Steer Clear: 13 Worst Tire Brands on the Market
Choosing the right tires for our cars is an important decision. The tires connect our cars to the road and the cars to us, and without a good grip, driving can be a dangerous game.
Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent tire brands on the market. Bridgestone, Michelin, Firestone, and Pirelli are just some of the biggest. However, for every good tire brand, there is a bad one.
This list contains 13 truly terrible tire brands that you should avoid. Reasons for avoiding them include their cost, lack of quality in the tires, and poor grip.
Accelera Tires
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox.
Accelera is an Asian tire brand whose name suggests acceleration and speed. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth, as the brand offers some of the worst tires on the market.
Hard acceleration causes Accelera’s tires to lose grip suddenly, and should you have to brake in a hurry, Accelera tires are no better in those situations. As you might expect, these issues are amplified when driving in wet conditions, so Accelera is undoubtedly a brand to avoid.
Firestone Destination Tires
An offshoot of Firestone tires, Destination Tires used to be some of the best available in the United States. However, in recent years, Firestone’s Destination Tires have been produced in China, and overall quality has declined massively due to the use of low-quality materials in their construction.
Firestone has also reduced testing and quality control to reduce costs. This has led to instances of softer, low-quality tires with low durability, which causes them to puncture quicker than expected.
Compass Tires
Compass Tires offers a wide range of products, from tires for off-roading to tires for your daily driver. However, despite the breadth of its range, the manufacturer has sadly failed to live up to the standards set by the consumer.
A review on TireHungry reveals the company’s troubles and the average quality of its products. In fact, Compass has a history of poor tire manufacturing, and it’s not unheard of for Compass tires to suffer tread separation or even complete blowouts.
Chaoyang
In some ways, China is catching up to the West in the automotive sector. Just look at their upcoming electric cars. However, when it comes to tires, they are some way behind, and Chaoyang tires indicate just how far they have to go.
The company has a wide range of products, including an extensive tire range, but sadly, high-quality tires aren’t one of them. Car from Japan reports that Chaoyang tires often wear out quickly and unevenly across the tread. Durability is also an issue, with extreme heat putting a lot of pressure on them. Quite literally.
Goodyear – G159
Finding a Goodyear tire on this list might come as a shock. While we aren’t discussing the brand specifically, the G159 tire from the typically high-quality manufacturer is one of its worst products. In fact, the G159 posed serious safety problems to those using it.
Goodyear checked out their G159 tires made between 1996 and 2003, and over 170,000 tires were recalled for serious defects. These tires had major problems, such as overheating, overloading, and large underinflation.
Autogreen Tires
Autogreen Tires is a brand that prides itself on being at the lower end of the spectrum. The idea is to appeal to those who can’t afford the more well-known, premium brands and need something on a budget. Unfortunately, that comes with quite a few downsides.
The lower quality means that Autogreen’s products don’t have the longevity of, say, a Firestone or a Michelin. Therefore, you could end up paying more in the long run. Plus, the lower levels of grip from Autogreen tires could make certain driving situations a little sketchy.
Triangle Tires
Triangle Tires is another Chinese brand with a large export market. In fact, the company sells to over 180 countries, and that number is rising, highlighting its popularity. Thanks to its lower prices, Triangle’s products have an incredibly wide appeal, and they have produced tires for over five decades.
However, they also have downsides. Customers have complained about premature tire wear and frequent blowouts with Traingle’s products, which is a by-product of the company’s choice to use lower-quality material to produce its tires.
Off-Brand Knockoff Tires
Something to be wary about is the various knockoff brands of tires on the market. Almost every sector has knockoffs, and tires are no exception. While these could be cheap and tempting, there are too many downsides for us to recommend them.
There is virtually no guarantee of quality, as who knows where on earth these tires are made. It is, in effect, a lottery as to whether the knockoff brand sources good materials or does it on the cheap to sell as many products as possible.
Falken Ziex Tires
There is a massive red flag waving whenever it comes to Falken ZIEX tires, specifically the flawed ZE310 EcoRun product. Performance isn’t terrible, with traction in the wet and dry at a reasonable level, but things are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
One of the biggest gripes customers have with the ZIEX tires is the tread life. They simply don’t have the longevity of tires from some higher-end, more reliable brands. This is a surprise, given that Falken can produce some excellent tires.
Geostar
Geostar is another Asian tire brand whose roots are in China and Taiwan. It has been around for some time now. Their tires are available in the United States, and the company produces a wide range of products for daily family drivers and even trucks and buses.
Geostar is a Nexen brand, and sadly, it has issues. The tread pattern doesn’t hold up well in the snow, and vibrations can be a significant problem. The sidewalls are also incredibly soft, so it’s best to pay for the higher-end product and not the cheaper Geostars.
Goodride Tires
Goodride Tires are much more of a mixed bag than some of the others on this list. A quick Google search will reveal quite a few positive reviews of at least three stars, with some praising the level of grip they offer. However, Goodride has some poor reviews.
Some users have reported that their car will skid on straight, even at lower speeds, and that the noise produced by the tires is more than with the likes of Firestone or Goodyear. These are not the worst tires here, but certainly not the best.
Unicorn Tires
Unicorn Tires is another hit-and-miss brand. A quick look at a Reddit thread suggests other brands perform better, and some have even said that the stability offered by Unicorn Tires is lacking compared to other products.
On the Team-BHP forum, one user says that after just 10,000 km, they started to experience some severe stability problems with their Unicorn tires, and they are not alone in experiencing this problem. Unicorn Tires is also noted for being heavier than some of its rivals.
West Lake
While West Lake’s tires are widely available in the United States, they are based in the US. However, despite the company’s best efforts, we can’t recommend their products and would advise you to avoid them at all costs.
West Lake’s tires are easily damaged in rough driving conditions, with potholes and bumpy roads posing particular hazards. Most alarmingly, at higher speeds, West Lake’s tires are terrible, and drivers could experience sudden losses of grip with no warning.
