things i've learned so i don't get screwed buying tires

Every time I have to get new tires, I hate it because there are a thousand different ways to get screwed buying these things. I've been buying tires for close to 30 years, both for cars and trucks I've owned. In that time, I've come up with a few ways to get screwed less.

Yes, I said less. I just replaced a set on my car, but for the last set, I got slightly screwed even knowing what I know. The shop that sold me the set did a switcheroo at the last second and said, "Well, we couldn't get the tire you wanted, but hey, look at these! It's only $50 more for this set!" Like an idiot, I said yes, and they ended up being one of the worst set of tires I ever put on my car. THIS time around, I went back to what I know works and got exactly what I wanted.

This is what I do to get screwed less when buying tires:

I only buy from tire-only shops or a car dealership

I know some will say, "The DEALERSHIP?! Are you INSANE?!" It's not as insane as you think. In my experience, dealerships upsell less when it comes to tires, and they pretty much always have a buy-3-get-1-free sale.

Toyota dealerships do this all the time:

With Toyota brand cars, sometimes the dealership will in fact have the best deal. Of course, this depends which brand tire is bought, and how good your ability is to say "NO" for all upsell attempts.

Other brands do the same thing. For General Motors, Chevrolet has 30-day price matching after the sale (or you can present the lower price at time of purchase) for BFGoodrich, Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Firestone, General, Goodyear, Hankook, Kelly, Michelin, Pirelli and Uniroyal tires. This means if another shop is found selling the tire desired at a lower price, the Chevy dealer will match it - as a rebate. Yes, that means a rebate process is involved, but still, it's a way to lower the price.

The dealership is never my first choice, but isn't totally terrible as a second choice. My point is that the deals at the dealership are there if you know how to find them.

Tire-only shops are my first choice, and for very specific reasons. They don't do oil changes or any other mechanical stuff a regular garage does. Tire sales/installation and some suspension (meaning alignments) stuff is what they do and only do. This means the only upselling that will occur will be just for tire stuff.

There is a very specific upsell automatically added in that can only be avoided if you know how to do it, which leads me to...

Tire warranties and "protection plans" are totally worthless

With the tire set I just bought, what I did prior was calculate the price online since the shop has a web site. I did the add-to-cart thing, installation/disposal fees and sales tax were all added in, and right at the end, an option was automatically enabled for some worthless protection plan. I unchecked that option, and the total price was $40 less. That may not sound like much, but it's a way to knock down the price, and I'll take it.

Armed with this knowledge, I went to the tire shop knowing in advance what the final price was. And SURE ENOUGH, right near the end of the purchase process, that stupid protection plan was automatically tacked on. All I said was, "No protection plan, please", and then I got the $40-less price I wanted.

You have to KNOW to do this, else that stupid plan is always added in at the particular shop I bought from.

I said protection plans are worthless. Here's why:

If you read over any tire protection plan or road hazard protection plan, oh yeah, sounds good at first. But read into it, then read about the process involved to actually use such a plan, and I guarantee you won't bother buying one.

Tire shops only offer basic protection, and only for the tread portion of a tire. If you get tire sidewall damage, you're screwed, the plan doesn't cover that and you absolutely have to BUY a new tire with no discount. If however you run over a nail and it's within the tread area of the tire, yes, that can be repaired and the plan will cover that. But why bother when that type of repair is either dirt cheap or FREE?

Road hazard protection covers more. Namely, both the tire and wheel.

If the tire gets punctured by a nail, or glass, or you hit a pothole really hard, the plan covers the repair. But again, ONLY within the tread area of the tire. If there's sidewall damage, nope, screwed again, you have to buy a new tire.

If the wheel gets damaged, such as getting bent to the point where no tire installed on it will hold air, the wheel can get replaced under the plan if you can prove it. And that's where a plan of this type gets worthless real fast.

If it happens you slam into a pothole where both the tire and wheel get wrecked, what must occur is that a claim has to be made per the terms of the hazard protection plan you have. Photo proof and all sorts of paperwork has to be submitted. Once submitted, the plan provider will DECIDE whether to cover the claim or not. And if they actually do DECIDE in your favor, it could take weeks to months to get reimbursed for what you had to spend to replace the tire and wheel. Oh, you thought you could just send a bill and not pay anything out-of-pocket? HAHAHAHAHA, no... that's not the way it works, you silly goose.

Before getting into tire warranties, the only "plan" that actually works is one you make up yourself. Specifically, buy two or four plain steel wheels that fit your car. You don't have to install tires on them. If it ever happens that you slam into a pothole and a wheel gets wrecked, you have a replacement wheel that you can take to a tire shop, have one tire installed and you're good to go. You can optionally have one tire installed on a spare wheel sooner so you have a full size spare at-the-ready.

I can absolutely assure you that you're far better off having a spare wheel or two rather than depend on some worthless protection or road hazard plan to actually reimburse you for tire/wheel damage.

Where standard tire warranties are concerned, they are, like with protection and road hazard plans, largely worthless.

Let's say you have a tire with a 50,000 mile tread life warranty, and the tire wears out at 40,000 miles. Now let's say you've done the tread measurements and can prove easily that yes, the tire did in fact wear out well before 50K miles were on it. All this being true, you should get a new replacement tire free or your money back per the terms of the warranty, right? Wrong. In an absolute best case scenario, maybe you'll get a check for 10% to 20% of the original purchase price. And that's ONLY if everything goes well with your claim, which could takes weeks to months to process. Will everything go well? No. You'll be nickel-and-dimed or outright denied your claim, you will not get any money back and will have wasted your time.

If you want a tire to last, do two things. Have a tire shop or dealership rotate them every 6,000 miles, and keep them inflated to the PSI (as in pounds per square inch of air pressure) stated on your car's sticker. This sticker is usually located in the door jamb. Open the driver's door, look for the sticker, and the tire PSI numbers will be listed there.

And to answer the question of "What is a tire rotation service?", this is when a garage takes the wheels off and moves the fronts to the rears or left front to right rear and right front to left rear (most car manuals state what the rotation pattern is supposed to be). Why rotate tires? To promote even tread wear. Your front wheels turn left and right from you steering regularly while the rears don't, so the fronts wear out faster. Rotate at regular intervals, and the tread across all 4 tires wears evenly. If you don't rotate every 6,000 miles, you get uneven tread wear and your tires wear out faster.

I do pay attention to rotations and tire pressure

Tire rotations are something I schedule by time instead of miles just because it's easier to manage. My tires are rotated once every 6 months regardless of how many or how little miles I put on in that span of time. If I were piling on many miles, then it would be once every 3 months.

Ordinarily, one or more of my tires will gain or lose a few pounds of air pressure from a seasonal change due to significant shift in outdoor temperature. This is completely normal. If the tire air pressure is +/- 3 PSI, I inflate or deflate the tire accordingly.

Also, I periodically look at my tires. If any of them look low, I check the pressure and inflate if necessary.

I do own a tire inflator, and it has paid for itself easily. If my car didn't have a place to plug one of those in, I'd buy an air compressor. And I also own a few tire pressure gauges since they're cheap.

It's true that on my car, I could drive around with the PSI off by as much as 9 pounds and be fine. In fact, my TPMS sensors don't trip a warning light on my dashboard until 10 PSI is gained or lost from the factory recommended PSI for a tire at any wheel. Even so, I periodically check the pressure anyway and adjust if the PSI is off by more than 3 for any tire.

I understand how long tires realistically last for

It is possible to eke out 60K or even up to 80K miles out of a set of tires. Years ago, the most I ever got out of a set was about 65K miles. I could have ran them longer, but didn't want to tempt fate and replaced the set. Bear in mind this was at a time in my driving life where I was putting on tons of miles every year.

These days, I switch out a set when they get up to 40K miles or slightly over. And the main reason for that is wet weather driving. If I lived somewhere where it was dry most of the time, I'd run a set to 60K and wouldn't think twice about it. But for rainy weather, running a set with over 40K miles is a bad idea. All it takes is a day when it just begins to rain when all the oils in the road wash up and my tire traction is gone.

Short story about that: At a supermarket in Florida, I had just finished shopping, got in the car and start driving to the parking lot exit. It was just beginning to rain. Nothing crazy. While heading to the lot exit, I had to stop for a reason (I don't remember exactly what for), and the car started sliding. No tire noise other than shhhhhhhh, and then, finally, I stopped. Nothing was hit and no accident happened, but this really stuck out to me because I had the brake pedal to the floor, the anti-lock did not kick in, and I had almost no traction. This was in Florida, on a warm day with very light rain, on a paved surface traveling at a speed of under 20mph. The surface got wet, oils in the pavement washed up, my tires were old, and my braking traction was gone. Yeah, I replaced my tires a few days later.

When people talk about tire traction issues, they think of major things like icy conditions, heavy snow, very heavy rain, hydroplaning and things like that. Consider the parking lot story I just told you. Again, it was a warm day, light rain, very slow speed of travel. You'd never consider that a hazardous driving situation, even for old tires. I certainly didn't. Now I know better.

I know most like-to-like tires act exactly the same

Like-to-like means "for same purpose". Obviously, a studded snow tire and a touring tire are significantly different from each other. Like-to-like tires however pretty much all act the same way, and there is no good reason to spend more money for something "better".

For example, take two all-season tires, the Pirelli P4 Persist AS Plus and Yokohama Avid Ascend LX. One is more expensive than the other.

Would I notice the difference on my car if I paid extra for the more expensive tire? I seriously doubt it.

Not only would I not notice any significant difference, but I'm also not afraid to jump between tire brands since consistency of tire quality basically doesn't exist.

I've bought tires that were great, and when they got to the point where they wore out, replaced them with the exact same brand, same size, same everything as the last set I had, and they've been total junk. I've also bought tires where user reviews said they were WORST TIRE EVER, bought them anyway, and they were great.

Again, there's no consistency with tire quality at all. There's also no point in being a tire brand loyalist.

You're just better off getting whatever is available at a decent price from a shop that won't screw you over. Get your tires, skip the protection/hazard plan crap, rotate tires at regular intervals, keep the air pressure close to what the sticker says on the driver's door jamb, and you're good.

Published 2025 Apr 8