Import From China - British Or Chinese Tyres?

n Britain, when buying a tyre for your car, you would expect it to be easy to buy British. However, with so much manufacturing moving out of the UK, how many tyre brands are actually still British-made and, more importantly, how easy are they to come by?

If you are buying standard radials for your car, then you might be surprised to find that while tyres are still manufactured in Britain, not many are easily found at your average tyre retailer. Nearly all the tyres available are imported. When I recently went in to buy a new tyre, I asked the retailer how many of their tyres were British. They named one British manufacturer and two or three famous European branded makers that had manufacturing facilities around Britain, but they could not say, one hundred percent, whether any of their stock came from these factories. As part of my research I was given the opportunity of examining their stock with one of the assistants. We could not find a British tyre in their stock, "not without spending hours searching", they said.

With many drivers insisting that their new tyres be of the same batch and date stamp (and hence same country of origin), the chances are that, if you want British tyres, you are going to have to do a lot of ringing around - to both retailers and wholesalers - to see if they are actually stocked. The retailer told me that they place orders for tyres by size and brand, but not by country of origin and, therefore, take whatever is sent.

With a vast majority of tyres being imported from Europe, China and the Far East, it is not a simple case of finding a brand you are happy with - British or otherwise - but ones from the same country of manufacture. During the search for the elusive British tyre in the retailer's stock room, we found famous brands engineered to the same specification and tread pattern, but with individuals from the same 'set' originating from differing countries - China being one of them, Spain the other - and having different batch codes and dates of manufacture. It is understandable that global tyre manufacturers may spread their production among their worldwide facilities, but why does it seem so difficult to find a British tyre in among the pack? Manufacturing around the world within a region, one would have thought, would be to serve that locale - not to ship across the world back to the UK.

If, as I am told, tyres are made in Britain, what markets do they serve; heavy-haulage, agriculture, or vintage vehicles, to name a few? In my research for this article I have yet to find an answer. It seems that buying British tyres for your car is not a viable option unless you have a specialist vehicle or a deep pocket and insider knowledge of where to go and whom to see.