On the search for new tires for mercury grand marquis

[z71bill]

Yea-then after you wait hours (at Walmart) for them to be installed you can then post the obligatory gripe thread on this forum.

Last few sets of tires I found the lowest price then had Discount Tire match it.

NTB & Walmart - you don’t need to even talk with anyone-DT web site allows you to submit a price match request takes about 30 minutes.

Local DT does a great job.

 

[camrydriver111]

Robot or human?

$70 each + install at WM.

More info from Discount Tire

Discount Tire Direct now partners with Tire Rack

Discount Tire Direct is retiring, but check out our partners at Tire Rack! With tires and wheels for virtually every vehicle make and model, Tire Rack is your new source for the best prices and selection for online and mail-order purchases.

www.discounttiredirect.com

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Based and China pilled

 

[z71bill]

Based and China pilled

They are manufactured by the largest Chinese Tire company, in a modern state of the art facility.

They have won awards from the US department of transportation, been in business for 26 years and get good reviews from customers.

I have some tread left on the tires on my old Tahoe - Westlake tires would save me a lot of $$ over the Michelins I have on now - and the last three sets of Michelins I purchased have been a big disappointment.



If you don't buy stuff from China - what device are you using to post on BITOG?

 

[tiger862]

Not sure, going to give it a good try. I've succeeded in doing better driving front end alignments with crude alignment equipment on my garage floor than the yahoos with computerized alignment equipment have been able to achieve for me. If I can achieve that, pretty sure I can achieve decently balanced tires with the bubble balancer.

I used a bubble balancer at a Gulf station for years before computerized balancers came out. The bubble balancer was tricky, however can't get a better balance. Moved back home and watched balancers evolve however I have thought about the tire equipment and it's to expensive for me.

 

[ChrisMU]

I had Travelstar UN106 thin whitewalls on my 2000 Town Car in that size. They were decent tires.

 

[camrydriver111]

They are manufactured by the largest Chinese Tire company, in a modern state of the art facility.

They have won awards from the US department of transportation, been in business for 26 years and get good reviews from customers.

I have some tread left on the tires on my old Tahoe - Westlake tires would save me a lot of $$ over the Michelins I have on now - and the last three sets of Michelins I purchased have been a big disappointment.



If you don't buy stuff from China - what device are you using to post on BITOG?

Michelin is not a fair comparison.

Westlake are the bottom of the barrel and always score the lowest when tested against other tires including more budget oriented brands.

Kumho is usually made in China as well, but it is a big upgrade over Westlake, for around the same price.

The only reason to buy these or other off brand Chinese tires is if you want the absolute cheapest and don't care about anything else.

 

[z71bill]

Michelin is not a fair comparison.

Westlake are the bottom of the barrel and always score the lowest when tested against other tires including more budget oriented brands.

Kumho is usually made in China as well, but it is a big upgrade over Westlake, for around the same price.

The only reason to buy these or other off brand Chinese tires is if you want the absolute cheapest and don't care about anything else.

Size for my Tahoe is 265 65 18, West Lake is rated AA same as Michelin - and they cost about 1/2.

I had a few sets of Kumho - on a Mazda3 and an Acura TL - they did OK - an improvement over the OEM.
Kumho size 265 65 18 at Walmart are $210 + install - Westlake are $130.

61% more is not about the same price.

 

[FordFETruck]

Just wanted to give an update on what I wound up with. Initially I ordered those General Altimax RT45's that were linked above and after spending a good while dealing with Walmart and their order screw up I cancelled and returned them since they showed up 1 by 1. I did keep 1 of those and bought a full size steel wheel and made a full size spare out of it. I did wind up buying those Summit Ultramax A/S tires and I mounted and balanced them today and I am really surprised with them honestly. The car has never driven so straight and the ride and noise is way better than the old tires were even when new and the steering response is better as well. As far as my static bubble balance job it seems pretty good. 1 tire balanced perfect with no weight at all, 2 of them balanced fine with the weights from the old tires and the last one balanced in the same spot with a little less weight than what it had. It's as smooth as it ever was with the old tires that were spin balanced by discount tire. Nice and smooth up to 70, a little bit of shake at 75 but nothing bad, it wasn't a good stretch of highway either.

The General for the spare, glad I don't have to worry about relying on a 25 year old donut spare anymore.

 

[someonesomewhere]

Just wanted to give an update on what I wound up with. Initially I ordered those General Altimax RT45's that were linked above and after spending a good while dealing with Walmart and their order screw up I cancelled and returned them since they showed up 1 by 1. I did keep 1 of those and bought a full size steel wheel and made a full size spare out of it. I did wind up buying those Summit Ultramax A/S tires and I mounted and balanced them today and I am really surprised with them honestly. The car has never driven so straight and the ride and noise is way better than the old tires were even when new and the steering response is better as well. As far as my static bubble balance job it seems pretty good. 1 tire balanced perfect with no weight at all, 2 of them balanced fine with the weights from the old tires and the last one balanced in the same spot with a little less weight than what it had. It's as smooth as it ever was with the old tires that were spin balanced by discount tire. Nice and smooth up to 70, a little bit of shake at 75 but nothing bad, it wasn't a good stretch of highway either.

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The General for the spare, glad I don't have to worry about relying on a 25 year old donut spare anymore.

Give us an update after you put some miles on them. Curious as to how well they hold up/maintain their good attributes (wet traction, etc).

Will be tire shopping for the wife's car soon, though I am a 'don't compromise on tire quality/buy the best you can afford' kinda guy. Interested and following.

 

[FordFETruck]

Give us an update after you put some miles on them. Curious as to how well they hold up/maintain their good attributes (wet traction, etc).

Will be tire shopping for the wife's car soon, though I am a 'don't compromise on tire quality/buy the best you can afford' kinda guy. Interested and following.

Yeah, I'll post an update after a while. I haven't driven them in the rain yet, but I did test the dry traction and it was excellent. Before if I took off from a stop going around a corner I could light both the tires up no problem if I wanted to, I basically floored it around a big corner, and it took right off didn't even chirp the tires. Another thing, the car doesn't really follow the ruts in the road anymore. It was always pretty bad for that no matter how I had my alignment settings. Leaving work there are a couple of areas where the road is just unbelievably rutted to the point some low cars bottom out on the high spots in the middle from all the semi trucks rolling through there and every car I drive through there is all over the road in that area especially braking. Didn't even hardly notice those at all last night rolling through there with the new tires so that's a pleasant surprise. For $69 a tire plus tax they're way nicer performing new than I expected them to be.