Oh, dear....the dreaded tire discussion again. When I asked about this very thing in Feb, it turned into a "battle of the brands". Some folks swear by Maxxis and will give you the impressison that if you buy any other that you're trying to kill your family. Others have their favorite brands. Some wouldn't buy those brands regardless. I made the mistake of noting that we had a budget of sorts for these tires and got complete chewed up by a few...one poster said if that was what I was worried about, just buy the cheapest thing I could find and take my chances.....idiot. So......what we did was a lot of homework online reading not only the manufacturers information, but the reviews + forums. In the end, we ended up buying Greenball Transmasters at Sam's Club - may also be available online, but Sam's is 8 miles away and we also felt that IF we had a problem, there is usually a Sam's close to wherever you are. That happened to be what came on our '07 ROO OEM and we never had a problem. Replaced those at about the 4 year mark with another set of the same. After all was said and done this time, we found that Sam's Club is carrying them and since they had been trouble-free all this time, just repeated our earlier choice. They were right about $100 each give or take, installed.
My cousin and hubby have had several tire issues and he always grumbled that it was because they were Chinese tires. After much thought, he came to the conclusion that it was probably not the tire, but that they were past that 4 - 5 year mark and it was just their time to go. Seems like time flies. We tend to err on the side of caution and replace ours at closer to the 4 year mark, regardless of how great they look. We take a yearly trek to FL and a tire disaster is the very last thing we need, so we went even a bit early on this last set. Of course, now the ROO sits waiting for a new home with some brand new tires on it, while our new TT sits waiting for next week to come around so we can finally take it out.
Good luck on the tires...it's a tough choice and you don't want to make a mistake if you can help it. Just make the best educated decision within the budget you have (!!) and remember to check the pressure faithfully.
