First Time Buying Tires In Years - Dang, Things Have Changed

I haven't bought new tires in probably over 15 years. Current '09 Taco needs new shoes so I have been doing some searching. Holy crap, have things changed. I expected prices to have gone up but all of the other surcharges are shocking. I live in a small city and have limited choices unless I want to drive 50 miles. My choices are Tire Discounters, Goodyear, Big 0 and Walmart. Bad experiences with Big O and I have read to steer clear of Walmart tires. Pricing the tires at Tire Discounters. I expect the tire disposal fee but what really fries my ham is an installation charge of $29.99 per tire. I am looking at some 225 75R 15 on stock steel wheels so nothing exotic. Is this something I am just going to have to live with? Another option is getting tires from my Toyota dealer where I bought it and get it serviced. I wonder if they might be a bit more negotiable.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Drive the 50 miles. $30 per tire is double what I just paid and seems high.

 

Order tires online to save on tax and then have some mom and pop place mount them for ~$10/tire.

You'll save a ton, especially since some tires online ship free

 

Great idea, but only one mom and pop left and have had back experience with them. Plus I would be concerned if some Gomer broke one of the TPMS stems.

 

Those prices are silly. So yeah, I'd drive the 30 miles and either find them at a place that is willing to match prices or at least give some. I get that brick & mortars can't match online to the dollar and I'm willing to pay for the service, but you have to meet me in the middle.

 

I checked again and TD does have an "economy" installation with doesn't include a free alignment and lifetime balancing but that is still $16.99 per tire. They do offer a $50 prepaid Visa for a full set. Oh yeah, their road hazard warranty is $16 per tire also.

 

Try discount tire direct. I just got a set of Nittos for the wife's Traverse (255/65R18) for $458 shipped to the door w/75k mile warranty.

 

A name brand tire is the same at Walmart as it is in any other store.

They don't make special shitty tires just for Walmart.

 

How do you go 15years without buying tires? Drive 1000 a year? Just curious.

As far as prices, in my area $20-$25 per tire for installation is pretty standard. Last time I bought tires it was about $1000 total for Michelin defenders.

 

Tire Rack, Discount Tire and others will ship to your home.

Drive to the big city and have them mounted up.

Any chance you or a family member have a Costco membership in town? While their overall brand selection is limited, they do have Michelins. Catch a $70 off 4 manuf. sale and hook that up with a .01 per tire mounting (yes, 1 cent) and you have a pretty good deal. That mounting includes dismount, mount, balance, nitrogen fill, lifetime rotation, lifetime balance and 'may' include road hazard (mine did).

 

Highly recommend Discount Tire Direct. They're super helpful to find you the tire you want, and also in general. I was going to buy some tires from them, when they recommended to me I should buy the direct from the Discount store and save some money.

The cost to mount them is what it is. But if the tires have lasted you this long, I think you'll soon forget about the cost the next time you need new tires.

 

No but they just hire shitty techs. If it's an over sized tire they won't touch it. And sometimes they are so lost it will take them all day just to get to your truck when they are not even busy.

 

Tire install labor has gone up due to vehicles having lower pro tires and larger wheels. They have to spend more time mounting since there is more chance to damage the wheel and tire.

 

You aren't seriously driving around in 15 year old tires are you?


I like Firestone for tires/installation. I love my Destination A/Ts. Simple A/T for minimal off road use and nice and quiet.

 

I have been retired for 18 years and travel little. My '09 Taco has 45k on it. My wifes '12 Highlander has 19k. New tires on new rides I just haven't had the need to buy tires.

 

Thanks, but no local installers I would deal with. I live in a small town with limited options.

 

Depending on the tire goodyear has free install right now on certain tires. A lot of our customers bitch enough and get free install anyway.

 

Ok, the deed is none. My Taco has new shoes. I called Tire Discounters and the dude was super helpful. I wanted a taller and wider tire to replace the weenie 215 70R 15 stock tires that came on my base Access. What limited my choices were dealing with a 15" tire and wanting raised white outline lettering. I saw some Goodyear Wranglers in a 225 75R 15. He told me there was only one set of these on the east coast. When I told him I was mainly looking for a bit taller tire he recommended a 235 70R 15 which even thought is has 70R designation it was about an 1.25" taller than my OEM tires. He highly recommended some Nexen Roadian HTX 65,000 mile tire. He had them in stock and in the 235 70R 15 in a WOL. I went out to look at them and liked them. Nice all season tread and the WOL looked nice. They were also $75 off the set for instore stock. So, I paid the $67 install fee and got them on the road for right at $500. Got an alignment check and free lifetime rotation and nitrogen inflation. The people were super nice and I was in and out in 45 min.

I have always loved my Taco but always thought the tiny tires didn't do much for the truck. The new tires are absolutely perfect (at least to me). The ride is super smooth and quiet. Another bonus is my speedometer which read 2 mph high at 50 mph checked against a GPS. I checked it with the new tires and the speedo reading matches the GPS spot on. I am one happy camper.

Thanks everyone for their input.

 

Don't know where about you are...but I had mine done at Sam's Club in Nicholasville. Got a decent deal on 4 Michelin LTX MS2s, $784 all in about 18 months ago. Great tires. Don't know if I got lucky with the installer or if the tires are just really good, but mine are perfectly balanced at all speeds and I've put about 20K on them. They are running the same special they were running when I had them done so unless the tire or install price has gone up significantly, you should be looking at right around $800 there.

EDIT: Nevermind...a bit late for my opinion

 

I belong to Sams and Costco. Neither had the WOL tire in the size I was looking for . And, both are about 30 miles away.