Westlake Tires Review - Brand Guide

‍About Westlake Tires

Westlake Tires is a global tire brand that has been selling high-quality tires in North America, Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa, among other areas. Its tires are manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd.

Founded in 1958, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd. is one of the fastest-growing tire manufacturers in the world. It’s currently ranked as the 10th largest tire manufacturer globally, with annual sales of approximately $3.4 billion.

Westlake Tires are manufactured in a modern, state-of-the-art facility in China. This facility has earned several recognitions and awards. Its tires are recognized by the U.S Department of Transportation (DOT) as well as the Economic Commission of Europe (ECE).

Most Popular Westlake Tires

Westlake Tires manufactures a wide range of tires for almost all types of vehicles. It produces tires for sedans, SUVs, coupes, crossovers, light trucks and minivans.

It also produces specialty tires such as trailer tires, farm equipment tires, industrial equipment tires, and off-the-road tires, among others.

Westlake Tires also produces tires specifically built to handle various terrains and conditions such as high-performance all-season tires, touring all-season tires, and winter tires. Some of the company’s most popular tires include:

Westlake SA07

The Westlake SA07 is an all-season, touring tire, designed for sports-minded crossovers, sedans, and coupes. It’s built to deliver a higher level of performance across different conditions and terrains, coupled with a smooth and comfortable ride.

Features

Westlake has outfitted this tire with an all-season, silica-enriched tread compound, which has been molded into a symmetric tread pattern. This tread design helps to deliver enhanced grip and traction in dry and wet conditions. Also, it helps to simplify tire rotation and reduce rolling resistance, resulting in higher fuel efficiency and uniform tread wear.

The Westlake SA07 also comes with a sturdy, minimally-siped center rib, designed to enhance lateral stability while delivering maximum control, throughout the tire’s speed range. The manufacturer has also outfitted this tire with a cross-grain siping design, which creates a larger surface area in contact with the surface, resulting in increased traction and grip.

Westlake has further provisioned this tire with deeper tread grooves and larger outside shoulder blocks, designed to deliver enhanced cornering stability and performance throughout the tire’s speed range.

Four wide and deep longitudinal grooves help to disperse water from the tire’s tread, resulting in reduced hydroplaning. Hence, if you happen to encounter rainy conditions with this tire, you will not experience any loss of grip.  

The Westlake SA07 also sports an optimized tread design, which helps to reduce road noise and vibrations. And as a result, you will enjoy a quiet and comfortable ride.

Sizes and Fitment

The available sizes for this tire range between 16 inches to 20 inches. It can fit a wide range of vehicles such as:

• Ford Focus, EcoSport, Flex, Fiesta, Crown Victoria, Fusion, and Escape
• Chevrolet Cobalt, Trax, SS, Volt, Sonic and Trailblazer
• Volkswagen Golf, Passat, Golf Alltrack, Tiguan, CC, and Golf SportWagen
• Dodge Caliber, Avenger, Durango, Challenger, Dart, Charger and Caliber
• Nissan Sentra, Leaf, Versa, Juke, Maxima, Rogue, 370Z, and Altima
• Hyundai Genesis, Equus, Tucson, Kona, Nexo, Sonata, Ioniq, and Veloster
• Cadillac STS, ATS, XT4, DTS, CT6, XT4, CT5, CTS, and XTS
• Jeep Renegade, Cherokee, Grand Cherokee, and Compass
• Toyota Corolla, Prius, GR Supra, Matrix, Avalon, Mirai, C-HR and Camry
• Subaru Legacy, Forester, WRX, Impreza, Crosstrek, WRX STI and BRZ
• Honda CRV, Insight, Accord, Clarity, HR-V, Clarity, Civic, and CR-Z

Pros

• Exceptional dry and wet traction
• Superb responsiveness
• Smooth and comfortable ride
• Affordable price

Cons

• Unreliable traction in deep snow

Verdict

The Westlake SA07 is a great all-season touring tire for performance vehicles. Its traction in wet and dry conditions is adequate, the ride is quiet and comfortable and the steering response is great. Overall, if you are in the market for a reliable but affordable tire for your sports-oriented vehicle, then the Westlake SA07 ticks all the right boxes.

Westlake RP18

The Westlake RP18 is an all-season touring tire, designed for compact cars, minivans, small city cars, and midsize sedans. It can also fit some of the smaller crossovers. It’s built to deliver dependable year-round performance.

Key Features

This tire comes with an all-season tread compound, formed into a symmetrical tread pattern. Its tread pattern also features angled siping and grooving. These features help the tire to deliver assured traction and grip in all seasons.

At the same time, its optimized siping patterns and tread grooves enhance its contact patch, resulting in enhanced traction and tread wear. It also comes with a variable, tread pitch pattern, which reduces road noise, resulting in a quiet and comfortable ride.

The Westlake RP18 also features a lower profile design, as well as a unique tread pattern, which helps to deliver an enhanced steering response. It also features vertical siping, which delivers better cornering stability and handling.

Westlake has also provisioned this tire with four circumferential tread grooves. These tread grooves help to evacuate water in wet conditions, thus reducing the risk of aquaplaning. Hence, you can expect this tire to deliver solid traction and grip on wet and slippery surfaces.

Sizes and Fitment

Westlake produces this tire in numerous sizes, ranging between 13 inches and 16 inches. It can fit a wide range of vehicles on the road such as:

•  Ford Escape, Mustang, Ranger, Escort, Taurus, Fiesta, Fusion, and EcoSport
• Toyota Prius, Camry, Corolla, Supra, Sienna, Prius Prime, Avalon, and Yaris
•  Jeep Grand Cherokee, Compass, Liberty and Patriot
• Chevrolet Impala, Cruze, Malibu, Impala Limited, Spark,  Astro and Equinox
•  Mazda6, Mazda5 and Mazda3, Mazda CX-3 and Mazda MX-5 Miata
• Hyundai Elantra, Ioniq, Kona, Accent, Venue, Sonata and Elantra GT
• Nissan Frontier, Altima, Sentra, Rogue Sport, Cube, Quest and Versa
• Kia Spectra, Soul, Niro, Forte5, Niro, Forte, Rio5, K5 and Optima
• Dodge Charger, Caliber, Magnum, Challenger and Avenger
• Volkswagen Beetle, Passat, Jetta, Tiguan, Routan, Tiguan Limited and Golf
• Honda CR-V, Accord, Odyssey, Fit, Insight and Civic

Pros

• Decent dry traction and handling
• Exceptional wet traction
• Smooth, quiet and comfortable ride
• Great steering response

Cons

• Unreliable snow performance

Verdict

While the Westlake RP18 may be a low-cost tire, its performance is up there with some of the best all-season touring tires. Its dry and wet traction is great, the ride is comfortable, and the steering is responsive. And with a treadwear warranty of 45,000 miles, you are getting good value for your money with this tire.

Westlake SL369

The Westlake SL369 is an all-terrain tire, engineered to deliver reliable performance on and off the highway. It’s designed for drivers of all types of crossovers, SUVs and pickups.

Key Features

The Westlake SL369 comes with a tough, all-season tread compound, featuring a unique tread pattern. The two combine to deliver reliable wet and dry traction. Also, the sturdy all-season tread compound is designed to handle a wide range of off-road terrains like dirt, gravel, sand, light mud and grass. Furthermore, the added siping on the tire’s shoulder blocks helps to enhance its traction further.

Westlake has also outfitted this tire with wide and deep circumferential tread grooves, which play a key role in water evacuation, thus minimizing the risk of aquaplaning. At the same time, an integrated tread block pattern helps to deliver additional traction in wet conditions.

The Westlake SL369 also sports an optimized, variable tread pattern, designed to reduce road noise, for a quiet and comfortable ride. Inside the Westlake SL369 are two steel belts, designed to enhance its load-bearing capacity.

Sizes and Fitment

This tire is available in a wide range of sizes, running between 15 inches and 20 inches. With such a vast size range, you can expect this tire to fit almost all types of minivans, vans, crossovers, SUVs, pickup trucks and coupes.

Pros

• Exceptional traction and grip on challenging terrains
• Decent on-road and off-road stability
• Stellar snow traction
• Sturdy and durable construction

Cons

• Average performance in deep mud

Verdict

The Westlake SL369 is an affordable and reliable all-terrain tire, which will fit the needs of most drivers. As much as its performance may not match that of premium all-terrain tires, it holds its own quite well. Its traction on dry, wet and snow-covered surfaces is great, the ride quality is decent and its construction is solid, making it ideal for almost all driving situations and conditions. Without a doubt, it’s one of the best all-terrain tires in its category.

Westlake Tires Warranties and Guarantees

Westlake Tires offers two warranties. These are a standard limited warranty and a standard limited mileage warranty. So, what’s covered under each of these Westlake Tires warranties? Let’s take a closer look.

Standard Limited Warranty

The standard limited warranty is basically a workmanship and materials warranty. Under this warranty, Westlake Tires offers to replace your tire, if it’s removed from service due to workmanship and materials defects.

But, unlike other tire manufacturers, Westlake Tires doesn’t offer free tire replacement. Instead, the replacement offered under this warranty is done on a pro-rata basis. Therefore, you will cover a particular percentage of the tire’s replacement costs. You will also be responsible for the tire’s mounting and balancing costs, as well as applicable state, federal or local taxes.

Coverage offered under this warranty runs for five years from the tire’s purchase date or six years from its manufacture date, whichever comes first.

Standard Limited Mileage Warranty

Most tires from this brand are also covered by a standard limited mileage warranty. Coverage offered under this warranty runs for approximately 40,000 to 50,000 miles.

Under this warranty, Westlake Tires commits to replace your tire, if it wears out uniformly across its tread, down to its tread wear indicators, before delivering the warranted mileage.

Just like the standard limited warranty, the replacement done under this warranty is purely on a pro-rata basis. Therefore, you will contribute a certain percentage of the tire’s replacement costs.

Why Buy Westlake Tires

Highly Versatile

Most drivers these days want a tire that can perform well across a wide range of terrains and conditions. And this is where Westlake tires come in. Its tires come outfitted with a wide range of practical features, making them highly versatile. Whether you are driving on the highway or in the city streets, the tires from this brand will always deliver a great driving experience.

Durable Tires

As earlier noted, Westlake tires are manufactured in state-of-the-art facilities, using high-quality raw materials. Also, they come equipped with advanced tread layouts and other sophisticated design features, making them durable and long-lasting.

Great Handling Performance

Handling is one of the most important considerations when it comes to buying a tire. Unfortunately, most budget tires on the market tend to be extremely unreliable, when it comes to their handling in adverse terrains. But with Westlake tires, this is not the case. They deliver outstanding handling performance on and off the highway.

Outstanding Value for Money

Westlake tires are among the most affordable on the market. Apart from that, they are well made, durable and they perform extremely well. Furthermore, Westlake stands behind its tires with strong warranties and guarantees. With Westlake tires, you can rest assured you will get great value for your money.

Westlake Tires Pros

• Tires perform extremely well
• Durable tires
• Its tires deliver a quiet and comfortable ride
• Outstanding handling performance
• Great value for money

Westlake Tires Cons

• A limited selection of winter tires

Our Take

Westlake is, without a doubt, one of the best tire brands out there in the low-cost tire segment. They perform well across different conditions and terrains, last long and are affordably priced. If you are in the market for affordable, reliable, and long-lasting tires, then Westlake Tires comes highly recommended.