Tires: Why a tire maker makes both very good & poor tires, utqg ratings, noise category

Question
Barry, I'm looking at the ratings of all-season tires in the Nov.'05 Consumer Reports, & I'm surprised at how one tire maker (Goodyear) can make an excellent tire at the top of the chart but also a merely good to fair-quality tire at the bottom of the chart. Another manufacturer (Hankook) has a similar spread, especially in the "noise" category: their $50 tire is rated "very good" but their $52 tire is "poor",
i.e. quite noisy. If we assume that the tire-testing contractor commissioned by CR did accurate
work, what accounts for the apparent differences in quality from the same manufacturer?

Answer
David,

The word quality has many shades of meaning.

In the manufacturing arena, quality means consistency from unit to unit.  But clearly that is not what you meant.

Quality also is used to describe how well something has been designed or the materials that are used.  That is what I think you are referencing and that's what I am going to address.

Everything manufactured (not just tires) involves compromises.  This will naturally result in good performance in one area while another area is sacrificed.

For example:  Tire wear can be improved at the expense of rolling resistance and traction - you can't get all 3!  So a tire with very high UTQG ratings is either going to be poor in RR or traction - or both!

Same thing with noise - wet or snow traction is sacrificed.

And the cost has nothing to do with the compromise, although using more expensive materials can shift the curve upwards making the tire overall better.

Hope this helps.