Keystone RV Forums - View Single Post - Chinese Tire "Bombs"

smiller · 03-25-2013, 05:23 PM

I think the biggest breakdown in logic by the 'China Bomb' crowd is failure to recognize that the vast majority of OEM tires are made in China, so naturally the vast majority of failures are... you guessed it, tires made in China. The failures may be related to underinflation damage (perhaps occurring before delivery and unknown by the new owner), or selection of a marginal tire rating by the RV manufacturer (very common), and on and on. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that if RV manufacturers put marginally-rated, lowest-cost bid US-made tires on RVs then we would be talking about Ameri-bombs instead of China bombs.

That said, regardless of country of manufacture there definitely are differences between brands. I had the opportunity to compare the Towmax tires I took off my rig with a Maxxis replacement while both were off the rim, and the Maxxis was notably heavier in construction, and I mean by a lot.

03-25-2013, 05:23 PM	#8
smiller Senior Member Join Date: May 2011 Location: Full-timing Posts: 447	I think the biggest breakdown in logic by the 'China Bomb' crowd is failure to recognize that the vast majority of OEM tires are made in China, so naturally the vast majority of failures are... you guessed it, tires made in China. The failures may be related to underinflation damage (perhaps occurring before delivery and unknown by the new owner), or selection of a marginal tire rating by the RV manufacturer (very common), and on and on. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that if RV manufacturers put marginally-rated, lowest-cost bid US-made tires on RVs then we would be talking about Ameri-bombs instead of China bombs. That said, regardless of country of manufacture there definitely are differences between brands. I had the opportunity to compare the Towmax tires I took off my rig with a Maxxis replacement while both were off the rim, and the Maxxis was notably heavier in construction, and I mean by a lot.