watching buyers of expensive replacement tires go into shock

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Originally Posted By: JustinH
Costco and Discount Tire are usually not the best prices.

They're in no danger of going out of business, and both include rebalancing along with rotations.

I was traveling and needed to have my tires rotated. There was a Costco in town and they did the service promptly. Maybe not the best prices, but still a good deal and one less thing to worry about paying for. A lot of places charge $12 just to rebalance a tire.
 
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
The trend of sticking massive wheels on family sedans is silly. Why does a Camry need anything more than a 16in wheel?

Big low profile tires cost a lot of money regardless of what they are mounted on.


Really only needs 14" wheels.
Going back to the 90s Camrys handle like pigs on 14s. The V6 always got 15s and changing over to them on an I 4 made a REAL difference. Besides, one can fit larger front brakes with 15s. I've swapped two over, one to Avalon wheels and one to 15x7 Borbet wheels. Plenty of room with the right offset.
 
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Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
The trend of sticking massive wheels on family sedans is silly. Why does a Camry need anything more than a 16in wheel?

Big low profile tires cost a lot of money regardless of what they are mounted on.


Really only needs 14" wheels.
Going back to the 90s Camrys handle like pigs on 14s. The V6 always got 15s and changing over to them on an I 4 made a REAL difference. Besides, one can fit larger front brakes with 15s. I've swapped two over, one to Avalon wheels and one to 15x7 Borbet wheels. Plenty of room with the right offset.

I get that. However, going even bigger comes with diminishing returns and may even provide a harsher ride than what the average family sedan owner really wants to put up with.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: y_p_w


I do remember when there were fun to drive cars available with small tires where they actually designed for good handling without huge tires or wheels.


I test drove a BMW Bavaria nearly-full-size sedan on 175R14s. Drove fine. And 40 years old.
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I suspect a lot of people confuse a harsh riding car with a "good handling" car too. The manufacturers push the big wheels as a "sporty" feature, but all they really do is make the ride harsher on already mediocre handling cars...and cost a lot to put rubber bands on. The average driver can't tell the difference, they just know they got the car with the big "sporty" wheels.

Bling bling.

The only upside to SLIGHTLY larger wheels (like a 17" over a 16", or 16" over a 15") would be fitting bigger, non-OE brakes.

What looks really silly to me is when you see a donk on 24" or 26" wheels, and you can clearly see the tiny OE MiniDisc rotors. Yep, that's going to work out great in a panic stop.
 
I never thought of a Camry as "sporty", and I drove the old ones with 14's and around town in 25mph zones where normal sedans are driven they drove just fine. I actually thought and still do that the early to mid 90's Camry was a very good car.

Again never saw the need for massive tires to take the car down the road to pick up a 6 pack. All big old wheels do is make the same pothole seem worse.

When I ordered my most recent truck I downsized to 17in from the 20's that they push on everyone.

One of the finest ridding cars ever is the W140 Mercedes and it runs on 16's.
 
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Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
I never thought of a Camry as "sporty", and I drove the old ones with 14's and around town in 25mph zones where normal sedans are driven they drove just fine. I actually thought and still do that the early to mid 90's Camry was a very good car.

A current Camry V6 has more power than my 2004 WRX. I don't think the average grocery getting parent drives in any way close to extracting that kind of power, but it's theoretically there. I can leave it in 2nd at an on-ramp, so I can easily access the sweet spot of the power.

I've always considered the Camry to have a soft ride. My folks have the early 2000s version and it always felt kind of soft. I don't think the 15" wheels were the reason though.
 
Back in the day, a 15" was considered a big passenger car tire and most BMW and Mercedes cars, as well as all minivans came on 14" wheels.
Econoboxes all came on 13" wheels.
Good tires were cheap and widely available.
There was no questionable stuff from China being offered to the unwise and impecunious.
Our Forester is on 215/55/17s.
A set of Pure Contacts came to about eight hundred bucks mounted and balanced.
There were some clearance Kumhos in the same size that were well under sixty bucks each.
Bad reviews?
You betcha.
So, for eight bills, the car has another 60K or so of safe, quiet, comfortable driving, certainly worth the money.
OTOH, if this CUV (CUV=Cute Utility Vehicle in reality?) were on the fifteens that it should have come on, I could have spent three hundred or so dollars less for the same tires.
When we bought the thing, I chuckled about the pretention of having these big meats on a mom's car.
What do I know?
 
Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
The trend of sticking massive wheels on family sedans is silly. Why does a Camry need anything more than a 16in wheel?

Big low profile tires cost a lot of money regardless of what they are mounted on.


Really only needs 14" wheels.
Going back to the 90s Camrys handle like pigs on 14s. The V6 always got 15s and changing over to them on an I 4 made a REAL difference. Besides, one can fit larger front brakes with 15s. I've swapped two over, one to Avalon wheels and one to 15x7 Borbet wheels. Plenty of room with the right offset.

I get that. However, going even bigger comes with diminishing returns and may even provide a harsher ride than what the average family sedan owner really wants to put up with.
Yes, and the break point between function and "looks" may be between 16 and 17. Especially in the frozen north where pot holes murder low profile tires and wheels.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Back in the day, a 15" was considered a big passenger car tire and most BMW and Mercedes cars, as well as all minivans came on 14" wheels.
Econoboxes all came on 13" wheels.
Good tires were cheap and widely available.
There was no questionable stuff from China being offered to the unwise and impecunious.
Our Forester is on 215/55/17s.


My wife's Civic is on 14s. When she bought it, there was probably a decent selection in 185/70R14. These days there's maybe a dozen options - none all that appealing.

While I suppose the 205/55R16 tires for my WRX are still plentiful, I kind of wish stuff like Super Sport came in that size. There's some of the super pricey Bridgestones and some decent summers.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: thr_wedge
I pulled up my receipt, it was $700 OTD.

Yokohama Yk580, 225/60R16. Installed, tpms, road hazard (worth it around me), disposal, tax, was $700 OTD. Tires themselves were $120 per.

Bought Yokohama YK580 235/70-16 for my friend few months ago, had the lower price on DTD and local A/T price matched it. With rebates the OTD was around $425.

I did the homework before go to local A/T to get the tire I like, that way I have the tire I like at the lowest possible price and the services of local A/T store.


DTD is $128/per tire for that size YK580, so that's already $8/more per tire for my size that I bought locally.

That seems like a pretty good price for OTD on that size.

I also included all of my installation costs since that is part of the overall cost of the tire. I see no reason to separate them since I always have to pay install, disposal, etc.

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/tires/yokohama/size/viewProductDetail.do?ra=%2Ftires%2Fyokohama%2Fsize%2FviewProductResults&pc=43313&ar=70&rd=16&cs=235
 
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Originally Posted By: thr_wedge
DTD is $128/per tire for that size YK580, so that's already $8/more per tire for my size that I bought locally.

That seems like a pretty good price for OTD on that size.

I also included all of my installation costs since that is part of the overall cost of the tire. I see no reason to separate them since I always have to pay install, disposal, etc.

When I bought YK580 for my friend DTD had discount for buying 4 tires, I printed the total price and local A/T price matched it (tax included) plus installation. Also, at that time Yokohama had a rebate of around $60-70 for 4 YK580.

I think my friend was lucky that he changed tires at the right time. If he buys those 4 tires now without price match his cost would be $660, so he saved more than $200.

I priced some tires at Costco and Sams Club, their total price were much higher than I can get online.
 
Originally Posted By: krzyss
They do not brake that often, do they?

Krzys


And how big are the wheels on an F1 car... or most rally cars for off road stages...?

Here's a hint... SMALL. As in 13 inch for F1 , and 15 inch for rally cars... and they seem to do some braking...

Huge brakes are not required by any stretch... rigid calipers and thick (or exotic...) rotors are equally effective on most cars...
 
Originally Posted By: geeman789
Originally Posted By: krzyss
They do not brake that often, do they?

Krzys


And how big are the wheels on an F1 car... or most rally cars for off road stages...?

Here's a hint... SMALL. As in 13 inch for F1 , and 15 inch for rally cars... and they seem to do some braking...

Huge brakes are not required by any stretch... rigid calipers and thick (or exotic...) rotors are equally effective on most cars...


F1 cars weight very little though, their brakes probably use exotic materials, and they only need to last through one race.
 
Originally Posted By: krzyss
They do not brake that often, do they?

Krzys


You would be surprised. They actually run a more aggressive brake package at Martinsville than at the road courses. There is less time for cooling in between braking events at "The Paperclip" compared to Sonoma and Watkins Glen.
 
Originally Posted By: geeman789
Originally Posted By: krzyss
They do not brake that often, do they?

Krzys


And how big are the wheels on an F1 car... or most rally cars for off road stages...?

Here's a hint... SMALL. As in 13 inch for F1 , and 15 inch for rally cars... and they seem to do some braking...

Huge brakes are not required by any stretch... rigid calipers and thick (or exotic...) rotors are equally effective on most cars...

Seriously man? F1 tires last some 60 miles. Their brakes have super short life span, they are combination of carbon, Kevlar and ceramic. One rotor on F1 costs around $10,000 and tires even more.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: thr_wedge
DTD is $128/per tire for that size YK580, so that's already $8/more per tire for my size that I bought locally.

That seems like a pretty good price for OTD on that size.

I also included all of my installation costs since that is part of the overall cost of the tire. I see no reason to separate them since I always have to pay install, disposal, etc.

When I bought YK580 for my friend DTD had discount for buying 4 tires, I printed the total price and local A/T price matched it (tax included) plus installation. Also, at that time Yokohama had a rebate of around $60-70 for 4 YK580.

I think my friend was lucky that he changed tires at the right time. If he buys those 4 tires now without price match his cost would be $660, so he saved more than $200.

I priced some tires at Costco and Sams Club, their total price were much higher than I can get online.


Did you include shipping? that HAS to be included.
 
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Originally Posted By: krzyss
They do not brake that often, do they?

Krzys


You would be surprised. They actually run a more aggressive brake package at Martinsville than at the road courses. There is less time for cooling in between braking events at "The Paperclip" compared to Sonoma and Watkins Glen.


Not to mention: they run MUCH faster on the superspeedways than they do on roadcourses!
 
Originally Posted By: chiefsfan1


Did you include shipping? that HAS to be included.


It appears the person you quoted was referencing Discount Tire Direct, which has free shipping on all tires.
 
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