Sunday, 15 July 2012

Big brand tyres vs smaller brand tyres

Buying tyres can be a difficult task if you are on a budget and want to get the best for your money. Buying a branded tyre usually cost a lot more than less well known brands. The reason for this is the big brands invest heavily in motor sports sponsorship and their numerous marketing campaigns world wide. This indirectly effect the cost of the tyres. This was particularly evident for Michelin and Bridgestone when they were involved in Formula One. Motor sports is used as part of tyre development as well as marketing but the costs involved are trickled down to the consumer.

Buying famous brand tyres may not necessarily mean that you are buying the best. There have been cases where famous brands produce tyre models that are not as good as expected. The reason for this is unknown. An example is Michelin where their Pilot Sport Preceda 2 was a better performing tyre than the successor which was more expensive and based on driver feedback, they all preferred the Pilot Sport Preceda 2 for it outright grip in the wet and dry and steering feel.
Big brands such as Michelin, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Continental, Yokohama, Goodyear and Dunlop are now being challenged by smaller brands that offer similar quality and similar performance tyres for less money. Brands such as Kumho, Hankook, Federal, Maxxis, Cooper and GT Radial have all taken significant bites out of the market share of the big brands. This is especially so when the gloomy economic situation makes the consumers more conscious about their spending.
In a recent tyre review, the GT Radial HPY model out performed Yokohama, Falken and several other more established tyre brands in a series of tyre tests. The price of this tyre was 30% cheaper than the competing brands. This basically makes it a good choice as a replacement tyre with better performance at a cheaper price.

The price different between a big brand tyre versus a smaller brand can be as much as 50%. This has a direct impact on buyer's choice. The smaller brands have seen significant growth especially with the current economic situation more consumers are willing to try smaller brand tyres. Once they try the smaller brand tyres and find the performance acceptable the consumer is very likely to stay with the smaller brand as it offer better value for money. Saying this, it won't put big brand tyres out of business but on the replacement market the big brands will lose more and more market share to the smaller brands. The big brands will still take the lead as the OE tyre supplier to car manufacturers based on reputation and history.

Recently we have even seen owners of Mercedes Benz S-Class using tyres made by Nexen or Hankook. Changing to smaller brand tyres is no shame and it is by no means a poorer tyre choice. The technological difference is not as big as it once were. Many engineers from established tyre companies are often recruited by smaller tyres companies to learn trade secrets.

Die hard fans of certain brands will not change and will be loyal to specific brands based on historical experiences and brand pedigree.

1 comment:

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