Maybe no one in the USA, but the world market has a lot of vehicles in need of tires, and not everyone has the money to pay for the top brands.
Let's see if I understand this. Someone is not only counterfeiting tires but the brand they chose to copy is Chinese? And they're doing this on purpose?!?!
I was shopping tires on line recently and on every site the cheapest options were made in China. I think even Tire Rack. There are A LOT of people right here in the good ole USA who know less than zero about the importance of tire quality and are willing sort by price and buy the cheapest option.
Lol... Some folks don't think big... But still... If you counterfeit a lowend, junky item with lower end more junky item...what are the chances of getting caught? Low or near zero risk, low return... Guess the policy of excuting some counterfeiters in China (baby food milk powder/formula makers come to mind ) ,etc has had an effect of sorts on some....sure, most get away with it...some MIGHT get into trouble...but I think most low end (non drug/orgnized crime level stuff) counterfeiters have realized that easy money, no risk beats crazy money and jail time/death....
That always puzzled me, people would have these great cars but they'd buy cheap-ass tires! Unbelievable!
And counterfeit tires are not new.... The company I am working for part-time, driving a truck uses some brands of Chinese made junk tires... They bought a bunch of "Botto" brand steer tires for the freightliner tractors...they had bought them before...wore like crap, but were cheap...well the second batch they bought dryrotted and cracked to the cords on the trucks in 3 months (we normally run about 100,000 miles, then keep recapping them (usually 3 times) till they reach 6 YEARS OLD)......tire supplier was saying they had never seen it before...and were pretty sure they were counterfeit based on similar info as above from what we were told.... Good thing that happened, company switched back to "bridgestones"....
Buying cheap rubber never pays off, that how we ended up with Honey Boo Boo. :lol: Oh wrong type of rubber, carry on.
I've traveled a lot outside the USA and have seen a lot of unknown [to me] tires on various vehicles. I really don't know if they are any good or not or where they were made, or how much they cost, etc., but I do know that we, here in the USA, have some brands that we consider junk, and many of us swear by them while others diss them all the time. I'm big on "buy American" but anymore, how many actual American tire manufacturers are left here? Just my 2c.
Fox News is a joke. They are like TMZ and the National Inquire. They over hype and sensationalize everything even when they are reporting the weather. Example they turn a 4-6 inch little snow storm into "snowmageddon".
I did use some chinese tyres in Costa Rica which were very cheap and fell apart in less than a year but I blame my driving and the crappy roads in CR for that.