How To Find Cheap Tires
If you wish to stretch your budget on your next set of tires you’ve got to do a little analysis before you can drive into the local tire store. Otherwise you will get stuck in that familiar pattern and end up paying more than you really wanted. You know the way it goes. You get to the front counter, someone shows you some tires, you pick the cheaper ones, they don’t keep these things available, you pick the next cheapest, then the salesman points out how this *really good* tire is barely a few dollars more, on special. You start feeling peer pressure with there being people in line behind you therefore you just say “OK” and find your wallet and start the entire process of convincing yourself that you really did get a good deal.
Ask me how I know.
If you wish to avoid the usual, in order to avoid spending almost $700 on a set of tires for a little sub-compact, you’ll need to be ready and you must give yourself time. I love to use Discount Tire as it is convenient and they really do have good service. I have gotten many flats fixed or repaired in the past, and air pressure, rotation and balancing are all included if you get your tires from their store. And they usually give a decent discount when you bring in a set of tires that may have worn down ahead of their normal warranty numbers. And yet I really did spend nearly $700 for my last set of tires, which will have maybe 500 miles on them when I sell the car this month. No, I didn’t do my research, did I?
Your first problem here is the vast amount of tires that are available. Dozens of manufacturers and brand names are out there, and each one of these has a bewildering array of sizes and types and tread patterns. The easiest choice is whether to buy a passenger car or truck tire. Once you are past that, you need to think about the weather where you live. Dry weather and wet weather have different needs, but all tires need to be able to handle water on the road. The farther north you live, the more you need to consider all-weather or winter tires. And if this vehicle regularly goes off of the pavement, that’s another entire category of tires. After that, most of the choices are marketing hype and prices and mileage warranties.
A good place to start is Consumer Reports. They do unbiased testing on tires. You will have to pay, but you can purchase an online subscription and keep it for 30 days for under $10, well worth it to help you narrow down your choice for cheap tires. As recently as October of 2010 Consumer Reports showed that even a good ultrahigh performance tire could be found for around $100. They also noted that prices differed from outlet to outlet and, seemingly, week to week.