wish said:
Rich,
That may be your experience, but around here it's almost always the opposite. On truck tires Sears has been able to just barely match tirerack for prices, but when it comes to car tires I can usually save around $100 per set (!) by having them shipped here and taking them to be mounted and balanced.
It may have to do with way more truck tires being sold around here than 'performance car' tires causing the local dealers to markup any tire they have to order, but a LOT of my friends have started doing the same thing after shopping around and finding similar results to what I reported.
The convenience factor changes drastically when you only have one vehicle, and that may be enough for some people.
lucky, I can't comment on tire fitment, but am anxious to hear what others have to say as I've been wondering about the 235/75/15 vs 30x9.5 fitment issues on a mostly stock XJ.
Bill
Sears is NO bargain even when their stuff is on sale. When I bought my BFG's I just happened to stop in at BJ's to check on tires for my wifes Oldsmobile, they had the BFG at/ko's for $35 or $38 LESS PER TIRE and even had the sunday sears paper advertisement pasted up next to it. Now thats alot of bucks on 5 tires, paid for the membership which I had to renew anyway....
A few months later I was wandering around Sams while the wife was shopping in the food section and noted that they were now carrying BFG AT/KO, as well as the HT and other SUV tires, they never carried the AT's before that. They had a set of 4, mounted, balanced, roadhazard, out the door for like $425 or thereabouts. Last week when I was in one they had Good Year MT's too, decent price as I remember but I'm not in the MT market.
If you are in a really rural 'no choice' area where all the local tire shops belong to the chamber, knights of columbus, rotary club etc, go to all the meetings and have a 'gentlemans agreement' you are hosed and maybe can benefit from internet but not around here...not after shipping.
I spent between $300 and $700 a week on shipping from suppliers, Antec computer cases [20 antec sonata cases $19 ea shipping cost], mainboards, processors, hard drives, power supplies etc and thats bad enough. Alot of things I won't buy on line, CRT monitors [$23 to ship], larger sized UPS power backups [$20-150 to ship], those I will drive to a warehouse for an hour or two away, couple of months ago that saved me close to $600 in shipping costs for 4 rack mount 2200va APC ups's that weighed about 130lbs ea and 15 cases antec cases up on the safari rack... been bit on that one a month before when I had bought 4 other UPS's and had them shipped to the customer, never again... Now I schedule builds and go to a supply warehouse in NJ and pick the stuff up I need all at once when I can plan that way.
Maybe if I bought in larger volume I might be able to save but then I'd have old stuff hanging around and I try to avoid old stuff...
