How much would it cost Kymco to use good tires?

[Stig / Major Tom]

When buying tires by the thousands Kymco is paying what, $7 or $8 for those Kendas.
How much would it add to Kymco's production costs if they bought instead thousands of good tires (Michelin, Pirelli, Dunlop, or Heidenau, etc.?) to install on their scooters.
What, $30>50 each scooter?
Just bump the MSRP by $75.
I might give that Kymco a second look if I saw that they'd rolled it out of China with a set of Angels or City Grips on it!

Kymco is too often dumped into the cheap Chinese internet scooter category by too many in the scooter world.
Certainly would improve their reputation in N. America and Europe if they came with brand name tires!

Stig

[john grinsel]

Probably no more than $10 to $20 per scooter.   But few, if any of the decision makers in the industry are daily riders or foul weather riders----then they might know how bad some of their scooters handle on the low bid tires.   Scary in some cases!-----Doing work my- self on my 2019 XTown 300i, cost for better/safer tires was $200, add $15 for each wheel "Ride On" for balance medium.   Most scooter shops cannot or do balance scooter wheels.

[CROSSBOLT]

Please do not forget how many buyers and salesmen interact. Some buyers are very open to nice "perks" to give a purchase order to some salesmen who are open to providing such "perks" to cinch the deal. Many buyers are prone to request quotes from salesmen to complete the required number of quotes he must get but the buyer is only going to purchase from one company. Tires, concrete, asphalt, commodities of any type in faily large volumes are peddled like this. Airplanes, school buses, you name it.

There may be some government "requirement" involved as well. Personally, I could care less what the brand if the tire worked well. Maxxis and other OEM brands simply suck.

[olds_cool63]

My wife's Vitality 50 2T came which Cheng Shin's.

When I was between bikes, I commuted on it a few times, once right after a serious Colorado downpour. The tires performed superbly for me so much so that I've purchased the brand for my motorcycles.

I even had them on a track outing...couldn't be happier.

[john grinsel]

I liked Chin Shin when they were imported to US.  Easy to get on motorcycle rims, wore  well (11,000 miles on my K-75 BMW rear), felt good.  But no not imported now? or?

[Neil955i]

Couldn't agree more Tom.  Some of the non-stick teflon OEM tyres on mass produced scooters are a crime against our community!  For the $20 or so it would take to slap decent rubber on them, manufacturers should hang their heads in shame!

Instead we, as customers, have to bin them and shell out 10x that to swap them out.  Grrr