Tire Buying Made Simple

Firestone tire on Project INFINITI

Yes, we can reveal how to make tire buying "simple," but we don't recommend it, and your mileage may vary! Let's look at what we'll call the Tire Purchase Method (TPM) #1: 

The simple way to buy tires is to just drive into your nearest Whatever Is Close To Your House Tire Store (there's one near you!) and ask them to put new tires on your car, ideally one on each corner. Pay them whatever they ask, and hey, it's just that simple! You drive away with new tires, and YOU ARE DONE!

If you follow TPM #1, the odds are that you'll get one of two kinds of tires:  

    1) You might get a good tire at a good price!

    2)  Or you might not! 

This startling conclusion at the NMS Skunk Works of Big Brains in South Carolina (NMSSKWBBSC.) You can buy a t-shirt with that name on it, but they only come in extra large to fit all the letters on the back. That leads to a lot of opinions on what makes a good tire, and what makes a good price. 

A red car. With at least 1 black tire. On a blue lift. 

My gut feeling is that the average person pretty much goes with this simple method, with the added gut feeling that they also buy the cheapest tire available. Hey, no problem, I can't tell you how to budget your money, because if I did I'd include a little item called "give money to people with race cars" part of your budget that you may not like! Oh make no mistake, the "People With Race Cars" (People With Race Cars is Trademarked 2025 by NMS-Racing.Net) would LOVE it, but there's always two kinds of people in the world. 

So, we have a lot of people driving around on the cheapest tire, and that works, and that makes for a very simple blog post. But wait, there's more!

Michelin tire on a Czinger. Michelins are considered good tires, and you'd expect good tires on a car worth over a million bucks. 

Another very simple way to buy tires leaps out at you if you move on to Tire Purchase Method #2. 

With this method, you decide that you want to do a little more research and learn more about tires and prices before you buy. To do this, scientists suggest using what they call "the Internet" to find a local or a mail order tire shop. Once you do that, you might want to look at different brands, different prices, and make sure you're looking at the right size tires that fit your vehicle...BUT... one thing to look out for, is that a lot of tire shops have a little button or feature on their website that says something like "SCHEDULE NEW TIRES HERE." They're probably getting a lot of customers this way, because if you're shopping for tires it might be because you need them NOW, as in "I just had a flat tire and have to get to work/school NOW!" 

Actually this is a very creative and great method for a shop to start to close the deal, kind of like a salesman. They don't settle for you saying "yeah I'm thinking about tires" and try to nail it down and lead you down the purchase path of "How much do you want to pay? When do you need them? I have an opening for service this afternoon how about Two O'clock?" and BAM you've got an appointment and are spending money. I love spending money and buying car parts too, but I also love SAVING money while buying car parts. So...

The NMS recommendation is to go with the research the Internet part of TPM #2, and find a good price. I was working my way through method #2 in November and found some Black Friday sales at a national chain that was BUY 2, GET 2 FREE. My math may not be exact, but that comes out to about half off! Oh but wait, there was a catch in the small print. You also had to pay $30 per tire for installation, and tax, and tire disposal fee, and who knows how many other fees. Bottom line, once I looked into this one, it wasn't the bargain that it first seemed to be. 

Red Car. Black Tire. Orange jack stand. 

A similar deal I found on line was at a large store that rhymes with Mal-Wart that has a name brand tire made just for them, at pretty much the same price as the BUY 2 GET 2 FREE deal! Those were the two lowest priced sets of tires I could find that were also brands I have heard of before. Yes, there are cheaper tires out there, and they'll fit the car and roll around and probably work fine, but with tires and safety the NMSSKWBBSC suggests you stick with brand name tires if you can afford it. Another thing I learned here is that a famous US tire company that rhymes with Food Gear makes a specific tire for the store that rhymes with Mal-Wart, so that's what I bought. 

The third lowest price I found was from an online tire seller that I've used a lot, but these tires were a brand I've never heard of, and even being a cheap import still didn't beat the price on the first two deals that I found. Oh well, it was free to do the research and look around. 

The bottom line is that there are plenty of ways to buy tires, like buying cereal, or lunch, but with tires you're buying the only part of your car that touches the road as you move along, so your safety is counting on them a little more than what kind of Super Crunchy Yummy Flakes cereal you eat for breakfast.