I don’t really price shop for tires. I have been a customer at an independent tire dealer for years. I just go to this tire store and buy Michelin tires. I just replaced the original tires, which were Firestone, on my 2017 Toyota Sienna.
This tire shop also does alignment and I have had previous vehicles re-aligned at this shop.
When I want new tires, I first see what I have now, then start searching for tires with the same or higher speed ratings. Wet and dry traction and noise are very important to me. Next on the list is wear resistance. I typically put grand touring radials on my car. I read on line owners opinions and look for comparison tests of tires with very high owner ratings. I need to see what experts determine in their head to head testing. I’ve found less expensive, but not cheap, tires that meet my standards.
my truck needs high load rating tires and i just bought four new oem continentals for $600 out the door, mounted and balanced, with tpms seals, at a big box store. it was a hundred less than anyone else.
Yep, 600 is less then 700. Pat on back.
i found that local tire shops either mark up the tire price and advertise “free install” or they charge $25-$35 for carry-in.
the big box stores had low internet pricing and did the free install. no local tire shops came close.
edit : my oem truck tires have a lot of extra steel and rubber. i just checked two big box stores online and both had sets of four decent quality passenger car tires for less than $200 otd, installed.
I’m not sure I follow. I wrecked a Michelin MX4X or whatever it was on my Acura. I had about 400 miles on it. The price at the Acura dealer was $250 plus. When I checked with the tire shop, their price was higher so I bought the tire at the dealer and had the tire shop put it on for which I paid mounting and balancing. Of course the tire shop could do it same day but didn’t have the tire but the Dealer had the tire but couldn’t do the work for a few days. (Figure that out.) So I drove the 30 miles to pick the tire up and had the tire shop put it on.
I just think it is easy to over-think this whole thing. Everyone has to make some money on their work one way or another. The dealer made it on a mark-up of their inventory and the tire shop made it on their install and balancing. If time is important to me, which it was, no problem. No big box would have that particular tire anyway.
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Some (and I mean very very few) dealers have good tire prices. Most don’t I got a flyer from my Toyota dealer on Michelin tires. So I checked them out. Their super special price for the EXACT SAME Michelin tires I ended up buying at a local tire shop that was less then 3 miles north of them was more then DOUBLE what I paid. If I brought my Highlander to them and then they then sent the HL to the tire place I used to install the tires, the dealer would still made a lot of money.
At my Lexus dealer, prices have generally been very close to the local tire shop and reasonably close to Tire Rack, except when Tire Rack has those rebates of around $70 to $100, so I often use them. I guess I’m just lucky here.
Define “decent”. I doubt there are quality tires for $200 a set installed, that I would be willing to put on car or truck I own.
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replaced 4 tires on our old Prius, 2 years ago, ordered with SimpleTire, installed locally (pre-paid):
These are indeed very decent tires, selected by road-tests published @ TireRack, and I confirmed they are both great performance in rain / light snow and 20,000 miles later they age very gracefully
if I wanted to go cheap, I could get around 40% lower for some no-name
Off-brand economy car tires are a reasonable choice for many people. They meet or exceed DOT regs.
At least one big box store will order Michelins at a relatively low cost and give the customer a free install.
The big box stores have a financial incentive to bring people into the store for a couple of hours of shopping, whether they buy economy or fru-fru tires.
Disagree on cheap tires being reasonable, agree on the big store thing. I have a lengthy experience that I’ll share regarding cheap Chinese tires .About 5 years ago or so my mother needed tires for her old MB CLK 430, a car she just tools around town with. Against my recommendation, my stepfather decided they should get tires from a Firestone place, (which IMHO is horrendously overpriced for what you get), They bought a set of Primewell (made in China) tires. A set of low end crap that was sold to them for around $800 all-in. They thought they got a good deal, I told them that I certainly wouldn’t have bought what I considered low quality tires for what they paid, and would’ve rather spend maybe $100 more for a set of tires that I knew had a good reputation and track record. They said for around town use those tires would be fine.
About a year after that tire purchase, on a Saturday morning, I get a call from my mom. Her car has two flat front tires, and she needs help in dealing with it. I go over there and sure enough both front tires are flat. Very strange. I’m thinking, that she must’ve run over a group of nails or something. I look at the tires, there’s no visible damage, and I can’t find anything in the tread. I fire up the air compressor and one tire will take air and doesn’t seem to be leaking rapidly. The other doesn’t take any air at all. I look under the car to see if something broke that would’ve punctured the tires. Nothing is hanging down from the undercarriage, but I noticed that the inner sidewalls of each front tire were severely cracked (the outer sidewalls were fine). Clearly this was the problem.
I put on the OEM spare ( a 20 year old Michelin), threw the tire that wouldn’t take air in the back seat, got the receipt and gingerly drove the car over the Firestone. I called before showing to, explain what had happened. I showed the manager the tire in the back seat, and the tire still on the car. He agreed that the tires were defective. However, for these tires there was only a treadwear warranty, not a warranty on the construction of the tire. But he would replace them on a pro-rated basis. He said he needed to call someone to see when he could get another pair of tires in and that was the last I ever saw of him. I waited for about 90 minutes before I flagged down another employee and asked where the manager was, and was told that he has gone to test drive a car that they had repaired and was getting lunch while he was out. I found this a bit insulting. The other employee was more helpful, I told her the tale of woe, she said that she could see how soon they could get another pair or replacement tires. Turned out it was going to be 7 business days. That wasn’t going to work for me.
Finally I thanked her for her help but told her to forget that, I have zero trust in those cheap tires and a similar level of trust in her manager, and decided that I would simply buy another set of tires elsewhere. I called my mom, told her what had transpired and that I was going to handle it myself by going up to the BJ’s wholesale up the street and buying a set of tires that I deem acceptable. And that if she wanted to keep dealing with Firestone that she could come pick me up and maybe they’ll have replacement tires in a week or so. Mom agreed to let me handle it. I went down to the BJ’s, and asked for a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+'s tires that I’ve used before and have a high opinion of. They didn’t have a set in the sizes I needed in stock, but could get them later that day in 3 hours. So I waited. The tires arrive a bit earlier than expected, and I was out the door in about 2.5 hours. Michelins were $70 off + free mount and balance. The total for the much nicer Michelins at BJ’s was only $90 more (all-in) than it was for the set of crap Primewells.
From that point all, both my mom and stepfather have me make any tire-related purchases for their vehicles. And yeah, wholesale clubs are usually hard to beat when it comes to tires, Costco is always competitively priced, and any of them always have a $70-$100 off + free installation of a given big-brand every month, Seems to alternate between Michelin, Bridgestone, and B.F. Goodrich, and often BJs, Sam’s Club, and Costco will each have the brand the others don’t on promotion so if you live in an area with all three, you’ll be spoiled for choice. With that said, my last two sets of tires have been from Discount Tire, they’ll price match any warehouse club and they often run promotions on top that. The last set of tires for my Mustang, were Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+'s (I’m a big fan of these) in 275/35/20, cost about $870 OTD after they price matched Costco, and had free install + another 10% off. They undercut Costco by about $100 in that case.
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After being unhappy with Bridgestone, and a bud that bought firestone and did not like them, I spend the bucks and stick with Michelin.
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In fairness, I had this happen on a set of not-cheap Pirellis back in the day. The only tire brand I’ve ever used that never had any quality issues whatsoever has been Michelin, but boy do you pay for those.
It is better now, though, since Costco started carrying Michelin. Guess where I’m buying all my tires these days?
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Tire Rack doesn’t do too well here in NH because of shipping. We don’t have a sales tax so there is no special savings by buying from Tire Rack.
I’m not sure if “for safety - buy Michelin!” in the tire world is not an equivalent “for reliability - buy Toyota!” in the vehicle selection?
I would not blindly agree to either of these.
I had terrible OEM Michelin tires on 2012 Nissan I used to have, the replacement Firestone from Costco was inexpensive, noise level was good and grip was quite good. They served me well for 5 years and ~60,000 miles, were still usable when I sold the car.
Once I bought a used Subaru with new (non-OEM) Michelins and these were complete trash on traction, I had to shell out ~$500 to replace literally new tires and I had great experience with BFG, once again from Costco.
Are we not overrating our Michelin experiences?
Yes, their top-of-the-line tires are superb… but so are other major brands, some of them at substantially lower price.
True. Admittedly, I only buy the higher-end Michelins. I tend to avoid low end on tires because they’re the main thing keeping me from wrecking my car, y’know?
But I also bought higher end models of other brands of tires and would occasionally get a set that was just bad. This includes stuff from Bridgestone, Firestone, the aforementioned Pirelli, etc. Even Yokohama, whose ES100’s were stellar and so naturally they stopped making them, has been known to churn out overly-expensive, underperforming tires.
I do still research the tire purchase if the Michelins I used previously are no longer available, but in the aggregate, Michelin’s high-end tires have done what they were supposed to do on a much more consistent basis than any other company I’ve bought from.
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I wonder if something has changed at tirerack.com , perhaps in the programming.
I will need new tires for my truck within the next year. Tried various inputs on the site, (summer only, wet traction, ride comfort) kept getting the same recommendations that did not include the tires I currently have. Then checked my current tires under the by brand function, they had the same or better ratings than the recommended tires.
I bought some budget tires years ago for a few reasons.
–OEM stopped making the tire
–Spare car, few miles driven, so tread separation was happening before tread wear
–In stock, that day
They were good for a few years but then started wearing out-of-round after 20K miles. Lots of vibration.
I’ve heard premium tires have better base chemistry, components, and factory processing. Back when I drove a lot, the OEM premiums lasted longer.
If I were a starving student, or anyone else who needs to skimp for a year or three, I’d consider off brand tire deals.