So....I've been mailordering my tires for over 20 yrs from either TireRack or DiscountTireDirect. Anybody find any places with better pricing than those for max perf tires such as StarSpecs? And for R-comps?

Also, I'd like to limit the replies to mailorder or national chains only, as that would be more useful to all of us around the country.

(or, if you got a hookup in SoCal, that's OK. )

 

I get my tires from Auto Innovations(local shop), the pricing after all is said and done isn't that bad.
The only time I get tires from tire rack is when they have closeouts.

 

I do find it's worth calling the local places if you're not also buying wheels. Tire places tend to charge close to $100 to mount and balance the tires, but if you buy tires from them mounting and balancing is free. Once you take that into account, I can usually find a place locally that's a little cheaper than tire rack.

 

^ Exactly what he said.

Plus, it's nice to build up a relationship with a local business for those pressing times. Sent you a PM.

 

Here is what I do, I've done it many times and it has worked every time.

1) Go to tirerack.com and see what the price, and what shipping is. There won't be any tax unless you're in IN

2) Go to a local Discount Tire store, and ask them to price match tirerack.com. They will say that they have to add in the cost of shipping in order to price match an online retailer. Agree with them, but say that since there is no tax online, if they will have to deduct that cost.

3) They will agree. The no-tax basically offsets the cost of shipping, and you get the tires for the same price that you would have gotten them for from tirerack. This way, you get the tires for cheap, and you can support a local store near you.

 

Discounttiredirect always comes in the lowest of all of them for me primarily cause they ship for free. They always beat tire rack by fifty bucks and the local places dont carry star specs and rs3s.

 

 

Agreed, I just moved out to Dallas from NYC. I use to have all my hookups b/c my friends owned a repair shops and body shops in NJ. Now I'm trying to build a relationship with a bodyshop and repair shop. Anyone know any good ones near Irving, TX? Let me know. Refferals always seems to give shop owners a sence of being reputable.

 

Well, here's what I did. First of all, DiscountTireDirect (the mailorder division of America's Tire and Discount Tire), doesn't really carry any StarSpecs or RS3's anymore at all. The Yok AD08 they do carry, but surprisingly, they were about $30 more than TireRack. And for a few others I just priced out (P-Zero's and Super Sports), they were more expensive as well.

I was also surprised, because their OTD price was always $5-20 less than TireRack in the past.

I went down to my local (well, actually psychoazn's local) America's Tire, and they matched the price of TireRack for both the StarSpec and RS3. And TireRack has both types within a few bucks of each other. So, in other words, they've upped the price of RS3's, just like they did gradually with StarSpecs. Plus about $78 mount and balance with lifetime rotation, balance and flat repair. You can't beat that. I chose the RS3's for the first time.

I've had several sets of StarSpecs in the past, but with the amount of daily driving I do, I've found that when I get down to about 4/32nds, the compound seems to get rock hard grip drops off. I guess my daily driving of about 25,000mi/yr heat cycles them out.

 

when i lived in LA, i always got great prices from city tire online
http://www.citytireonline.com/