Tires

So, I just got finished buying tires for my truck.

Tires sales are in its own little world. But when you need tires, you gotta have them--so price fixing is the norm. My tires had plugs, slow leaks, gashes and extreme wear... but I was holding out till I saw a great sale with the type of tire I need.

My wife e-mailed me earlier today and told me about Obama's newest international doing, apparently he has taken a little time off from snubbing England to impose a new tariff on tires, 35% on all tires from Our Supplier (China). So, my normal "wait till I can steal it" technique is out the door, because as soon as the chains realize that their least expensive tires are going to be 35% more, they are going to tack on their additional profit and pass the prices on down the line. But I was still confident that I could get a deal.

Problem is, it's for my truck, and they take nice big tires and there is simply no way to get those for $25 apiece like I usually got on my Toyota Tercel. The best price I could find was $65 apiece (youch!) but if I had gone to the first place that crossed my mind I would only be able to get used tires for that price.

So, after several calls, I find that $110 per tire is about the norm. But I didn't stop there, I went online, where I found tires for about $90 apiece (including tax and shipping); but then I would need to get them balanced and put on. I have a place that will do this for $10 a tire, but I didn't want to order online and have to wait for a month till they arrived. I found a place nearby that had some good ones for $85 a tire, and I just about gave up, but I called some more.

Finally I found a place that had a tire sale going on, and after all the taxes and balancing, it came to $330.40--which I normally would have scoffed at, but since a killer deal will soon be that price or worse in the very near future, and the fact that I had a tire constantly losing air, it became the right time to buy.

There is only one way to get a great deal on tires: with a phone, a phonebook, and pen and paper. Compare away, as long as you know what is written on your tires, you can compare prices from 20 or more tire places, and chances are one of them is going to be having a sale on the tires you need.

Once you have found the price you want, you can go back and call the places with the better quality tires; for instance, if you know a shop that only uses Goodyear or Goodyear off brand (manufactured by Goodyear with a different brand name) you can call them back and have them match your lowest price. That way you get the quality you want, and the price you want. Just remember to get over there quick (as in now folks!) and you have scored.

Wal-Mart will match prices on the same brands that they carry if they know about the sale, so if you're in a pinch, go to wally-world, they will take care of you for very close to the best price about 80% of the time.

With my vehicle, there is pretty much no way that the transmission is going to last for more than 60K miles, so getting good quality tires really doesn't figure into things all that much, and the place I finally landed on was literally walking distance from where I was located (I just walked back).

So, if the Obama Tire Tariff has you thinking that it's Tire Time, with these tips you can get a great deal.