Tires SUMITOMO or Giti

Best snow and ice tire I\u2019ve used have been Sumitomo Ice Edge. They are studdable and they are way cheaper than the major brands. I\u2019ve got them on my 01 Jetta and 04 L300. I\u2019ve had Blizzaks but they are pricey and the Firestone Wnterforces were meh.

Another alternative is to look for budget tier tires. I went down the rabbit hole recently and Giti is apparently decent enough and performs well as its branded peers in wet conditions.

I just got some Sumitomos replaced with about 40,000 mi on them which probably still had 20 to go and were still gripping great but just a little bit noisy. They are the parents company of Falken. They are a great brand as far as longevity and grip. I'm currently using Laufenn which are a sub brand of Hankook which cost me under $90 a corner and I am so pleased that I'm considering putting them on my second car. This mid-tier brand has been just as if not more pleasant in the realm of noise and on center road feel at speed than Michelin Defenders I had just a month ago on a car we sold. My Laufenns will probably have only half of the tread life of the Michelins I used to have, but at only half the price and the feel on the road is identical but I'm sure the performance is a little bit less. We do have close to bottom tier on a car that is new to us which is a Douglas brand and it'll be good for the next year but it is an unpleasant tire. It's loud and doesn't feel like it tracks well. But it does grip well enough to push the replacement date out a year since they were manufactured this year.

I got over 55,000 out of the factory Giti so I bought another set from the dealer.

I just put the conti viking contacts back on the s5 last week, and I need to get some winter tires for the sq5, I think I'm going with the sumitomo ice edge as we had them with the old a4 and they went through anything. I'll probably put them back on the s5 next year. We're in NH and go up north all lot for riding, plus we get decent snow and they're great for the $. Then it's wheel shopping for the sq5 for next year! It's so nice and easy to swap out winter/ summer wheels and tires.

I got around well with Summos in the winter on my Mazda 2

Can u at least get brand new china tyres like Giti or tourador instead of second hand tyres?

Ive heard of laufenn but im more familiar with Giti as you see there stuff rebranded in the US as GT Radial and Dextero which are popular in discount tire and walmart. They’re a good budget tire but dont expect 50k out of them. I find most budget tires feel just as good as the more expensive stuff with their longevity being the main drawback

I have a 2021 VW Tiguan SE 4Motion with 43k miles, still rocking its factory Giti tires. While prepping for a road trip, I discovered that all four are dry rotting pretty badly, and one is starting to crack on the sidewall. Kinda looks like I needed tires yesterday.

Changed to them a few months ago, the wear and tear of these tyres are poorer than the common brands such as Bridgestones, foresee it lasting about 1 year compared to 2-3 years with common brands tyres. My road usage is around 12000-13000 km per year.