Where should I buy my Michelin Pilot Sport A/S ?

[3LOU5]

So I'm in the market for good all-seasons.

Shopped around, and found two places where the cheapest prices are for the tires. Costco's price, with mounting, balancing, taxes, etc. OTD is $740. Discount Tire's price is $775.

My question, having hearing so many horror stories about Costco, is the extra $35 worth the piece of mind? Or am I just paranoid about a warehouse giant working on my car?

What would you guys do ?

[TD]

Personally, I like to deal with independent tire shops that I know I can trust.

You'd be surprised at their ability to match or beat the prices at the big places.

Worst case, I'll buy from Tirerack and drop ship to my local indy shop.

[Rob]

I am a big believer in Discount Tire. We never had any problems with Costco, but the Discount tire people (or America's Tire in L.A.) are fantastic, the service is fantastic and the willingness to help in different stores when you have problems is fantastic. Costco is fine for buying them and having them installed, but you have to wait for them to have time for things like flat fixes. Discount Tires will l take care of it in a few minutes.

Granted, my car hasn't been to either of these places. But it probably will be when it next needs tires. My "known factor" tire shop is 3.5 hours away from where I live.

[ZBB]

Discount Tire is based here in Phoenix -- its a private company, and the owners are big charitable donors out here.

We've used them since I was a kid -- they have a decent track record, although my last experience with them was not good, and I would have been really ticked off had I not checked their work. Here's what happened, back when I had my E39:

I had a tire fail on the E39 -- I knew I needed new tires on the rear, but was dalaying a purchase. One of the tires also had been slightly out of balance, and gave about a 1/2 inch portion of the tread near the inside gave away. So I put the spare on and took the car in later that day to Discount to have them replace both rear tires.

When I took it in, I mentioned that I needed one of the new tires to go on the spare in the trunk (since it was a bad tire) and then mount that wheel on the passenger side rear, and the other new tire put on the driver's side rear. The wheel that was on the passenger side rear was the spare, and it should go back in the trunk.

When they got done I checked the trunk -- and it still had the bad tire on it. So they had just replaced the tires on the rear wheels -- one of which was essentially a new tire since it was the spare. When I mentioned it, they apologized and fixed the issue...

[operknockity]

I used to use Discount/American Tire for my previous cars. When I needed new tires for my E46, I checked with them but at the time they didn't a good selection nor have many of the tires they did list in stock, though their prices were reasonable. Ended up buying at Tire Rack, having them drop shipped to a local shop for installation.

A while back I suspected that I had a problem (one tire kept running low) so took it to Discount to have it checked. Fully expecting to have to pay for the work, but they checked all the tire/wheel sets for leaks, checked/balanced them, etc. all for free. Wow! Only thing was that they were keen on rotating them in spite of my explicit instructions not to do so. But I was watching it all closely and stopped them when they started to remount the wheels. They did have a replacement tire available, just in case, but it wasn't needed.

[kognito]

My step-nefhew manages a Discount Tire in Austin. Got us a great deal on new tires for the Rabbit a few months before we traded it in

[lip277]

Discount for me has been great.
I have also used Costco. That was ok too - but generic.

I sold a set of wheels (with mounted tires) off the E9 to a buyer in NJ.
I asked the Manager at the Discount store I go to for some advice on packing them up (I was planning on taking them to FedEx myself).
He offered to ship them to the buyer and just charge me for what it cost him to ship.
That saved me over $100

I don't even 'shop around' for tires any more.
And with 7 cars and 3 trailers....