Originally Posted by
Jeff Neese
Well that is certainly not true. Cheaper tubes have less consistent seams, more variation in the rubber thickness, lower quality of the valve materials, and the QA is by sampling rather than testing each tube. I've had more than one QTube come apart at a seam, and lots of Kendas or other cheap tubes that just didn't hold air very well, even overnight. And, better tires do have better puncture resistance.
I switched to "premium" tubes a while ago and never looked back. I have a lot fewer flats and I don't have to pump up my tires as often.
Most bike stores everywhere use and have always used the least expensive tubes available in bulk for routine replacements of punctured tubes. With the possible exception of bad batches of tubes (never saw any myself in 20 years of working in bike stores), the failure rate of tubes installed by bike mechanics in stores is vanishingly low. Funny how the same tubes always have a substantially higher failure rate when installed by customers.