I have a beater pickup -- 2000 Isuzu Hombre with 194k miles on the 2.2 four-banger -- that needs tires. It takes a 205/75R15 tire, which is fine with me. One of the benefits of small trucks is that they can take car-sized tires. However, Firestone could only offer the Chinese-made Primewell in that size, since, apparently, 15" rims are dinosaurs now. I guess everyone likes monster 17+ rims now.
A local shop is offering to mount a set of Mastercraft AS4's for $380 drive out (tax, mount, balance, stems, disposal): basically, $90 per tire plus tax. The Mastercrafts are made by Cooper, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, I don't know.
The Sears closest to me has more or less matched the Firestone price with their Guardsman LT tires, for a total of $321 drive out. (Only a 90-day balance, but I can live with that.) The newest Guardsmans are made by Omni, the people who make Radar and some other brands. The Singaporean company has only been in existence since 2003, so they're mostly sourcing tires from other companies, branding them as needed. It's unlikely such a young company has any in-house R&D at all.
Has anyone tried the newer Guardsman LT's? I can't find much in the way of reviews. For the $60 difference, the Mastercrafts seem more of a known quantity, but, truly, I'd like to spend as little as possible in this case in order to keep this truck rolling safely down the road.
Thoughts?
A local shop is offering to mount a set of Mastercraft AS4's for $380 drive out (tax, mount, balance, stems, disposal): basically, $90 per tire plus tax. The Mastercrafts are made by Cooper, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, I don't know.
The Sears closest to me has more or less matched the Firestone price with their Guardsman LT tires, for a total of $321 drive out. (Only a 90-day balance, but I can live with that.) The newest Guardsmans are made by Omni, the people who make Radar and some other brands. The Singaporean company has only been in existence since 2003, so they're mostly sourcing tires from other companies, branding them as needed. It's unlikely such a young company has any in-house R&D at all.
Has anyone tried the newer Guardsman LT's? I can't find much in the way of reviews. For the $60 difference, the Mastercrafts seem more of a known quantity, but, truly, I'd like to spend as little as possible in this case in order to keep this truck rolling safely down the road.
Thoughts?