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Comment by paddy_m | Hacker News Reader

Car manufacturers watch the cost of every piece of the bill of materials. Cars compete on price, and the assortment of pieces which add perceived value to consumers. Outside of performance and very highend luxury cars, tires are an afterthought to the average car buyer.

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Yes, which is why most optimize tires primarily for price, fuel economy, and NVH, because those are the things which a consumer notices the most when buying a vehicle: "what's the price, what's the EPA estimate, and did I like the test drive?"

Some manufacturers even source tires that have lower tread depths than typical replacement tires, in order to decrease noise and increase MPG at the direct detriment to tread life. Tesla is one of the manufacturers that does this, which is one exacerbating factor for their notoriously poor tire life. They literally come with less tire!

Toyota is infamous for offering special, nerfed versions of well-known tires on their new vehicles. You buy a Tacoma, you don’t get the Wildpeak AT4W, which is a very good all terrain tire. Instead, you get the Wildpeak AT4WA, which is a nerfed version with reduced tread depth that is quieter and more efficient than the real AT4W but less capable and wears out faster.

When buying tires as an average Joe for an average car (like a Corolla or Camry) it seems like being an OEM tire is actually a badge of honor for a tire. The reason is that that's the tire that they report MPG with and that you have on the car when you test drive it, so manufacturers care about ride quality and efficiency in the OEM tire. There's a lot of tires that are cheaper than OEM tires and they perform worse.

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