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.