Tires WEST LAKE or OEM Volkswagen

I bought a MK3 Jetta 2.0 gas just to get me through for a couple months after I crashed my 4Runner. It was one of my favorite cars. Decent power, handled great. Coldest a/c and hottest heat of any car I have ever owned. I put a good set of snow tires on it and it would go anywhere.

Bought my 2019 with 17 miles on it. 6 speed, no sunroof.

Have close to 48k on it now, I’ve replaced the tires and the battery. Done my yearly maintenance, and I just had the 50k service done on it. No issues to report. Been extremely reliable, I only drive it 6-8k a year.

I’m not convinced that Chinese tires are terrible, it depends on the brand. ZC tires, who make Westlake and Arisun, I think makes a good product, and have arguably the most advanced automated tire manufacturing for any consumer tires. If you handed me that list and said, you need tires today, these are the brands we have in stock, I’d go with Westlake.

I've always mounted/balanced westlake winter tires onto used cars at my dealer. They're cheap and readily available.

Haven't done a super long road trip in my MK8.5 - but have done a few 200mi trips. The car absolutely eats up the miles. Seats are super comfortable, cabin noise is tolerable, and I averaged 34MPG both ways cruising between 72 and 80. I personally despise adaptative cruise control, so I immediately turned it off (aggressive Boston traffic makes it unbearable). I did keep the lane assist on which is fine, not as good as the lane keep in my Raptor, but works very well. I'm more than happy with the ride, and once I get on to some smooth pavement, the 200 treadwear tires really quiet down.

I have Westlake SL369s on the back of my old truck, but I only put about 1000 miles on them before the engine blew up. Can report back once I get it running again I guess.

They were awesome and very, very grippy when thick (and warmed up). But once you wear half of the thread, the grip changes considerably. And it becomes dangerous below that.

Tried westlake once, good first couple of months, by the end of the first year the wet grip degraded a fair bit.

I know this is a few months old and you've probably already bought tires but for anyone else stay far away from Westlake they are garbage I had a set and within a few months the sidewalls on two of them had bulges after the car just sat in my garage for a few days no potholes, damage etc. they have one job; to support the weight of the car and they can't even do that.

The a while they had an issue with tread separation. Ton of them got recalled. They’ve been fine since but reputation is tainted. Ran a set years ago. They didn’t separate on me but they were built thin so potholes and the sight of nails would puncture them.