Hankook tires, any good?

[JimH]

Beautiful '63 Impala you got, I had an Uncle who bought a brand new '63 SS Hardtop, it was red with a black vinyl interior, I was with him when he drove it off the dealer's lot. Lord knows how much that car would be worth now...

I had an Uncle who had a 1958 Impala - he let me use it for my Senior Prom in 1963. Boy, was my date impressed! Wish I had it now... sigh....

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[THLONE]

I sold my 57 Chevy Convertible and bought a Red 64 Impala. If only.

My Ranger came with Bridgestone Firestone Duelers with a Hankook 50 MPH spare. BRD have had 2 non repairable flats, one was a nail, and one was a barrel cactus in the side wall. Tires today are high priced balloons. I wonder how cheep those 50MPH spares are?

 

[Mokume]

I had an Uncle who had a 1958 Impala - he let me use it for my Senior Prom in 1963. Boy, was my date impressed! Wish I had it now... sigh....

The '58 Chevy lineup sure made the '57's look downright dowdy, as the '59 models did to the '58's. The '60's styling showed some resemblance of normalcy, the '61's were just plain weird. Nowhere near as bad as the '61 Plymouth, with it's "flashlight" taillights....lol.

 

[Cmar]

Hi,

News to me...As far as I am aware, Ranger and Explorer tires were produced in the USA at two plants. Not sure where this came from , but am not aware of a Chinese connection with respect to the Ford/Firestone fiasco.

Indeed that was another brand of tyre altogether (a few brands actually, all from the same plant), the part they left out was the "gumstrips" which apparently help stick the outer plies to the inner airtight layer.

 

[halligan1201]

Hi Mo,

You are sadly misinformed on getting the cheapest tire. Auto manufacturers test to a set of standards and the tire manufacturers supply their product that meets these standards. The cost is determined mostly on volume. Back in the day, my volumes were 340,000 vehicles per year times 4 per vehicle... That gets a tire Manufacturer's attention.

Yes, I was integrally involved with the fiasco on the Explorer as the Ranger used the very same tire on all 4x4s. Then the edict by our CEO to get rid of the Firestone tires off all Ford products....trying to find a manufacturer with capacity to handle Ranger volumes was extremely difficult. Micheline refused as the image of Ranger was not to their status as used on premium vehicles. Finally we found capacity at Continental/General, but there was a huge problem with General's tire...My boss kicked off tooling on this tire to the tune of $20 million. Authorizing working on the molds 24/7. My vehicle dynamics engineer, Doug S. shut down the tire for wet handling...It caused big political problems, and my boss decided to get another Vehicle Dynamics engineer to evaluate the tire, I stood firmly with my engineer and against my boss....unfortunately this poor engineer also agreed the General was not up to wet handling standards. My boss was absolutely furious! So sitting in a meeting where it looked like we might all loose our jobs...I asked if there was a Continental tire of the same size to which the manufacturer said yes the ContiTrac... That night my vehicle dynamics engineer was on a plane to the manufacturer's test track....The ContiTrac worked...so now we stopped work on the General molds, my boss now having lost $20 millon, and we kicked off molds of the ContiTrac for another $20 million....Whew! Those were not fun days, I was on call 24/7, took no vacation until ContiTrac was in production.. I probably aged 20 years in that six month time period.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Range Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

I recall those days being a boon for me; I was a regional commercial sales manager for Pep Boys at the time and we couldn't get tires fast enough to fill the vouchers from Firestone given to Explorer owners (and then eventually all ATX and Wilderness tire owners), let alone the dealerships who were in a hurry to put literally anything other than a tire that said "Firestone" on the side. I personally sold close to 100,000 tires during that fiasco.

The interesting thing about it was that both consumers and dealers were so misinformed about the issue that often times they actually put a worse tire on the vehicle than what was there, simply because they didn't want to wait for inventory of better tires to come in.

 

[OrangeStreak]

I have driven mine through very hard downpours. My tires have performed very well. No hydroplaning. They also ride great (to me)!

How did they work for your parking school classes?

 

[Tracy Bowman]

How did they work for your parking school classes?

I wish I could blame the tires for my ridiculous parking. Forgot to mention I was kicked out of ”parking school”….hopeless case.

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