- I can't move my body
because the microphone will make a noise
but sometimes we want the best.
Okay. We want the most expensive thing ever.
We want the biggest of them all.
I don't know what to do with my hands
but we don't want, we want the best car
but we don't wanna pay for like the gap insurance.
We wanna go to Red Lobster for two for $32.99,
but then we both get glasses of water
because the $1.69 soda just a bit too much
even though the soda's what we actually enjoy the most.
We like to go like on the one side of things,
cheaper, bigger and huge.
But on the other side, kind of
like the cheapest thing we possibly can find
is like the accessory I'm putting my hands down.
I'm Alex, Alex.FI on Instagram
and today we're gonna be talking about that
on the car side of things.
We're talking about those that seem to forget
probably one of the most important things
when it comes to modifying your car.
We're talking about just what exactly happened
to good tires?
(upbeat music)
- Siga! No microphone issues.
Woo. All right, let's go.
That's a good thing to hear.
Hi welcome to Fitment Industries.
Hello, I'm Alex.
And if you're looking for aftermarket wheels, tires
or suspension for your car
and you got a little extra taxis cash,
you know what I'm saying,
be sure to pick'em up from us at fitmentindustries.com.
We also mount, balance, and ship wheels and tires together
so you don't have to go to the tire shop
which saves you money, time and hassle.
That's the value prop.
Anyway. And if you're running low
on thinking about ways that you wanna modify your car
be sure to check out all the rest of the videos out there
on the YouTube of Fitment Industries.
I watched some old videos of like four years ago
when I was sitting in our old, old, old shop.
And it was just uncomfortable to watch,
but Hey there it is.
Tire businesses have like existed for ages.
Michelin started by making bicycle tires.
Firestone was making buggy tires
and BF Goodrich for pretty much all else.
I mean, it never really was like
it's been around for 120, 130 years.
And, you know, just so you know, BF Goodrich
they were the first tire company
to take a car across the United States, 1903.
You can take that home with you
if you'd like as like a fun fact,
take that as you will from Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
All right the tire production world
then just exploded in the 20th century.
I mean really if you're somebody that enjoys a good story
the 20th century in terms of innovation around automobiles,
mechanical engineering and technology were huge.
And all the accessories and the parts
and components needed to grow
with that industry exploded with it,
including rubber production.
Going from buggies to sedan, station wagons to coops.
I mean, tires had to evolve with them.
The tires of 1900, not the tires of today.
The ranges of cars got longer
as the gas tanks got bigger
and fuel efficiency got better
and everyone was living large.
And with the living large mentality
of cars getting bigger and badder,
tire companies started to elevate
what are making for people as well,
because they had to make better tires.
It wasn't really a want, it wasn't need.
And tires were not really the cheapest thing in the world.
Tires had to improve their technology
and use ways to improve their mileage.
Whether that was done through siping,
whether that was done through making it a quieter ride
so that you can blast your tunes in your 1956 Chrysler.
There are things tire companies needed to do
to stay up to par.
And while the world wasn't completely aware
of the total work that actually went in the tire production
because sometimes it can be a little bit of a stinky mess.
It didn't really matter because of the wars
and the innovation within the automotive industry
as a whole.
Everybody in 20th century, big rubber people.
They were really big rubber people.
They enjoyed tire production. Okay.
If you wanted to get into money
you got into tire production.
And even though there was increased competition
as the market space grew
the competition was still relatively in the same space.
They knew each other, all right.
They competed with each other
but everything was relatively well known and fine.
And what I would probably deem healthy competition.
Sure, there was a little bit of riff raft taking a bath
in different high end tire productions.
But for the most part,
people still knew who was running what.
And that does keep competition healthy
because it keeps it moving forward
where the consumer still gets a win.
But as the competition started to increase
another player really entered into the competition.
They came across the way
and absolutely began to decimate the market
that no one was really ready for.
The name of those companies is probably
what you know it well as I do,
which is, I don't know, I don't know what they are
because there's like 300 different tire brands.
And depending on where you look
they just have a name that you've never heard of before
but typically people will seem to refer
to them as the tire companies that come from China.
All right.
The Chinese tire companies, everybody's all scared
about the big old Chinese tire companies
'cause there's a lot of them these days.
We're not just gonna get all saying that
with a Chinese tire company being bad
because there's a lot of tires that come from China.
I mean, after all almost every major tire manufacturer
does have some form of production
of their entry level tire counterpart in China.
Spoiler alert, lot of stuff gets made over there.
Okay. But the difference between that
and what we're talking about here
is that there are companies that started to make tires
because there was a need in a market.
And over time as they expanded their product catalog
they started to make a little bit cheaper tires.
Cause not everybody can afford a Pilot Sport Cup 2.
Those are some of those more entry level tires,
not from Michelin, but for others
we're making their tires in China.
But then you have other people that entered into the market
because they just wanted to make a s**t ton of money
and have absolutely no care want or desire
to make an actual good tire.
And that kind of tire can kind of sorta suck,
specifically when you look at the people like you
and people like me that jump into car modification
and buying wheels and tires together
and they don't know where to put all of their money.
In the past 20, 25 years, there's been a massive influx
in companies coming from China
that are specifically focused on making
the cheapest tire possible.
And now when you're looking for tires,
you probably see a ton of brands
that you've probably never heard of
but they're still the same cost as
a set of cheese curds at QuickTrip,
which makes you feel a little bit concerned.
At the end of the day though, you got $1500 bucks
to buy a wheel and tire package.
And if you buy wheels at $1400 bucks,
you're probably gonna try
and find a set of tires that are like $25 bucks a piece.
That's just, I don't know what to tell you.
I know how it goes. I used to do it.
I still do it sometimes in certain ways of my life
but that's just how it works.
So what happened to the days of really four or five
tire companies that sure had a varying change in price,
but had nothing to do like
with how many tire companies we have now?
Like what happened to just a few of them
and why are there so many right now?
Well, that's a good question.
Oh, Sony A Seven S3, Sony A Seven S3, confirm.
There's a ton of information around this,
but you've got a lot of companies
that started to import tires
as the demand of passenger vehicles increased
over the past few decades,
specifically in the United States.
We are one of the few countries that has
a monstrous amount of infrastructure built
around high highways and roadways.
So, you've got like the Zhongce Rubber Group,
you've got the Sailun Tire, you got Linglong Tire.
Which is actually a really funny name
because it I don't know why it just like laugh,
it rhymes, I don't know.
You've got Triangle Tire, Double Coin, and more.
Congratulations.
You now know more tire companies
than you've probably ever heard of before.
And it doesn't seem like anybody knows
that these tire production companies even exist.
Some of the factories have found ways
to find a way to mass produce tires
utilizing the necessary minimum requirements
of what a tire is needed to get exported
and sold into the United States.
And then they just started absolutely cranking them out.
And because international tire production is easier to do
because of the environmental gaps versus here and overseas.
You have regulation differences in terms of
how you can sell and buy product and raw material and more.
It really has started to shift the production facilities
of even those Italian, German,
and US based tire companies
to get their stuff made in China.
It is important to note
that just because a tire comes from China
that does not inherently mean that they are bad.
The production location doesn't mean that they are bad.
There are Chinese factories
that still have state of the art technology.
They're still paired up with companies that
that have been around for 120 years.
They still care about the same stuff that
you would if the company was in Italy
or Germany or France or the United States.
They still care about some of the stuff that they make.
But typically even with that,
there's another group of people
that have absolutely no idea how to make a tire
but they just know that there's money
in making a lot of tires.
And that's exactly what they plan to do.
Their goal is to make the cheapest tire humanly possible.
Then go grab a tire tread that looks a lot
like a Continental DWS
or a Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
and just make that in different sizes.
And that's where things have a tendency
to get a little bit weird.
Good tires have started to take a hit a bit.
And they've gotten into this rut
where people really don't understand
the difference between like good, better, and best tires.
They just see it as a price point conversation
and not an actual functional conversation.
And when it comes to tax returns
and people getting back out there trying
to buy wheels and tires.
It's gonna be really easy for people
to start just aiming at the cheapest tires humanly possible.
And then they end up taking their Subaru STI
and turning it from a lean mean,
fighting all-wheel drive check engine light machine
to make it slightly better
but ultimately just have a s**tier experience
because the tires that were on it were decent quality
and they were replaced with something that's super cheap
because we just wanted to have wheels that were gold.
It's just one of those things.
I mean, it's a decision that we make not knowing
the impact of sometimes.
And that's where we talk about stuff like that
because good tire companies like Continental
and Michelin and Falcon
are all brands that offer quality tires
at a varying price level
and unique sizes that'll fit pretty much everything.
And while it is super easy to sort low to high,
sometimes it's important for you to also sort
by what people have the best experience with
or what has the greatest reputation,
because if you're buying this for your only daily driver
it's gonna be really important to try
and get something that's pretty decent.
We've recommended Falcon for quite a long time
if you're on the entry level side of things
and you're really looking to jump into
a decent tire that's got a good bite.
You have Continental that really hits that
mid-market segment with the DWS06, the DWS06 Plus
And they make a fantastic product.
We thrash the absolute crap out of them
on the S2K that we gave away.
Dakota still cries about us not having that car.
And then of course, as you start to continuously evolve
you obviously have Michelin.
You've got the Pilot Sport 4S, you have the Sport Cup 2.
You have the different all season tires
that they also offer,
the AS 3 Plus, you've got good stuff in there.
And there's a lot of great tires that do have a lot
of technology behind them
that I would 100% recommend
that you actually learn about a little
before you end up going and buying tires for the wheels
that you're probably gonna end up
picking up in the next couple weeks.
It's just one of those things where one
of the top things that we recommend
is while you're looking out to buy tires,
if you really are looking for the cheapest possible tire,
we'd also recommend that you understand
where the tire is coming from.
What brand are you actually getting it from?
And what are you getting by buying that tire?
Now there's a couple people out there
that will say you know "Nankang til I die!"
or these other brands that are out there
in Westlake and things like that.
And that's fine.
You know, there are certain tires that have
a very good purpose that are super cheap.
They're very stretchy, or they do well for drift sets.
But if you are looking for something for a daily driver.
if you are looking for something that's gonna keep
you planted on the road with 100%,
that while you're looking at tire
try to pick up something that
you actually like know how to say or know where it came from
or like know, you know what its favorite milk type is.
Whether it's 2% or Oak or almond.
I got tricked one time.
I learned that there's like fake almond milk
and it was the worst thing I ever had in my entire life.
If you're looking for wheels, tires, or suspension
or if you're looking to learn a little bit more about tires
be sure to pick it up over at fitmentindustries.com.
We got a ton of blogs where we talk about tires,
different tire types, what makes different tires so specific
or good for certain things.
We talk about rubber compounds, different pie tires,
shoulder lengths, shoulder blocks, siphoning channels
and things like that
because really, maybe I'm just the nerd of six,
really enjoy what tires are actually trying
to do with certain platforms.
If you're just looking for aftermarket wheels,
tires or suspension be sure to check us out
over at fitmentindustries.com.
And of course, if you are looking for just picking up
an easy wheel entire package that can get to you
in seven days or less,
Be sure to hit us up fitmentindustries.com
Drop a comment below on what you like us to talk about next.
I'm Alex, Fitment Industries.
We will see you later.
Mike don't crack. Peace.
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