CountyMounty
Well-Known Member
This past Friday I spent about half a day going around to several tire dealers in a nearby city to do a little comparison shopping. I went armed with some online price print outs and an idea of what I wanted for tires, I had 2 or 3 different ones in mind. Note these were tires for my wife's 2006 Rendezvous not the ST. At each store I got printed tire quotes to take along.
Anyway after visiting 8 different retailers I determined they couldn't even come close to the online prices. Also most of the retailers advertise that they will price match and beat competitors but that was not really the case because each one had some special sale, gift card added (Sears & VIP), rebate, buy 3 get 1 free, etc. They all basically told me the same thing which was they could match the competitors regular price on tires but couldn't price match on special deals like the buy 3 get 1 free, gift card offers, etc. So in reality price matching isn't all its cracked up to be. I played the game where you must bring a printed tire quote in order for them to consider a match and time after time one could not match price to the other for some reason or the other. In many cases they were well over 100 dollars difference on the same tire at shops withing 10 minutes of each other.
What I hated the most was some of places where they actually have salesmen to try to pitch you the tire. I went to one place that had Goodyears in stock for my vehicle that bragged up the Goodyear compared to a Dunlop that I was considering saying it was far better than the Dunlop another place that had the Dunlop but not the Goodyear was just the opposite saying that it was far better than the Goodyear I was considering. I guess thats what salesmen do but I prefer to just do the research online, there are plenty of comparison charts, reviews, tests etc.
When it was all said and done I ended up ordering the tires online. I did this really as a quest just to see what I could come up with as I have never done so in the past, and now I know that I do not want to play that game again and will probably just order my tires online in the future. I know I should support local but with the price of gas and everything else saving money any way I can just seems to be a good idea.
FYI I ordered the tires from Treaddepot which offers free shipping on the tires. It seemed to be a reputable company and although the actual tire price was a few dollars more than other sites like Tirerack once you factored in shipping it was quite a bit cheaper. I ended up getting Cooper CS4 tires and once I get them mounted locally I will have ended up saving about $100.
Next I will be looking to get new tires for the ST. A friend told me that I will likely get a discount for my next order with this first order so that will make it even better.
I just had a few minutes and thought I would share this experience for any others who may be wondering where to get tires. I did find a consumer reports article about how many more people are begining to buy their tires on line as the price continues to go up and that in most cases it does save you quite a bit of money.
If you read this far I hope you were not too bored and maybe someone got something out of it.
Anyway after visiting 8 different retailers I determined they couldn't even come close to the online prices. Also most of the retailers advertise that they will price match and beat competitors but that was not really the case because each one had some special sale, gift card added (Sears & VIP), rebate, buy 3 get 1 free, etc. They all basically told me the same thing which was they could match the competitors regular price on tires but couldn't price match on special deals like the buy 3 get 1 free, gift card offers, etc. So in reality price matching isn't all its cracked up to be. I played the game where you must bring a printed tire quote in order for them to consider a match and time after time one could not match price to the other for some reason or the other. In many cases they were well over 100 dollars difference on the same tire at shops withing 10 minutes of each other.
What I hated the most was some of places where they actually have salesmen to try to pitch you the tire. I went to one place that had Goodyears in stock for my vehicle that bragged up the Goodyear compared to a Dunlop that I was considering saying it was far better than the Dunlop another place that had the Dunlop but not the Goodyear was just the opposite saying that it was far better than the Goodyear I was considering. I guess thats what salesmen do but I prefer to just do the research online, there are plenty of comparison charts, reviews, tests etc.
When it was all said and done I ended up ordering the tires online. I did this really as a quest just to see what I could come up with as I have never done so in the past, and now I know that I do not want to play that game again and will probably just order my tires online in the future. I know I should support local but with the price of gas and everything else saving money any way I can just seems to be a good idea.
FYI I ordered the tires from Treaddepot which offers free shipping on the tires. It seemed to be a reputable company and although the actual tire price was a few dollars more than other sites like Tirerack once you factored in shipping it was quite a bit cheaper. I ended up getting Cooper CS4 tires and once I get them mounted locally I will have ended up saving about $100.
Next I will be looking to get new tires for the ST. A friend told me that I will likely get a discount for my next order with this first order so that will make it even better.
I just had a few minutes and thought I would share this experience for any others who may be wondering where to get tires. I did find a consumer reports article about how many more people are begining to buy their tires on line as the price continues to go up and that in most cases it does save you quite a bit of money.
If you read this far I hope you were not too bored and maybe someone got something out of it.
