I just checked out Costo's and Walmart's prices on tires, and I was not impressed. What is the attraction? Any local tire shop will meet or beat the kind of prices I saw at Costco.

Tire shops negotiate on price, and are happy to do so. I have not paid full price on a new set of tires in years.

Will Costco swap out your tires if you do not like them? My shop will. They've done it twice for me, and with a smile and a thank you.

Tire shops are not guaranteed to be perfect, but if you find a good one, and build a relationship, you will get great prices, and you will find the experience less impersonal, IMO.

Granted, you cannot buy baby formula or cereal while waiting for your car to be serviced, but that's a small price to pay for more specialized service, IMO.

My girlfriend buys gas at Costco. It's inconvenient and costs the same as the gas station that is closer to our house. I still don't get it, but she still prefers to go out of her way to buy at Costco.

 

[QUOTE=martinb;3659919]Only under certain circumstances. I could come up with a litany of other circumstances where the front would break away first. And besides, I had plenty of tread left on the rears. Plus, what the hell is rain? (I live in California.)

QUOTE]

I take it you were not around in December?

Rained like crazy for a few weeks straight...

 

hmm.. You're local Costco is screwing you then.. We bought my wife some tires from there over the summer that were about to go up in price in their system 100 dollars per tire and the price we paid was at LEAST 80 bucks a tire less than Tirerack.. Yes, I could have gone to a local place around me and tried to negotiate a price but what would have been the point, it was just as easy to get them there at Costco since I was already there and they could do install them that minute...

Also, Costco gas in my area is ALWAYS 10 cents or more cheaper than any station around it..

 

It really depends on your area.

In my area costco gas is 15 or more cents per gallon cheaper on all grades from the most competitive prices you can find.

Tires are competitive in prices vs tirerack but can vary depending on cost of shipping and rates on mounting and balancing, tire disposal, hazzard care, etc.

Anytime I hear a $80 price difference I think it could be due to a closeout price or not comparing the exact same tire, sometimes an H speed rated tire vs V or W rated tire with the same name.

I recently bought a set of runflats from Costco and it was very competitive on the total price, also took advantage of $30 off for installation and $80 off for a set of four tires.

 

I used to be a tire shop manager for Costco years ago, trust me that you need to log a formal complaint about what you had to go through. There is NO reason that you should have had to come back a second time and go through what you did to get the tires you ordered installed. The rim v. tire issue should have been figured out when you first ordered them so that all that had to be done was the install when they came in. Unless you described your issue in detail with the assistant store manager while going through the return process then nothing will happen further. Log a formal complaint with both the store and the national site, this must be done so that the computer error is corrected and others do not go through what you did. Although despite the computer error the manager should have checked and confirmed that your rim would not actually work before turning you away.

On the subject of Costco v other shops. Both have their pros and cons and some other shops can be cheaper, however the convenience of dropping your car off for installs or even just rotating and balancing while you shop inside is worth every penny to me (despite the obvious bias of being a former employee).

 

Oh and on the subject of new on front or rear axle when only replacing two tires. In my honest opinion it depends on the type of driving and conditions. Like snow for example, in FWD you need the newer tires with better tread to even get started in the snow and i also don't think it matters in the short mini's as they aren't that long and are super light in the rear so it's hard to get the rear end to break free enough to really fishtail. I have an 09 R56 JCW and if the rear end breaks free it's only in the snow and it's only because i'm making it do that by pulling the e-brake to do donuts.

 

Our gas is cheaper at Costco, but I don't know if it makes up for the membership fee.

I once shopped at an NTB in Wilmington DE and one of the techs spent an inordinate amount of time talking to me about tires for my jeep. He could have sold me some really expensive tires, but didn't. Took the time to explain the benefits of each. He also put some on my Jeep that weren't necessarily in "spec" but were along the lines of what I was looking for, and told us if we didn't like it, he would put something else on the Jeep.

Pretty awesome. Don't know if it's standard of NTBs but they convinced me.

 

The other (important to me) consideration for shopping/buying my Michelin AS tires at Costco is that I can periodically have the tires rotated/balanced for no additional charge. Hard to beat...

 

I've had real good service from NTB in my area. I had a maintenance insurance on my car and had to use it once for a screw in my tire and they worked with me and the maintenance insurance to get it fixed and paid for.