Would you ever be put off buying a car based on the tyres fitted?

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,325
We'll keep this nice and general and not model-specific :p

In my travels and searching I have come across a vehicle fitted with 'Linglong' tyres. This immediately put me off - I mean, what on earth are they and why would somebody run a car that cheaply? I mean you don't expect Eagle F1's on every car you ever see but... Linglong?

Made me wonder you guys would do if you came across a similar situation :)
 
I would get what i think are the best, so F1's all round never have and never will buy cheap rubber.

Would i be put off if a car has cheap rubber already fitted, depends, if the owner has fitted cheap tyres what else have they gone cheap with!
 
Id rather put good part worns on than crappy no-names.

But then the owner may know very little about cars and just went with what was reccomended!
 
Maybe they've put rubbish tyres on because they are selling it... don't want to waste money on tyres they're not going to use.
 
'Linglong love you long time' - If that isn't their slogan i will be disappointed.

Tbh the tyres wouldn't bother me as long as it's been serviced at the correct intervals. It could quite possibly been owned by someone who thinks tyres are tyres with little variation. I mean, my Uncle bought 4 new Pirelli P7000s (maybe P6000s, i'll check because they're in my Nan's garage) for his SL500 because his friend who is a mechanic could get them cheap. Makes no sense considering how much the car cost him.
 
[TW]Fox said:
We'll keep this nice and general and not model-specific :p

In my travels and searching I have come across a vehicle fitted with 'Linglong' tyres. This immediately put me off - I mean, what on earth are they and why would somebody run a car that cheaply? I mean you don't expect Eagle F1's on every car you ever see but... Linglong?

Made me wonder you guys would do if you came across a similar situation :)
Click to expand...

It depends really. It could be a sign that the owner is a cheapskate and skimps on basic maintenance. However, the owner might maintain the car very well sparing no expense, but may know nothing when it comes to tyresand just gets the ones that the tyre place have on special offer.

My mum for example, she takes a lot of care of her cars and never spares any expense on them. If anything shows any signs of going wrong it's fixed straight away regardless of expense. But, she used to know nothing about tyres. When she picked up her new car a few months ago she had it fitted with 4 Matador ditch finders. I made her go back to the tyre place and get some decent tyres fitted. She was miffed at why I was so shocked.

So, even though she takes really good care of her car regardless of expense, she knew nothign about tyres and usually just went for what was on offer.


It's hard to distinguish between the two but I would always take a closer look if I seen a set of ditchfinders on the car, especially something like a 530i.
 
chino said:
Maybe they've put rubbish tyres on because they are selling it... don't want to waste money on tyres they're not going to use.
Click to expand...


True, if the tyres are at the limit and you're selling, would you rather spend big money on brand name tyres, or just bung on some cheapo tyres.

No different if the tax is up, do you tax it for 6 months or 12? Afterall it all comes out the end selling price/profit.

Ask yourself, through ownership would you service and shod your car in the finest,of course you would, but when you come to sell it, are you really going to put premium brand boots on it??
 
I'd be concerned if it had 4 different tyres or they were different on an axel as it would probably indicate that the car hadn't be cared for. A matching set of rubbish tyres wouldn't put me off, Id just change them asap.
 
Very much depends on the car really.

A 'performance' based car with carp tyres is likely to tell me the owner knows jack-sprat & i'm going to try & take his trousers down buying it off him.

A 'motorway-muncher' based car, say, a 5 series Bimmer, I'd expect such a thing, the owner's probably just smashed any ol' remoulded guff on there so long as it drives straight afterwards.

In either case, I dont think i'd be too concerned about other area's being 'cheapo' fixes, i'd just focus on giving the car & documents a thorough inspection, as always, to spot any such problems.
 
Gribs said:
I'd be concerned if it had 4 different tyres or they were different on an axel as it would probably indicate that the car hadn't be cared for
Click to expand...

Erm yup got that as well :p

Kleber and a Bridgestone on the back.
 
I have had cheap tyres in the past, namely Nankang NS-II, and I thought they were awesome for the price. Couldn't fault them at all. While I agree you shouldn't scrimp on tyres, walking away due to the tyres is ridiculous. Maybe he was desperate to have a flat tyre repaired and that was all he could get at short notice?
 
It all depends, if it's got X-treme Ditchfinder's on it, then use it as a bargaining tool, see if you can get some money off cause you're going to want to replace the current tyres.

I think the best I saw were on an M reg Mondeo TD, Tire King Ultras I think they were branded as.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Erm yup got that as well :p

Kleber and a Bridgestone on the back.
Click to expand...

Nasty. My Volvo had a mixed pair on the back when I got it (It was cheap, ok) and it was downright dangerous, though quite entertaining. It's not quite as bad with fwd but it's deffinitely someting I'd avoid.

There's also the issue that if it's got rubbish tyres then the brake pads are also likely to be poor quality.
 
Gribs said:
Nasty. My Volvo had a mixed pair on the back when I got it (It was cheap, ok) and it was downright dangerous, though quite entertaining. It's not quite as bad with fwd but it's deffinitely someting I'd avoid.
Click to expand...

MX had Pilot sport x3 and a ditch finder on the rear left, looked brandnew n all, took it round a damp roundabout on the first day and almost spun....

F1's got fitted the next day!
 
Well kindoff yet BUT. Some people even if they take the car to the main dealer for serviceing don't know anything about tyres and simply run them til they are bald and when it fails the MOT they have budget ones put on. If the seller clearly falls in to this category but has otherwise maintained the vehicle well then don't worry.
 
If your being this picky, you'll never find one.

Just because they don't use the bestest super-de-duper tyres doesn't mean they didn't care for the car, it just means they didn't feel expensive tyres jusified the price tag, or they didn't know any better. Far better ways to judge the quality of a car than its tyres, the service history might be a good place to start, followed by using your eyes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom