for the country of origin for your particular size. Different sizes are made in different countries sometimes.

Every tire is a compromise. There is no such thing as BEST tire for everyone as they all compromise something to gain something else. Research what best qualities for you and go from there.

I just bought a set of tires for my car a few months ago – I too, wanted to only buy American made tires. In practice, this turned out to be very difficult. I called several manufacturers and it seemed like many popular models are made at various plants all over the world and the only way to know for sure is to look at the sidewall before they’re mounted.

In the end, I simply narrowed my search down to “anything-but-Chinese” tires and wound up with a set of Toyo Versado LX’s (made in Japan) because they were the best value for my money, extremely quiet, and in stock. Prior to that, I was debating between Goodyear Tripletreads and Cooper CS4s but ruled out the Goodyears due to cost and the Coopers in my size were backordered.