fired used car salesmen = tire salesmen?

Yesterday I went through the miserable process of finding tires for my mazda6. The car is in Dallas, I'm in Atlanta.

Zero tire deals are had. If nobody runs a special on tires, than all the tires are the same price, so win for everyone? It has to be the mentality the industry uses.

You cannot negotiate over the phone. Everyone wants me to just come in. Well that's fine, I'll just drive 600 miles so I can negotiate a deal with you.

I usually have luck with discount tire, but they offered me the low price of 6 dollars off each tire. You spend 600, but you save 24! The bastard had the nerve to call the store in dallas to find out what stores are nearby, so he could show me how much cheaper their regular prices are to everyone elses regular prices.

In the end, I went to Amazon and bought 4 tires for 319. Never have I been so happy to be done with a purchase.

Huh, oddly enough, by me shopping for tires at local shops is easy. You just call up, ask about/size/model/price/whatever, they'll tell you what they have which is usually a bunch of garbage, then you drop a fat stack of cash on getting a set of tires you want imported and wait a month for them, or 4 if you ordered in November

I bought from Tire Rack last time, but now that I have Prime, Amazon will likely get my business.

Doesn't it seem to be way more complicated/frustrating than necessary?

I was shopping for a set of Conti Extreme Contact DWS for the Jetta, I worked at a flipping dealer even, in the Dealer Tire network, and even with shipping I got my tires cheaper from Tire Rack, than I could get with an "employee discount" at work.

Boy were the parts guys put out with me when my tires arrived on the loading dock.

• Lee

always had good luck with tire Rack.. place down the street is even one of their install shops

bigdaddylee82 wrote: I bought from Tire Rack last time, but now that I have Prime, Amazon will likely get my business.

I've had Amazon Prime for years, but Tire Rack still gets my business. Better selection, better tools, etc. Having the web site be dedicated specifically to tires makes it a lot easier to use.

The only reason I ever buy tires in person at a tire store is if it's an emergency and I can't wait for a replacement tire shipment.

Also, in my experience most of the tires that Amazon lists are sold by partners, so Prime doesn't apply to them.

I tried tire rack, but with shipping and taxes it wasn't worth it. 497 vs 318 actually. Amazon does stock some tires. I did buy it from a partner, but it was tax free and free shipping.

My thoughts were its better to make 50 bucks off of me than zero. If I'm able to buy them from amazon for 80, obviously they are getting them cheaper then that.

I got my last set from here: http://www.tirebuyer.com/

I then mounted & balanced them myself at our church's shop. Last time I bought a tire at a retailer was an emergency on my wife's car. My wife called me and handed the phone to the salesguy, who proceeded to tell me I needed a whole new set of tires because the rest were dry rotted. Um, those tires are three years old buddy, they don't go bad that fast. I told him to replace the bad tire and get my wife on her way.

What's wrong with how we did it at my Dad's shops? Offer three or four price levels of tires, along with several options on service (good/better/best balancing), charge $2 for the valve stem you bought for $0.16, and let the customer decide. I can't think of a single time I ever saw my Dad or his counter guys actively sell a tire. It was always consultative selling to earn return business, and it worked. My Dad had a fully assembled Nova front frame stub hanging in the sales area so he could show a customer exactly what parts they needed, and why they mattered.

I bought my last set of Continentals from a local chain store (Belle Tire) . I usually use Tire Rack ,but by the time I got them here and paid a shop for installation I was over the Belle Tire price. I get free rotation (not that it matters) and balancing for the life of the tires now, too.

The last few sets of tires I've bought, I've bought from Discount Tire and they were the lowest priced around. Their installation beats everybody else hands down. The only complaint I've had is they seem to take longer to do a rotation than an installation. I just wish they did alignments.

While I've bought a fair share of tires from Tire Rack (love the site), I'm thankful to have a shop like Gran Turismo East here in Atlanta and I try to do business with them whenever possible. Their prices are a little bit more than the online retailers, but I'm more than happy to support a local, friendly, knowledgeable, SKILLED shop. You don't find those around much these days.

In reply to Matt B: Zurcher tire in Monroe IN fills this for me, and they do alignments to my specs plus are a Tire Rack installer

I got my last set of daily tires from here: www.onlinetires.com

They have pretty good pricing, and their distribution center is a half hour from me, so I just went and picked them up the day after ordering and saved on shipping. Even with shipping their prices come out pretty competitive.

I have bought from Tire Rack and Discount Tire Direct and both have been excellent. As far as installation, I put my new tires in the car and go to a local used tire shop. They will mount/balance/new valve stems all four for about $20 a piece with no hassle and in about 20 minutes.

I get a lot of tire mounting done between my street cars and may race car. I always stop by with something for them around Christmas and they look out for me every time I visit.

Interstate tire is who I use locally, they'll match any online price I find, will get Nokia's when requested even though their normal vendor doesn't carry them and Dave and Mark are alignment masters, getting it to my requested spec opposed to "green and go"

I am picky about tires. The last few sets I've bought online and taken to a shop to be installed.

I am like a kid in a candy store when it's time to buy tires.

Yesterday I checked the websites for Discount Tire, NTB, Tires Plus and Pep Boys; all have stores local to me. Only DT had offerings remotely close to what I wanted.

I called to check availability and was informed my first choice was out of stock and discontinued; damn. The same thing for choice number two; double damn. The phone rep started pushing a no-name brand I had never heard of before; triple damn.

This left Tire Rack and I found a good price on Kumhos, higher than I want to pay but in the ball park. Also, they have updated their local installer listings and a dealer I trust is on the list. Problem solved.

Yay!

Discount Tire sells for less on ebay than they do in the store. If you bring in a print out of one of the ebay 'buy now' auctions, they will price match and not charge for shipping. I was getting Falkens in 235/45/17 OTD for less than 4 bills installed.

Discount Tire matches prices, I don't know if that is a policy nationwide though. And a guy in the circle friends here is a manager at Discount. I just let him know what kind and size I want, email him a link to the tire rack page and he calls me when the tires arrive and I make an appointment for Saturday.

If they price match just show them a link and they'll match that shipped price.

In reply to gofastbobby:

I'm the same way. I think a lot about tires when I buy a used car too; 18" wheels are becoming way too common and good luck finding snow tires.

Wish Tire Rack shipping to Canada was cheaper; I have to make a trip out of it to Montana every time, which is sort of fun in its own way. Talking like $250 vs. $75 to ship to Canada vs. the border.

As long as the brand starts with "B" or "F" and ends with stone I get pretty stellar pricing through the company purchasing program. Just bought 2 bridgestone duelers for my dodge truck for $167 out the door. Finding a guy you trust to install them is another story.

I use Discount Tire for the Durango. I can't beat their prices. I bought a set of their in house brand Prodigy (Yokahama), they were cheap ($96 each) and they've been pretty good.

In reply to lnlogauge: Not sure what made it so hard, but I buy all my tires through Discount. AFAIK, any Discount store will match the online prices at tires.com.

I put a set of Continental Cross Contact LX 20 on my wife's Kia Sedona in the fall.

The Kia dealer had the best price around for mounted balanced and out the door. The matched the local tire chain on the price, and were half the cost on the mounting and balancing.

I saved more than $50, and since the van is under warranty I can avoid the finger pointing if there are any funny vibrations that show up.

One of the local chains didn't want to order the Conti's, and the other was willing to get them but wanted to push some off name ones they had on the floor.