Questions about Replacing Tires

realityguy said:

It doesn't matter the name of the shop..but it is a good idea to let people here know who to go to for a good deal!

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Here is another tip for cheap tire shopping or shopping in general. Freight salvage. The tires on my van came from a freight salvage place. I got a set of 5 matching BF Goodrich Long Trails for about $70 each.

Many metro areas of moderate size or larger have a place that sells stuff that was lost freight, slightly damaged or returned merchandise. There is an enormous amount of waste in the American economy and it all ends up in places like this. My city has a couple of these places. They have several weekly auctions as well as retail sales stores. It's a bit like an indoor flea market. My favorite has three vast warehouses. The boys from the Tres Hermanos tire shop buy truckloads of tires to resell at their shop so you have to be in the right place at the right time to compete with them.

Every few weeks the warehouse puts out a new batch of tires, anywhere from 20-100 tires. The high demand stuff gets picked over quickly. After a week they discount the prices to move the less desireable merch that is still left. After a few weeks whatever is left is 70-80% off the original discounted price. At that point you won't get any matched sets but you may get a good deal on airplane tires or lawn tractor tires or even drag slicks.

They have a vast array of merchandise. Some of it has shipping damage of various degrees. If you are handy and can fix stuff you can get amazing deals. For example they always have damaged air compressors because they are top heavy and tip over during shipping. They may have a busted fan shroud or damaged electrical cord that can be easily fixed. Sometimes major damage though.