Online Tires

Seen it mentioned here before, about buying vehicle tires online. I know of tire rack.com and cheap tires, any others out there that you have had good luck with. In need of new shoes for the Dodge Dakota. And yes, I use this truck to haul my MF135

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/home.do

FREE SHIPPING

rustyacres,
I've never bought tires online, except for the front tires on Jubilee.

I use the tire barn locally, because for $12.50 per tire, they mount, balance, road hazard, and free rotation and balancing every 5K.

So for me, just having the free Life time rotation and balancing every 5K out weighs all the savings I may get buying cheap shoes. Not to mention, the number of times they have had flats repaired, even had side walls of tires damaged, all covered.

I had tire barn put the 6x16 tires on Jubilee and it only cost me $10/tire.

There are other places besides tire barn with same life time rotation and balancing, however tire barn is the only place that hand torques lug nuts, never stripped one like the other places that use air impact.
George

I've bought many tires from www.tires-easy.com Sometimes shipping was only $8 per tire and no sales tax. I have my own tire machine and always prefer to mount them myself anyway. Too many slow-leaks in tires mounted at tire shops.

I see tractor tires on ebay for 1/2 what my local goodyear dealer is asking and there the same brand.

Pete's Tire Barn,Tucker Tire,Nebraska Tire are some I've dealt with and have been good with very reasonable prices.

onlinetires.com was even cheaper than tirerack.

I researched them, saw a few complaints, but took my chances anyways since they'd save me $50 a tire over tirerack.

I had no trouble with them.

Glad I decided to use them. Will be using them next time.

$ 12.50 per tire, what do you drive, a bicycle ? that's what they want to mount/ballance a tire in our parts.

I only use those types of sites for research on new tires. I can honestly say, I get them cheaper, most of the time, from my local dealers. Most of the places around here wont mount tires from internet sites, or charge so much to do it, its just not worth it. Places like Tire Kingdom and Discount Tire are a joke to start with, spend 4 hours getting new tires put on. My tire guy took just a tad over an hour to do a front end alignment, and mount and balance 4 new tires on my sons truck back in May. Another tire guy I go to sometimes takes around 45 minutes. They both have competent works, not some tech school drop out working for them. Ill pay more to get on with my life than sitting around for a week waiting on a set of tires to come in, and another week waiting for them to get put on.

ive bought tires online too, you do save money up front,if you can get reasonable shipping rates, but like others, i mount em myself, one place owned by a lifelong friend will balence truck tires for me , but the other place forget it, if he didnt sell the tires to you, he wont mount em or service them, the tire store isnt the only business he owns, so i guess he can be picky and still make money, i dont trade with him because his prices are way too high, my friend can sell me the same brand china tire at about half the price, if i want cheap tires for a farm rig. i hardly ever wear out a tire on a farm vehicle usually they get ruined by something unseen poking a big hole in them

A few months ago, I needed a set of tires for my wife's Chrysler T&C. I ran into a deal on ebay from Discount Tire. Hankook 70,000 mile all season tires for $420 for a set of four with free shipping. Then they had a special deal of $100 off on orders over $400.

That brought it down to $320 total for a set of four. I'd heard good things about Hankook, so I went with it. I mount and balance my own tires, so that wasn't a factor.

Now, with about 5K miles on them, they've been great. Noticeably smoother and quieter than the ones they replaced. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

and we wonder what is happening to the mom and pop stores across our country.....

I agree with buying local. I like to see what I am buying. We have already seen the results from the big box stores. I buy locally from a neighbor in the tire business. His prices are real reasonable and he has more business than he can handle. Sometimes his lights will be on till 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. That's the businesses we need to be patronizing.

Some people think that making you buy from them they will get more business actually it's just the opposite next time you will buy your tire where you want to and go down the street to have them Moimted and balanced.
Walt

Buying from the local mom and pop stores only applies to the other guy.

So when everybody buys everything on line and all the little man stores close up who are you gonna go to for service? See its 11 in the morning on a saturday and you are baling hay. Just then you realize the missing finger off the hay rake is now in your tire. They are calling for rain tomorrow and you have to get this hay baled. You realize you only have an hour to get the wheel off and get it to town to get it fixed. Suddenly you now realize how important this little man tire shop is to your community. SUPPORT him. Oh yeah he was to high on his price so you better buy a new tire on line. Hopefully a neighbor will loan you his tractor so you can get your hay baled.

The good thing about shopping on line is you can do the shopping from your living room instead of driving all over the country to brick and mortar dealers. The selection you have online is mind-boggling. The downside to online shopping is if you do buy from whoever it is.com and have problem with a tire soon afterwards you need to go to a local dealer to get it adjusted, if it even will be adjusted anymore, so you are still going to a dealer.

I have done some on line tire buying for vehicle and farm tires and I do change them myself at my convenience so I save the hassle of making a trip to town. The delivery truck drops them off and I'm ready to put them on at any time. Rear tractor tires are a little different situation because they often come on a pallet and I have to make sure I'm home with the forks on to unload them. I'm not saying this is the way to go for everyone, but it works for me.

Around here we have only one true mom-and-pop left but I don't do business there because he is so busy I would have to drop the vehicle off there and come back later, meaning two vehicles going to town twice. I'm happy for him because he is so busy, but I'm just not a happy camper when I'm standing around waiting. The other dealers are either chains who don't give a darn or the Co-ops who don't have much of a selection on hand. Then, of course, there's Wally. Jim

I bought a set of tires of eBay for almost 400 dollars cheaper than at the local dealer he quoted just over 1200$ I got em for just over 800 shipped and then it cost me 60 dollars to mount and balance so total savings of 340 I like to shop local but I can't give a guy 300 bucks for the exact same tires .

I always hear that about the mom and pop shops but in reality there is nothing to keep them from setting up shop on the internet just like the .coms do. Lot of people bad mouth Wal Mart about shutting down the locals. The locals could have done the same thing Sam Walton did. I buy a lot off the net because it is delivered to my door and I don't have to make a trip to town to order it then another to pick it up.

I put a pair of BFG's on a truck a year ago, got them online, and used balancing media. This summer I got the other 2 replaced, sent the spare in to the co-op and had it swapped out, then went in with the truck and got the other mounted and balanced. For the time to swap out the new tire for the fresh spare, and the time at the co-op to have the other tire mounted and balanced, I could have just as easily saved $100 and used the media again.

I tend to agree with you... BUT...

I saved well over $100 PER TIRE compared to what the local guys wanted for the same exact tire.

I'm sorry but *I* am not the one putting them out of business!

I try to buy local when I can, but there's a limit to how much more I'm willing to pay for it.

$400+ is well beyond that limit.