View Full Version : Wow..........expensive tires
We bought DD a used 2007 Ford Five Hundred a couple years ago. It was a good price, low mileage, and good safety ratings. Unfortunately, the mpg is low (20 at best).
She needed new tires and decided that she would save until maybe November to buy new ones. Well, one of her tires got a tear in the sidewall and couldn't be fixed. So she went to a place she usually goes for car stuff (a national auto/tire chain) and they put on 2 new ties. Well, the total was $411.00.........for 2 tires! I thought this was a bit outrageous, but that included tax, and a $42 "protection package" for lifetime tire rotation and replacement if they are damaged. But.........isn't that still really high?
My Honda guy explained to me that the size makes a real difference, especially if there aren't many of those tires out there.
What do you think? Essentially, she'll pay about $825 for 4 tires. Seems sort of crazy to me. I think the last time I got tires for my Honda Van it was more like $400.
Geez. Its expensive to live!
tirerack.com is a great source of tires, and comparison prices. I get all my tires from them, have them drop-shipped to a local shop that mounts and balances them. The $42 "protection package" is a bit of a scam IMO. Subtract that, and tax, and she paid $342-ish. Figure $20/tire for mounting/balancing, so $302. $151/tire. That doesn't look too unreasonable, if the tires are reasonable ones.
Looking at TireRack's offerings for 2007 Ford Five Hundreds, I see tires ranging from $106 to over $200. Plus installation. So it doesn't sound like DD got hugely ripped off. That said, TireRack offers 28 different tires for that car (including winter tires) and I know TR does not carry every brand.
So, yeah, depending on the tires she got, she probably did OK. It's just an expensive horse to shoe....
Yeah, I'm starting to think its okay, after doing alot of googling. They are Pirelli tires, which I think are pretty good. I had never heard of them before.
It wiped out her savings though. She was so proud of saving some money. Before this happened, I just praised her for saving, but I was silently thinking "Oh man, that's going to go sooooo fast if anything in your car needs fixed!" A few days ago, my window wouldn't go up. I got it fixed today for almost $300. Too bad it didn't get stuck in the closed position........I would have just lived with it, since it was on the passenger side and nobody sits there.
Thanks Bae and Steve.
There was an episode of planet money a few months ago talking about why tires have gotten so expensive. If I recall correctly (I don't own a car and have never bought tires so I had no frame of reference and the episode just kind of washed past me as I was on the train to work...) it had to do with tarriffs and international trade disagreements with korea or china and a failed attempt to save American jobs? (failed in that it actually only saved a thousand jobs or so while costing all Americans some billions per year paying for the more expensive tires.)
They also talked about companies that actually rent tires to people who don't have the money or access to credit to be able to buy them outright. Sounded similar to the rent to own furniture stores where people end up paying a rediculous amount of money to buy something in installments.
It's all relative. The tires on the Veyron are $10,000 a piece. I like Top Gear but that was a hard segment to relate to.
SteveinMN
9-24-13, 10:00pm
There was an episode of planet money a few months ago talking about why tires have gotten so expensive. If I recall correctly (I don't own a car and have never bought tires so I had no frame of reference and the episode just kind of washed past me as I was on the train to work...) it had to do with tarriffs and international trade disagreements with korea or china and a failed attempt to save American jobs? (failed in that it actually only saved a thousand jobs or so while costing all Americans some billions per year paying for the more expensive tires.)
There are so many tires coming into the U.S. from China these days (usually the low-end private-label tires at chains and lesser-known brands); even some well-known name brands have factories in China. You really need to look at the actual tire to verify where it's manufactured.
But it's more than that. Tires in general have become bigger. Not long ago, it was common to find 13" tires on subcompacts. Now, even the cheapest car sold in America rides on 15" wheels. That Five Hundred of your daughter's starts at 18". And even bigger is not that hard to find -- the Chevy Camaro take 20" tires. That's a lot more material in each tire. There also are more regulations around the materials in tires. Some tire manufacturers have turned to more-benign ingredients like orange oil to replace some of the dinosaur oil usually used in tires. And tires last much longer these days. Our parents and grandparents used to light a candle and offer thanks for a tire that reached 20,000 miles. Now people are ticked if they don't get 60,000 miles or more from a set.
Not that there isn't some politics involved; I don't doubt that. But about the only thing tires these days have in common with tires from 20 years ago is that they're still black.
Sure wish the automobile had never been invented.
I've been into recycling for about 40 years now. I lived in a college town long ago that was progressive, and actually had a recycling program.
Then, when we moved into this house about 32 years ago, we found about 40 tires in the back of the property. I looked all over for tire recycling and it just wasn't out there.
So we had to throw them out. Shortly after that, they started to recycle them. I always felt bad about injecting those into the earth. :(
At least they're being recycled now. I have about 30 more that have been dumped on the property. It costs at least $3/tire to take them anywhere. Had someone who wanted them all, but never showed up.
They're still there until we can somehow recycle them for cheaper.
Sorry to get a little off topic..........
You can take those old tires, use a razor knife to cut the sidewalls out, stick the sidewalls and tread in trash bags one or two tires at a time, and put them in the trash dumpster, right along with any other garbage. It's legal, here. Or, you can cut 'em, and take them all to the landfill in just one pickup load. On the op's topic: I bought a nearly-new set of department-store 13" tires off a wrecked Neon. Price $120. They were identical, same brand & size, etc., except that two were Made in USA, and two in Chile. If you want readily-available, less-expensive tires, the best strategy is driving cars with either 14" or 15" wheels. The best deal generally seems to be usa-made Coopers via EBay. Tell 'em Packy sent ya.
You can take those old tires, use a razor knife to cut the sidewalls out, stick the sidewalls and tread in trash bags one or two tires at a time, and put them in the trash dumpster, right along with any other garbage. It's legal, here. Or, you can cut 'em, and take them all to the landfill in just one pickup load. On the op's topic: I bought a nearly-new set of department-store 13" tires off a wrecked Neon. They were identical, same brand & size, etc., except that two were Made in USA, and two in Chile. If you want readily-available, less-expensive tires, the best strategy is driving cars with either 14" or 15" wheels. The best deal generally seems to be usa-made Coopers via EBay. Tell 'em Packy sent ya.
Gee Packy.........I would never put something in the trash that was recyclable. .......especially something as un-biodegradable as tires. :(
Yeah but; so if they are not biodegradeable in a landfill, just where are they going to be biodegradable? Much, maybe most, of what goes into landfills does not break down due to biological processes, anyway. Uses for old tires have been explored, mainly by burning to recover the energy locked in them. But, they are still limited. They don't "compost" old tires, either. So, if you live where practical recycling alternatives are not readily available, then dispose of them using approximately the same method many of them are by approved tire-disposal companies. That is-- cut them up(going around the outer edge of the sidewall on both sides) with a good sharp utility knife, and dumpster them. This will cost you much less than a round trip to a tire shop & $3+ each.
I've got the US tariff code open in front of me and new radial tires have a duty of 4% of the commercial value. However, from China, the duty is 25% - this is something temporary, but the tariff schedule doesn't say for how long. The higher duty is valid on tires from Japan, too.
I researched for days for tires on my 2012 sfe focus. The stock tires that came with it were about 35,000 mile tires. They helped with the great mpg I was getting 40-42 mpg. I needed 60,000 mile tires as I am driving so much. I also wanted good traction for snow driving. The Eco tires I wanted, I was advised "do you want 2-3 more mpg or do you want to go in the ditch?" Eco tires had less grip on the pavement bringing on the higher mpg. So I went with higher traction, around $800 out the door with the extras. I did drop mpg, now 20,000 miles later my mpg has gone up 1-2mpg as the tires wear. I learned more then I wanted about tires.
Husband's toy car tires are on order now for $564 each, :(
I went to the U-Pull-it Wreckin' Yard today, and in blazing heat and smothering humidity, pulled a set of the renowned gt40p 5.0 heads off of a 97 Ford Explorer. The 5.0 in those was really beefed up to pull a 4500lb SUV. Should have gotten the whole engine, since it showed very little wear for its' age. It was a 50% off day, so they were about $50. I was rummaging through the yet-to-be-racked-and-priced tire pile, and found two very nice Kumho(Korea)205-65-r15's tires, which cost me $40 for the pair.. Tires were excluded from half price, unless they were still on the car.
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