Presa Tires is one of at least four tire brands owned by Cheng Shin Rubber, a Taiwanese Tire company.

With wholesale tire companies importing and selling cheaper tire brands by the dozens due to their success at the consumer level, only recently has Presa Tires entered into the US Market. You can find Presa tires for sale mostly through Walmart.com, a handful of other internet tire stops and in person at tire stores, at the moment, more predominantly around the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region thanks to wholesaler Max Finkestein Inc. bringing in Presa tires as an option for tire shops in their distribution area as early as 2018.

Presa Tires PS01
A set of Presa Tires

Who makes Presa Tires?

As mentioned, Presa Tires is an offshoot of Cheng Shin Rubber that first made its way into the consumer market in the early 2000’s. Cheng Shin Rubber is a Taiwan Tire Brand founded in 1967. While they’ve been around, they are still fairly new. Cheng Shin Rubber owns CST, Maxxis, Sakura, and Presa Tires.

According to Modern Tire dealer and AutoSphere, Presa tires are Tier-4 tire, literally the lowest of the low entry-level tires. Before Tier 4 came on the market as of late, consumers thought Tier 3 would be the lowest tier tires would go. Not anymore.

That does not mean these tires will be necessarily bad as I’ll get to that in a moment. The modern tire consumer, although always looking for a good value, still wants all the bells and whistles of a premium tire (low noise, durability, and performance.) And, with the presence of other Tier 4 tire brands like Atturo, LingLong, and Goodride, these tires can’t just rely on being super cheap.

Cheng Shin Rubber makes Presa Tires at their Taiwan and Thailand factories.

Are they any good?

This is the million dollar question. According to Presa, the entire lineup was “first developed to attend to the European market requirements.” As per Tyre Express, supposedly European requirements are a tire that satisfies the European driver’s need for wet and dry weather performance, comfort, and environmental efficiency, a tall order for any manufacturer.

Reading reviews online from actual owners, Presa tires are just OK, not good and not necessarily bad. 

Their most popular tire right now is the Presa PS01, a tire that comes in around $50 a pop and is what Presa describes as having, “aggressive tread design, excellent water dispersal, outstanding steering response, and good stability” supposedly an all-around tire.

Here are the more noteworthy reviews for this tire.

“Great tire for a good economic price. Drove from Victorville, Ca to Houston, Tx with this tire. via SimpleTire”

“Noticeably more confident when cornering and stopping in wet conditions. They are also noticeably quieter than the Michelin Primacy 3s that I replaced, so the overall experience is more positive. Based on the first two weeks of ownership I would definitely buy these tires again – let’s see how they are doing after 10,000 miles!” via GetaGrip

And here’s a couple of reviews for their PSA1 tires, a directional all-season but more of a summer tire.

“Wet and dry traction is good, not the best, but good. There is absolutely no traction in any kind of snow, light, slush, nothing…anything over 3 inches, your stuck. Driving an fwd fusion, traction control kicks on anytime I hit any amount of snow. Came on the car so these will be removed shortly and stored for spares only. These would make a good set for summer tires.” via SimpleTire

“Solid tire. Have put miles on them and even with the front being out of alignment due to tie rod wear, they STILL maintained good tread wear. Very durable tire, considering driving in NE Pennsyltucky. I will purchase more of these tires. Good, solid purchase. via SimpleTire”

Final Thoughts

If you’re just driving around town, occasionally you might go on a long trip a couple of times a year and probably won’t encounter snow, I feel fairly confident in recommending Presa tires for you.

But, if you need this car to be 100 percent in all-weather because you rely on it for work and/or have a family, I’d probably say go for a slightly more expensive brand that still has good value like Nankang, Falken, Nexen, Uniroyal or Coopers.

8 COMMENTS

  1. I bought 4 Presa PS01 tires. They are rated for 50,000 miles. I have put less than 19,000 miles on them and the tread is down to 4/32 inch. These tires are garbage and I would never buy again. The positive reviews are all by people satisfied with the initial handling and are positive but they do not take into account that you will only get 20,000 miles out of a 50,000 mile tire so the positive reviews are irrelevant. .

  2. I have bought 4 Himachukis Yakotonkos and I’m actually going 100,000 miles strong and still have drivable wear on them. But you have to take into account I’m legally blind.

  3. I have presa psas01’s on my highly modified awd subaru…I hit full 22 pounds of boost at least a few times daily, so I have a heavy foot…I live in NEPA, and there are no straight roads…24,000 miles and i can prob get 5 more and thats a miracle on these roads where i live…They handle very well but are a little noisy ..Are as good in snow as most more expensive all season tires…For the money they cant be beat imo

    • That’s amazing performance. Thanks for your comment and let us know how they fare as you near the end of its treadlife.

      • I have been using them for years and found that they are really good tires especially cornering. You get about 35000 miles out of them. You are not ever going to confuse them with snow tires though. 2 inches of snow is about it. Still good tire for the price.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here