Founded: 1988
Founder: TIA Group
Headquarters: Telford, United Kingdom
Parent: TIA Group
Website: https://www.torquetyres.com
Torque is one of the lesser-known brands to come from England. They are considered a budget option, and it’s a bit fishy, considering most Western European tire-makers charge a lot more than $50 per tread. In this case, the low price is justified (if not perfectly comfortable) – they are made in China.
To be completely clear, they are a British brand under the patronage of TIA Group, a bit British conglomerate that dabbles in tire business, among other things. Like numerous other producers before them, they use Chinese plants and labor because it’s cheaper. It also allows them to sell the tires cheaply.
The Chinese make is not necessarily a tag of low quality nowadays. Sure, TIA can’t sell most of Torque tires at an adequate price, because they aren’t as good as Michelins, Continentals or Pirellis. But Torque treads are still pretty good, and they don’t need high costs to reflect that. Even so, don’t delude yourself – they have their problems.
The first upside they got is the perfect balancing on virtually all tires. Primarily, it means the ride is going to be smooth and even quiet. In addition, you may not need to rebalance them after a while. It’s still worth checking them out and making sure they don’t need more weighing down at some places, but they are generally comfy.
The grip is positively not bad. The usual circumstances (like the dry or wet asphalt) aren’t much of an obstacle for these treads. They stick to the ground tightly, behave well at turns and there’s scarcely any braking distance.
The ice traction isn’t bad too, although it you intend to drive in winter, it’s better to purchase specifically winter tires with studs on them. The all-season models they got do their job satisfactorily, but it could be better. Off-road, and on other unorthodox surfaces, they are helpless. Wet grass, mud, rocks are not for them.
At this price (50 USD to 75 USD), they aren’t bad. You could actually have much less luck with the tires from this price category. They aren’t common, but if you can get a set of them, they are worth it.