That absolutely makes sense. Not to slam any particular company but a company I use to work for that has year in it's name had some horrendous quality control issues, so I'm surprised those tires didn't at least occasionally make it to the store. We had more trouble with tread separation, radial tire pull, and general overall manufacture defect issues working there than the other major manufacture I worked for that had Fire in it's name. That place and it's issues is one of the things that got me out of working in tire stores. It's pretty had for me to sell and install tires that I don't believe in. I even had other manufacture of tires on my rigs by the time I left.
I understand. I worked for a non tire brand retailer(but clearly the company had deals or some kind of preference for cooper and michellin tho, arguably goodyear based on the frequency of deals or rebates.. but it possibly was just goodyear as a whole on that) and I had a similar thought but mostly for the service part. We had unacceptable technicians who, when a car was in for brakes of any kind or an inspection, always needed calipers, rotors, and pads. Convenient how that works? The manager was buddy-buddy with the ones who did that which I think means what I saw was the effect of a cause-effect scenario. Basically pump his departments numbers so he could look good to corporate or the store or some silly nonsense. I couldnt work the service desk faithfully because I know the techs were 1) going to lie about what a vehicle needs 2) going to shamelessly do it 3) That management in all realms was aware and fine with this reality.
I couldnt do it, because I may have only had to watch cooper tire propoganda for like 2 hours straight once about individual tire models(Oh god it was tiring) but I couldnt shake the fact we pretty much presented cooper and michellin as best/only options with a very limited ability to get firestone goodyear(truck sizing, car tires were not hard), Bridgestone, BF Goodrich, Hanook, General Tire, Dunlop, etc. Like, they were purposefully harder to obtain and that was prob a corporate dealings thing where they got better cost/unit or promised a damn near exclusivity possibly kinda thing.
But the thing is, cooper tires are nice, I frankly could sell those in good faith. i believe they are cost effective in normal sizing(RIP 18 inch wheel owners, performance tire owners LOL) and they are well rounded and appropiate for many people and the OWL availability is nice too for like AT3 especially. Wish my snow tires(evolution winters) had that... anyway..
The michellin and pirelli tires, which oddly pirelli was shoe horned in periodically almost on a schedule lol.. they were not. And being expected to tell someone michellin tires were expensive, yes, but they earn that is simply betraying my own experience and also what i have seen in comebacks related to them. The truck highway michellins seem to be fine, pliable, decently produced tires. But man, the car and thin side wall tires really really turned me off michellin and a old car of mine had 7/32 michellin tires(remaining tread) and it had less traction than drag slicks in snow and they were loud at 2.5 years old. Pirelli just fell on its face for tread life and customer complaints and sidewall buldging like, almost without fail each time we put a set on, you see them back with an issue. Michellin was just hard to pretend it was something it wasnt. Goodyear was a lot more.. simple, because I had personal experience I could say yeah these tires are good on my car but I am also aware its a high end tire and I paid half price otherwise I wouldnt have even considered them. I also got my buddy a half price set for his expedition and he said they are good(SR2 sounds right for that). But i was working there when I had my tire blow out.
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Those tires were in good shape and not excessive old, but they were definitely less than half life left , kept at pressure, and no bulges. They are Kelly tires. Kelly is made by goodyear, and Kelly was the other "budget" brands we sold beside Uniroyal tiger paws and Starfires pretty much. But the kellys still came in more than both of those and frankly I dont trust anything made under the name kelly because We had a lot of buldges as comebacks or road hazzard claims and goodyear wasnt good but yikes. Then of course, my lovely first park avenue which was a steal of a car for 400 dollars... all it needed was plug wires installed in the right order... and my chin had a scar for a while as well as some aches from kissing an airbag. Didnt even burn oil..
So yeah, goodyear is disappointing for sure
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I have had great luck with my assurance weathereadys on my car and my Gmas Jeep, but at over 200 a tire for 16 inch 2256016 normally, yikes. they classify as Grand Touring tires for anyone curious. Even tho it has high ratings and the price has lowered since I got them to 150 ish a tire, its hard to make a leap like that if you frankly dont see the quality in the rest of their tire line. Hard to unsee reality when its usually a pissed off and annoyed person making it very clear whats bothering them LOL (which being paid to listen and handle as well)