Hi,
I know this thread is pretty old, but just wanted to chime in.
Today I went to Costco and had a set of the Kirkland Signature A/T tires installed on my Explorer (P235/75/15). The whole set, mounted, balanced, installed was only $295.
I replaced my Goodyear Wrangler RT/S tires which only had 25K miles on them. They probably could have gone another 25K, but they had gradually been losing traction as they got older. Plus, I took a nail in the tread of one of them and had already had another patched after it took two nails. I decided instead of driving around on two patched tires to just replace the whole set.
Costco had three available tires in my size. The Kirklands, Bridgestone Dueler AT's, and Michelin LTX AT's. The Bridgestones were $88 each, the Michelins $117 each, and the Kirklands $68 each. They only had 1 Bridgestone remaining in stock, but I had only heard marginal comments about them so I wasn't really interested in them. The salesman indicated the Kirklands are made by Michelin/BFGoodrich, which was fine with me. He then explained that the Kirklands would have a much shorter life span (2-3 years) than the Michelins but would have much better traction. The Michelins, on the other hand, would be "more slippery/less grippy" but would last twice as long (4-5 years) as the Kirklands. I gave it some thought for a couple of minutes and went for the Kirklands (I don't plan to keep the truck for 4 or 5 more years to warrant spending almost $500 for a set of tires; better grip is more important to me anyway).
So far I am impressed with the Kirklands. They are smooth and quiet on the road. They look nice and have a more aggressive looking tread than the Michelins. The one thing I did notice is that based on the number and size of the weights on my alloy wheels, they probably aren't manufactured to the same standards as the brand name tires and require more balancing. But, that doesn't really bother me as long as the tires perform well. Hey, they gave me chrome plated valve stem covers to match my wheels so that was kind of a surprise.
I will be anxious to see how they handle in the rain and also the snow this winter. It will also be interesting to see how they wear. Having never purchased private label tires for any of my vehicles, I have no idea what to expect. It may very well boil down to "you get what you pay for", but so far I am impressed.