Hmmm, $319 for 5x 215/60/16 tyres??? That's $64 each - retread money. How good are they?

One catch though - the price doesn't include fitting & balancing, and a lot of tyre shops don't like fitting tyres they don't sell you (they don't get the tyre sale margin) and slug you accordingly. At best you'll be paying $10 a tyre for fitting & balancing. At worst, some places will charge you $20 each.

I'm not really convinced on the taxi recommendation though. How many taxis are loaded up with the family on the freeway at 110km/h for 2 hour stints? Most would hardly get to that speed, let alone sustain it.

And just how grippy are they? They may last a long time, but the rubber could well have a fear of water, and become a real slip & slide hazard in the wet. I once bought a VS with mags & cheap tyres on it. Same day, I replaced them with factory alloys & good tyres. The person I sold them to is a member on here. I warned him not to drive on them, as they were crap, even in the dry. He found their limits in normal driving.

When you think how far a set of tyres goes (I've got 65,000km on my current VE's set) and the cost per KM, it's really a pittance that you're saving, and it's your own safety that you're putting at risk.

Personally, my recommendation if you're want cheap new tyres is to go see a car yard that fits a lot of bigger sized alloys to new cars, and has all the old stock ones stashed away. That's what I used to do when I was young & stupid and they lasted only a few months - $60 each for brand new "lift off" Bridgestone/Goodyear/Dunlop 205/65/15 from VP Commodores & EB Fords. Half the price of new ones, and far better than retreads or 2nd hand tyres - neither of which you know the history of.