Winter is over and time for summer tires

[mikkhh]

Winter melted away and it was time to choose summer tires.

Last time I bought new tires was almost four years ago, have gotten away with buying different cars and rims with tires.

The prices for cheap crappy low end tires have increased a lot as of lately. After 2022 no more Russian made tires on the market. 5-6 years ago cheapest eastern (Russian, Chinese) tire costed 1/4th price of well known brands. Nowadays cheapest junk is 1/2 price of quality brand tires.

So I decided for first time in my life to buy high end car tires, choice went with made in Japan well known brand tire.

Biggest difference will be most likely wet conditions braking, tens of meters count there. Also good quality tires are most likely quieter. Quality tires will most likely outlast cheap crappy tires and also different sorts of strange wear patters will go away too (more prevelant on mud tires for 4x4).

Plenty of work still to do on my daily driver car - needs new rear brake shields, pads, discs, shoes. Rear diff is whining, need to replace it. Also I will replace rear ball joints. Rear shocks. Driver door has rust on bottom (best solution is to find same colour rust free door) and also rear wheel arches have rust bubbles, need to sandblast and paint them hoepfully this summer. Also will remove all undertray covers and wash car from underneath.

Have all the parts for more than a year already, next annual inspection is in a month and since parking brake is not working I have to fix all those things.

I will try genuine merc brake pads this time. They do cost almost the same as genuine truck brand brake pad set on a big semi truck. Some could argue that choose the same aftermarket brand brake pad as the brand that is written on genuine part, but those two are completely different things... I will most likely replace composite brake caliper pistons with aftermarket steel pistons (since composite pistons swell and get seized randomly, aftermarket brake pistons and calipers have been okay so far, keep in mind that I live in rust belt so brake calipers get corroded and that is why aftermarket replacements in this case have been worth it). New genuine calipers cost way too much to justify on 20 year old car.

[mikkhh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5duEZEmprHc

Genuine vs aftermarket brake pads.

For sure genuine is quieter, better stopping distance. They may even last 2-3x more than good quality aftermarket brand brake pads and therefore most likely are going to be cheaper or equal cost solution in the long run besides the better performance and less money spent changing parts.

Since my car is 20 years old I will cheap out on brake rotors, will buy aftermarket ones, front rotors will keep the same aftermarket ones that were on the car when I bought the car, since they are not warped and are not worn.

I did managed to find barely used GENUINE rear parking brake shoes with adjusters etc for less 1/10th of the price I could get them brand new, half the price of just the good aftermarket brand brake shoes. Most likely those genuine shoes will last like 20 years just as the ones that were installed from factory. If factory shoes are fine I will just use them instead, and use the ones I bought on other benzes that I have.

Years ago I had bought 2001 e320cdi benz that previous owner had replaced brake pads and rotors, with the cheapest aftermarket junk out there. The car did not brake properly, brakes were noisy and so on, discs got warped even they were really small discs compared to newer and heavier cars. I was about to change brake master cylinder and brake booster since brakes were just terrible, but before I got around do that I had bought top of the line aftermarket brand (one of those whose logos are casted into brake calipers for example) brake pads and rotors, since old rotors were warped and changing the master cylinder would have been big ordeal. Well brakes went good after that and change in stopping power was immense, totally worth it.

But most likely compounds used by car manufacturers are not the same that aftermarket uses. For some reason aftermarket compares to genuine part, not the other way around.