I had to get some new front tyres for my car last week.

I matched them with the premium tyres already on the car.The salesman suggested I fill my tyres with nitrogen to improve wear and performance. I checked it out online and decided the benefits of nitrogen weren’t proven.

But I came across a related article comparing factory tyres with premium tyres and budget tyres. They did stopping and swerve tests with four sets of tyres – new factory, worn factory (barely legal), new premium and new budget. The results were as you’d imagine with premium tyres and new factory tyres stopping quicker than the others. I was surprised by the improvement in stopping of the premium tyres because it’s easy to forget about tyres, even though they are the only thing touching the road.

But the really revealing thing about these tests was that the worn factory tyres stopped much better than the new budget tyres. We are talking about the difference between stopping safely and being involved in a collision here! The money you might save on budget tyres simply isn’t worth it.

Nevertheless, a lot of people will say – tyres are tyres – so why pay $200 a tyre when you can pay $80. And if the tyre salesman pointed out the results above, a lot of people would just shrug it off as an up-selling tactic.

We don’t buy tyres very often – property is the same.

And because of this, people aren’t familiar with tyres, or property inspection reports. So, like tyres, many people think that all inspection reports are the same. We often get people calling about our service with just one question – how much is a report? We explain about our service, but they only want the price because they are looking for budget. They want the cheapest report – because investing their life savings in a property isn’t important enough for premium quality. And their tyres are probably budget too.

But guess what?

Real estate agents are more likely to go for the cheapest option too. As more agents arrange inspection reports for sellers, they are often happy to compromise on quality because the difference between budget and premium isn’t important to them. They forget about the importance of “kicking the tyres” for property buyers. For buyers, it might be the difference between getting safely to their property destination or crashing.

But I bet those agents have premium tyres on their Mercedes!

Want to get more helpful tips and insights?

Check out our blog for more great articles.

Start Exploring

Best Regards,
Michael Ferrier
MD EYEON Property Inspections

At EYEON Property Inspections, we help you buy and sell with more confidence.