I had to buy a set of tires in May, for a 1986 Mercury Cougar.
NOW, I need to buy a set of tires for a 1990 Mercury Cougar in a size P215/70R-15. Here's a picture of it when I pulled it out of storage a few months back, before I even washed it.
It has a set of vintage 2005 Goodyears on it, and unfortunately they have about 80% tread. As my mechanic just commented to me this morning, the passenger rear tire vibrates like it is square. These tires shake and vibrate the whole car.
As with the last set I bought for the 1986 Cougar, these tire will never wear out. They'll age out. The wear bars will never touch the pavement. I have to do it, becuase the car is pretty much undrivable right now. About 45mph is all the faster I'll dare to go. Any faster than that, and it is downright unpleasant.
So... we're going cheap here. These tires will likely never see winter weather, and rain only if I screw up and get caught out in it. I will likely have my mechanic mount and balance them, so I can buy the tires anywhere.
Here's my top 3, for less than $300 a set:
Douglas All-Season at WalMart. 45,000 mile warranty. $59 each.
Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring A/S at Wal-Mart, 65,000 mile warranty. $66 each.
Yokohama Avid Touring S at Amazon or Wal-Mart 65,000 mile warranty $68 each.
No, there aren't any WestLake, Otani, Solar, Fullway, Doral, Fortune, Vercelli, SuperMax, Leao, Saffiro... tires in that list of 3. There won't be.
Honestly, for the money, I don't think that I can go wrong with any of these. None are Chinese. I know some don't like the Douglas, but I've had multiple sets of them and have found them to perform much better than they should, for the price. The Yokohama tire was always a good performer, but is getting to be a really old model (was kind of surprised that they are still in production).
I think the sweet spot here is right in the middle with the Uniroyal. I just bought a set of Uniroyals for another older car in May, and wasn't disappointed, other than the blue crap that they put on the whitewalls stained them badly. The Uniroyal is a recently redesigned tire that is probably going to be made in Taiwan... but that's still not China. For now.