Vianor
Costs behind cheap decisions
When you buy something, you should always consider costs to be one of the main reasons for buying or not buying something. This is how we usually see things. It shouldn’t be so black and white though, at least when it comes to your safety or the occurring costs of buying bad quality.
When we buy something that is cheaper than the average price in the same category we don’t usually think that it might be of bad quality or that it could possibly generate more costs in the future. If you buy a cheap shirt you probably think that you wont wear it so long and that it might not last for more than few months. If you were to spend the same amount that you spend for several shirts during the year to a better shirt that might last for years, you might have actually saved money. Being shortsighted is generally expensive even though it might seem cheap at the moment.
With tyres it’s the same issue. A cheap tyre might look exactly the same outside than an expensive one. The size and the patterns might be the same and naturally the tyre is black no matter what the price is. The thing is though that the pattern and the looks is only one factor in a good tyre. Other things that matter are the layers and the solutions how the layers have been manufactured. Also the mixture in rubber differs a lot with cheap tyre and the more expensive, stylish tyre (in Finnish: tyylikkäät renkaat). This all affects mostly on the consumption, friction, durability and the performance of the tyre. This way the more expensive tyre with lower friction can fast become a cheaper option.
When looking at the shirt example we can actually change all the words into being ‘tyre’ instead of ‘shirt’ and we see that the same happens to tyres. It is exactly the pattern with cheap tyres, they wear out faster and depending on the driver you might need many cheap tyres to go the way that a set of good tyres take you.
You should always think about costs but the key in saving money is to think about costs in the long run. Have you ever heard about a shortsighted investor that has made a fortune? I haven’t.
