As an Engineer who has worked in MRF Tyres R&D for a few years, I would like to inform you that if you are an Indian customer, then any of the above mentioned brands will be fine. Most of the tyres sold by the big giants of the tyre industry are the ones which are made exclusively for South Asian markets (because of the similarity of the road conditions). Coming to Indian brands, they too make tyres which can perform very well on Indian roads and won’t lag much behind their foreign competitors in terms of performance (for e.g. most of the car companies in India source their tyres from local tyre companies without compromising on their vehicle’s performance). So, in the end it doesn’t make much of a difference when it comes to performance but it does when it comes to price, servicing, replacement guarantee, etc.

*Note: There are still some premium low aspect ratio tyres (fancy tyres) sold by Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli, etc. But you should be careful while buying those as they can affect the vehicle dynamics. The stock tyres of your car are meant to give your vehicle optimum performance in terms of fuel efficiency, ride comfort, handling and safety. So choose carefully next time when you want to give your car that “Fast and Furious” look. 🙂

Hope this answer helps.

Mohan Das, former Executive R&D at MRF Tyres (2010-2013)