Tire shopping experience yesterday

I buy all my tires at Costco and Discount Tire. I favor Discount as they went WAY out of their way one time to help my wife. Anyhow, if I were you I'd just rotate the tires and wait until spring or summer to replace them. Then go with Costco (or try Discount). jor

My only comment is this: Years ago, someone I trust (a mechanic) told me never to run with one type of tire in the back and another in the front. Either replace all four, or at least replace two with the same brand & model. Then, he send me to his competitor down the road, because he said he couldn't get the tires I needed at as good a price as the other guy.

Whether this mixed tire thing is really true, I have no idea. Others will chime in, I'm sure.

Interesting...what were the 'cheapest tires'? I got Geeze, I can't remember...Remington? for $29 a tire, 185/60-14 for the Mazda. It snowed lightly last night, and they didn't spin very much at all...an 'all season' tire.

Front end alignment included, $160. I passed in the FEA, since the car has been running true and straight. Also, the front tire wear problem does sound like underinflation. Are there any bad habits, pulling/dragging, or anything like that? With Toyotas (and, unfortunatley, with *some* TFT locations) I have them leave it alone.

Luckily in Greenfield there is a guy at a local tire shop that it a MASTER at alignment, 4 wheels for $62, and when you leave, your steering wheel is straight, and the car runs true at 120MPH.

Um...yeah, although I do it on occasion. Depends on how junk the car. On my Grand Voyager, I was running the Daytons that came with it on the front, but the rears were worn and spun me in the snow. Put some decent brand of studded snows on the rear.

But, for an all-season type tire in the snow, the difference can cause skidding and spinning...

My Supra, the Mazda (the absolute CHEAPEST tires I could get...) and obviously the Scion all have matched tires.

And, I'm kicking myself. I paid $29 for the cheapest tire I could get, and

10 days later Sears was selling Goodyear Weathermasters for $5 more a tire... UGH!

Since I'm picky, and live in a place where snow makes the roads bizarre at times, I suspect he, too was being picky. No mixing. Period. In any case, he stood to make no money on his recommendation, since he sent me elsewhere. He also did this when I needed a muffler, since Toyota offered a longer warranty than his supplier.

Hi,

In response to your question, the cheapest tires they were offering at Town Fair Tire were "Gooxxxxx" or something (no, not Goodyear!). Or maybe it was "Hangook?" I think it was Hangook actually. Never heard of that brand before.

No, no bad habits. Tracks straight at 75 mph, cruises great.

I got an alignment once at Pep Boys for my '89 Corolla SR5. I bought the car used and tires looked fine and the car tracked straight. About

10 months later a tire suddenly went flat (in inner-city New Haven, CT no less). Pulled off the tire and saw that the inner edge had worn out very prematurely, so the alignment was obviously bad. After getting new tires I went to Pep Boys since they were running an alignment special (I know, BAD move to go there). The guy aligning my car was more interested in watching the other "mechanic" there do burnouts in the parking lot in his Mustang 5.0 than concentrating on my car. Got the car back, needed to hold the steering wheel 15 degrees to the left for the car to track straight. They told me I needed to find a mechanic with a "steering wheel puller" to pull and center the steering wheel, as that's not part of an alignment. Being young and ignorant I went to my mechanic, who told me that was nonsense. So, I went back to Pep Boys, talked to the manager, he drove my car around with me in it, and told me that the alignment was the best they could get it. When I told the manager that his mechanics are doing burnouts in the parking lot instead of concentrating on doing a decent job, he told me "that's nonsense, the mechanics are over 30 years old," and the guys working there also all told me that nobody was doing burnouts outside the service bay. I thought about just going elsewhere and paying for another alignment altogether, but then felt bad about wasting the $$$ on the first useless alignment, so ended up going to another Pep Boys location where they were nice and did the job right (no extra charge of course).

Since then the Corolla has gotten 3 alignments (usually after front end work) at competent shops and there have never been any strange issues like happened at Pep Boys.

John

Without actually seeing the tires firsthand, it is difficult to assess the actual condition of the tires and the cause of the front tire wear. Under-inflated tires will wear the outsides of the tread faster than the center of the tread.

I'd say that # 2, 3, and 4 gave you honest answers. Whichever place you choose, I recommend that you get a 4 wheel alignment performed when the tires are installed so that you will not have to guess whether everything is right or not with the new tires.

Keep an eye on tire pressure, try to keep them about 4 or 5 psi over the automaker's recommended tire pressure to improve tire life and fuel economy. If the vehicle is going to be parked for long periods, try to park in the shade, and while you are at Costco, get some tire protectant like ArmorAll. I do not recommend using rubber/plastic protectant inside the car because it tends to fog up the inside of the windows. Use a spray furniture polish like Pledge instead on the interior.

I believe in sticking to brand names when buying tires.

Pulling the steering wheel to straighten it after an alignment is the lazy tech's way, and IMO, a sure sign of incompetence, especially if they say that is the only way" to straighten the steering wheel. It is possible for the vehicle to be out of alignment without any sensation of it being out of alignment, so the lack of "bad habits" is not a good indication. The best indication is to closely monitor tire wear to make sure they wear evenly.

I once had to do a survey of at least 10 non-Toyota vehicles and note the vehicle's year, make, model, and brand and model of tires installed. I had an "opportunity" to speak with a Mass State Police officer, and since there were 4 Crown Victorias sitting on the side of the road, I told him about my assignment and asked if it would be OK to check out the tires. He agreed, and I was very surprised to find that the cars had mix and match tires with different brands on each corner, and that most of them were worn unevenly - a sign of the car being out of alignment. With the potential for very high speed driving that these cars would see, I would have expected them to have matched sets in good condition.

I see what you mean. No - the only "mixing" I've ever heard of being (sometimes) acceptable was matched pair in back, matched pair in front. I should've been more clear about that. Nobody suggested matched pair on the right, different matched pair on the left.

As far as objective standards for moral behavior, I don't think there are any. And yet, most humans seem to have a natural affinity for ideas like not killing people for no reason.

Hankook is Korean, and AFAIK makes good tires. But I wouldn't jump on it quite yet unless you have spare money to burn - If the front tires aren't totally gone at the edges I'd rotate the tires you have front to rear, and flip the tires with outer edge wear so it's on the inside edge that doesn't get the cornering loads.

Six years will get you some dry-rot and/or 'weather checking', but it shouldn't be bad enough to cause structural failure - but you have to watch them. Costco runs the "Buy 4 tires" specials every six months or so, perhaps they'll be ready by then.

Boy, is it ever nonsense... Sure sign of an inexperienced alignment mechanic. To fix that, they just have to unlock the steering relay rod adjusters and match turns on each side - that gets the steering wheel centered the right way.

If you remove the steering wheel and re-position it on the shaft that only gets the wheel centered - the steering gear is now off center. Meaning you can make sharper left turns than right (or vice versa depending on which way they went) and the wheels will rub on the body turning left if they don't hit the stops first.

Or you do something really exciting like over-stretch the brake hose on one side and cause a braking failure, or overstretch the clockspring cable in the column and kill the airbags and horn...

That's the time to tell PB Corporate that they have a store with the blind leading the blind.

Proving my point - Alignments aren't rocket science, you just have to understand the what how and why of the work you are doing. Any good mechanic could do them, it's the cost and service bay space for the rack and equipment, and the parts you need to stock.

You basically have to keep the machinery busy all day and have one mechanic dedicated to primarily alignment and suspension work to make the investment pay off. Otherwise you have to charge too much for other work in order to make payments on a machine sitting unused.

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It's probably true to a certain extent, but side-to-side mix is much worse than front-to-back mix. I've driven both! (spare tires)

With FWD cars, the front tires wear much more quickly than the back. So you can save a lot of money on tire rotation expenses by buying just two new tires for the front, and moving the old ones to the rear. With Michelin tires rated for 70-90000 miles, you'll only have to mess with your tires every 60000 miles or so. This might not be recommended by mechanics, but provides excellent traction and handling, because your best tires are always where they're needed most.

My first experience with Hankook was a set of winter tires for the Hachiroku. As much as I tried not to drive it in the winter, somethines it couldn't be avoided, and it was a HORRIBLE car in the snow!

I have Hankooks on the Supra. I replaced a set of Yokohamas with them. With the roof off, the car is as quiet as a mouse, handles well and gets decent mileage. After one whole summer, the tires are hardly worn at all! They're supposedly all-season (K106) but they sure are a more than adequate tire for my kind of driving! And at $75 a piece, a relative bargain!

I bought my first set of Hankooks in 1988...

I like the name better than Kumho!!

(That was when Mike Dukakis had run the state out of money, Ray...!)

A few years ago in my area, a cop was killed in a high speed chase accident. Mismatched tires on the cruiser became a legal hot potato for the department and the shop that did their tire work.

This is how I do it on the Sienna. It has worked out well for 188K+ miles. Tomes

Sounds like a plan, but does it affect handling at all?

I'm going to be needing tires myself soon. How are the Michelins for ride? I have an 04 Sienna.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Unbelievable they haven't re-translated their corporate name yet.