wc11

Look at the tread vs sidewall. Discoloration. Looks like two different compounds.

JTT

I had some delamination on Michelin PSSs and was told by Michelin that it was due to track use (unintended use) and not under warrantee.

As far as different compounds go, I think this is normal tire manufacturing process. I’m sure I read that Michelin uses different compound in the same time.

Imo000

Check out YouTube on how tires are made and you will see that they bond the thread part onto the blank tire.

911 Rod

That purplish colour is normal from track use.

wildcat077

There are a lot of chinese knockoffs on the market ... the shop that installs my race tires and all my tires for that matter now refuses to install anything that wasn’t
purchased in house. Their tech told me they had customers come in with “ cheap “ online tires , only to spend an hour trying to balance them in every possible way with
no luck and then losing their time only to tell the customer that they can’t do anything with their tires.

This Winter , they even had people come in with “ online “ Winter tires which out of four , three had the snow flake symbol stamped on them and one didn’t have it ...
Same brand chinese tires !
Recently bought four tires for my son’s BMW and looking online they had Rotalla and Maxtrek 245/40/19 tires selling for $106.00 dollars a piece , obviously we didn’t buy those , but rather Bridgestones from my dealer.

Surprising though that Amazon wouldn’t honor a Nokian warranty ... we have those on all our Winter vehicles and they have a great road hazard warranty !

bcrdukes

While I can't speak for buying tires online (other than from TireRack once) I don't think all "Made in China" tires are bad. You'll definitely get some odd ***** for sure.

Colleague of mine has been running Chinese made/Chinese brand winter tires on his Subaru STI, wife's VW Rabbit, parents' Toyota Camry, and sister's RAV4 for years without any issues. I'd say they come out top compared to Michelin and Bridgestone winters!

theiceman

sumatomo ??/ are on my sons audi for winters and he loves them.

bcrdukes

Sumitomo isn't a Chinese brand, nor are their tires made in China. They're a Japanese rubber company with a stake in Dunlop and Falken Tire Japan. All in all, they make budget friendly tires where a lot of Porsche owners have had positive experiences with them (I personally don't know anyone who dislikes them.) Their American distributor, TBC Corporation, is partly owned by Michelin (50% stake.) Is there some intellectual property and manufacturing methods shared? It's possible, but I don't know for sure.

As for the weird Chinese branded winter tires my colleague runs, they're straight up made in China and Chinese branded haha

Turbodan

An appraiser I know who deals with a lot of write offs told me the Chinese tires have nylon in them which slides and a lot of written off cars have Chinese tires on them. Not trying to be racist, as our political system would claim, just stating facts. Too bad our political leaders worry too much about offending anybody than protecting our citizens. Sorry rant over

triggz82

I was surprised so many porsche owners run sumitumo when searching for tire options. They seem on the lower end of brands (as in under falken and dunlop).

bcrdukes

Surprisingly (sort of?) I did a search on the Sumitomo tires, and the font on the sidewall is exactly the same as the Dunlop Direzza DZ102 tires I just sold yesterday. It looks like Sumitomo is the parent company/manufacturer of Dunlop and Falken, so perhaps they don't to cannibalize their revenues from Dunlop and Falken. Regardless, I think as consumers, we just have to be careful and do our own homework on what the bees knees is, and what to avoid like the plagued. As the saying goes, Buyer Beware!

Turbodan

The sumitomo htrz3s were very good. I prefer them to the pzeros that were previously on my car. but they no longer make those and the replacement has gotten terrible reviews. So I would not go with the new ones...nor chinese at this time.