Quote:
Originally Posted by dieseldiehard
Thanks for the review! this probably belongs in the Tires and Wheels thread though.
I'd never heard of Americus tires before.
This past Summer I needed to replace the aging Yokohamas on my '99 E300D so I performed a diligent search of the tires available as to where they were manufactured and what reviews said.
First thing I discovered is there are a lot of Chinese tires are on the market, some quite dubious as I read reports of people making claims they were made elsewhere and claim on them like they wouldn't balance even outright failures like tread separations.
Next came VietNam and Indonesia as sources, there are many imports nowdays. The very last tires I would buy are Michelins, being over priced and trouble I had with them in the past.
I was inclined to buy Cooper tires as they are an American manufacturer but I didn't see any with what I wanted in a tire so after a suggestion from someone with lots of experience in restoring cars I bought Tiger Paws. I'd never owned a set and they have proven good tires for the way we drive. I like the Yokohamas on my vehicle but will be choosing something else and may look at Americus.
All this goes to say one needs to research tires carefully before a purchase.
But as they say YMMV.
DDH
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Absolutely. Its stressful trying to make a decision on what you hope will be a quality tire at a reasonable price. To make things even more difficult, as you mentioned there are a lot of tires on the market including several well known brands that have been traditionally made in the USA and are now being manufactured overseas. The Yokohama Avid Ascend GT is a prime example. I was considering that tire and did a fair amount of research on it. If you google where the Yokohama Avid Ascend is made the first results are "Yokohama Avid Ascend Made in the USA" and that is coming from Yokohamas website. If you dig deeper you will find that there are several models of the Avid Ascend including the GT, LX, etc. A few of them are made in the USA, the majority are made overseas including the GT which is made in the Phillipenes but that wasn't the reason I didn't get the Yokohamas. It was the fact that I waited until the last minute before my inspection/registration expired and I wasn't really aware of just how slick my back tires had gotten which left me with very limited options, however I have been extremely pleased with my Vietnamese made Americus Sport HP tires. Hopefully they will last me a good while, they are 500AA and have a 60K warranty which probably means nothing, and I'm hard on tires.
Also look into the Nokian tires. I was going to buy a set of their Zline model but they were sold out. I hadn't heard of Nokian until I started researching tires but I learned that they are a European manufacturer with a very good reputation for their winter tires. In 2019 they opened a plant in Tennessee where they manufacture summer and all season tires. The price for that tire was just under $100 and it was also a 500AA tire and had a 50k warranty.
The Michelins, Continental, Pirelli, and even Bridgestone/Firestone all seem to be overpriced and many of them had lower treadware ratings.