This a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
OK, I *lied*.
This is what happened to me personally last week. It is very embarrassing but if it could help out other car owners in a similar mess, I will share it.
First. the embarrassing part. I used to be a car expert. In 1980 I was on Good Morning America promoting one of the half dozen books I had written on the art of successfully buying a used car.
In terms of cars, I used to be really cool.
Gas was much cheaper then too. Ditto hot dogs. Also houses.
Flash forward to last week. My wife is out of town, doing wife things, and I notice that the tread on her 2005 Corolla is really worn. The car is not used much, we are both retired, but tread is tread and marriage is marriage. So I decided to deal with it, and surprise her when she gets back.
I check out various "deals" at the local stores, and the box stores, and find that, even if you pick the cheapest tires in the lineup, once you add balancing/mounting, and maybe an environmental disposal tax, and maybe a warranty, and regular taxes ... well, it turns out that often the extras are as much of the final price as the cheap tires themselves.
Next I go to my mechanic, who is also a friend, and ask what he uses for the half-dozen cars he owns? (This being the Age of Convenience, many of his customers ignore basic maintenance, even oil changes, and up with the cost of the repair being more than the value of the car. So my pal buys these as scrap and fixes them in his spare time.)
My buddy tells me that he used to use Korean tires because they were the best deal, and reminds me that years ago he put a set of Kumhos on my own car and I was happy at the time. (He is correct -- he did, and I was.) He says he now uses Chinese tires, whatever brand the local distributor can supply cheapest.
We talk about Chinese tires for a bit. He tells me that there "used" to be a problem when they were first introduced in North America -- a polite way of saying that every consumer review on the planet said to avoid them -- but they are "much improved." China even makes tires for luxury cars now.
So, armed with this information, I make one of the stupidest mistakes of my life (trust me -- there is a wide selection to pick from!) and tell him to find the best deal from his Chinese supplier and just slap them on the car.
(Sharp readers will note that a former car expert -- that would be me -- had just ordered a set of tires without even knowing the brand or model, and with no warranty of any kind, other than the minimum legal warranty, which basically says that a tire should look and act like a tire, much the same way a kettle should be able to boil water.)
The tires arrive. The install is done. I pay the bill. The savings were about $100, not a bad deal overall. I read the sidewall for the very first time. The tires are from a Chinese company named Maxtrek and the model is the Maximus M1. They had been tested and certified by the U.S. Dept of Transport and the ratings were on the sidewall. Ratings were good generally, but traction was only a "B," which struck me as odd at the time. But heck, it was after all a bargain tire.
(These rating can be confusing to a novice. Sidewall ratings are potentially AA, A, B, and C. So a "B" traction rating is not "one less than great," it is more accurately "one away from worst.")
I go for a test drive. When you are a professional car journalist -- which I was for 30 years -- the car companies are always taking you on junkets and giving you lessons. I had four levels of race track driving, including skid control, so I felt I could assess the tires adequately. They were quiet, the handling and stopping were all fine. They even had a cool-looking tread pattern. All was right with the world. I fantasized about how I would spend the $100 I had just saved. I enjoyed, for a brief moment, the Zen of successful and economical tire buying.
And then, three days later, it rained. And the rain washed away my tire Zen. Along with the extra $100.
In the rain (the first time for the tires, I of course was familiar with rain since a child) I took a run to the local Costco for groceries.
Coming out of our condo, I took my usual right turn at the light and felt, for less one split second, the entire car "4 wheel drift" as all four tires momentarily lost traction. Like in a Fast and Furious movie. But a really short movie.
For the record -- I think most drivers might not even have noticed. But I did. I remember thinking, especially for an old Corolla that being driven conservatively, "that was odd."
There is a railroad overpass en route. The upward and downward angles are fairly steep, and when it was first built the municipality made a lot of fuss about the cost, which was high.
I went up the ramp and as I came down the other side, still in pouring rain, the light changed. I tapped the brakes. And suddenly, even though it was early summer, I was miraculously transported, like in a J.J. Abrams movie, into the dead of winter and, as though on slick ice, all four wheels lost traction and the car skidded three car lengths through the light and the intersection.
While drifting through the intersection and watching the world go by, a few things cross my mind. The first was, hey, lucky there were no cars ahead of me or I would be calling a tow truck about now. Or maybe an ambulance. The second thing was, I really think I need to find out more about these tires.
I turned around - slowly - and went home. I looked up the Maxtrek Maximus M1 on the net and, of 100s of millions of sites, found only two that had actual reviews of the little beasties. One site was a shop that sold the tires and, oddly, all the reviews were positive. My Spidey Sense tingled at that and I moved on.
The second site was what I wanted. It was a UK-based tire rating site, they accepted reviews from anywhere in the world, and they were not trying to sell you the tire.
There were about 20 reviews from various buyers of the tires, even including buyers from southern Asia.
I was dumbstruck. Some 80% of the reviews, approximately, reported the exact same issue with wet weather driving! The tire was a Jekyll and Hyde tire, I learned, great on dry pavement, but when the weather turned wet, it was like having Hannibal Lecter as your co-pilot.
Several (angry) reviewers wondered how the DOT could have passed the tire at all, and others detailed the threats they had to make to get the original retailer to take the tires back.
There were even reviews from "peaceniks" -- people who, you could tell, go through life trying to avoid conflict (and possibly gluten) wherever possible, and just not looking to start a fuss. These reviews made it clear that, generally, they kept the tires and never complained. But they avoided driving in rain whenever possible thereafter --- and never, ever, in a million years would they consider re-purchasing this specific brand of tire, they said.
How did my story end? I could have picked a fight with a mechanic I had known for 30 years, which would have also meant picking a fight with his boss. Ugh!
I could have left the tires -- which really belonged in a Nicholas Cage movie -- on the car and, like the peaceniks, avoided rain (and even high humidity) for the next 10 years or so.
I could even have sold the tires locally for maybe half what I paid, cash and carry ... and then spent the rest of my life wondering if I was responsible for a father of four getting wiped out because he absently touched his brakes on a rainy day while checking his GPS.
What I did was, I went on to the Costco, still driving slowly, and found they were having a sale on Pirellis. I had four new "well-reviewed" Pirelli P4s installed for just slightly more than I had originally paid for the Maxtreks. When the installer noticed my existing tires were new, and asked me what to do with them, I said simply "destroy them, and scatter the ashes on sanctified ground." Or words to that effect. Adrenalin was pumping at the time.
This story has a final twist.
Remember how I told you this entire adventure was embarrassing? Turns out that two years ago, Pirelli was bought out.
**By a Chinese conglomerate.**
Ouch.
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