Comment by Schnitz

When buying tires as an average Joe for an average car (like a Corolla or Camry) it seems like being an OEM tire is actually a badge of honor for a tire. The reason is that that's the tire that they report MPG with and that you have on the car when you test drive it, so manufacturers care about ride quality and efficiency in the OEM tire. There's a lot of tires that are cheaper than OEM tires and they perform worse.