What Tire stores do you recommend?

[freshmtt]

I have been trying to keep track of all the discussions about tires and have learned so far NOT to buy them from the Toyota dealership, and have read a lot about different brands, however, I wonder what the discount tire stores are like. We have a tire chain here in Illinois called,
"Discount Tires" and then we have "NTB" National Tire and Battery, and a place called "Just Tires" I have never been in any of these places, so I don't know, do they sell name brand tires or generic tires, if there is such a thing as generic tires? Are these places any good??

We have a Firestone and a Goodyear place right down the street from our house, we also have a Pep Boys, and "Discount Tires" and "NTB"

I would like to hear what kind of Tire Stores you bought your tires at. Are these Discounted Tire places any good? Or should I just stay away from them.

I have no plans right now on changing the stock tires until they are worn out, but I am just wondering about these discounted tire places.

I'm hoping that my limited driving in the winter back and forth to the train station and just my little around town driving won't be dangerous on the stock tires. Chicago winters can really suck big time and we had a whopper of a winter this past year. My SUV did skid quite a bit but I think that was due to the fact that the original tires were still on the 3yr old SUV and I had never changed them, but I only had some 33,000 miles on the car. I'm a bit concerned with the Prius stock tires with all I hear from the message board about them being crap tires and all.

[pdhenry]

Tire Rack.

Although I was able to get the local Goodyear dealer to come close enough to their price.

[dbcraw]

I've never been to a store that I really would recommend against (maybe I'm lucky). I've used Just tires, Discount (now American), Sam's Club... Just Tires, and America's Tires, and the rest all sell name brand tires, and usually a cheap brand or too also.
The best service I've ever gotten was recently at a Goodyear store. A curb jumped up right in front of me and took out a front tire on my wife's Prius. I put the little donut spare on, no problem. The next day I went to one store and they didn't have the standard integritys in stock. I didn't want to mix tires on one axle, or buy more than 1 tire so I went to a Goodyear store. I pulled up in front of the service door, and a guy was right there to ask what I wanted. I told him and went inside to pay. I had to wait while the guy inside finished with the customer before me and then I paid for the tire. By the time I as finished. The first guy was coming in the door to hand me my keys. I went out and the car was done, the spare was stowed, and I was ready to go.

[piusman]

stay away from JustTires. my 2001 prius tires just wore out after 35k miles. they were new and warrantied to 75k in 2003, but they refuse to prorate the old tires...im supposed to call customer service to complain (ive already been to 2 separate locations). incidentally, JustTires is owned by goodyear so i can see why they are stingy.

Americas (Discount) Tire store previously installed tires on my camry: they always have prorated the tires in the event of premature wear, and if you buy the Road Hazard option for $13 you get a free tire if the tire becomes impossible to repair (like a sidewall puncture) as long as there is some usuable tread (3/32") left on the tire. its that simple: a free tire if the old one is destroyed. (one caveat: you have to rotate your tires every 5k, preferrable with them or somewhere with a paper trial---you have to show them your records). Americas beats JustTires by miles.... (havent tried any others)

[bbald123]

I use Costco. The only tire store I've been to in 35 years of driving that actually used a torque wrench on the lug nuts.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by bbald123

I use Costco. The only tire store I've been to in 35 years of driving that actually used a torque wrench on the lug nuts.

I always ask for them to "hand tighten." They look at me like I'm a dumb female; but they don't use that air power thing which makes the nuts so tight I have NO chance of changing a flat without a tow truck coming in with an air compressor to get the darn things off. Now I know to ask them to use a torque wrench!

I have only ever bought tires through Sears; I like their "flat" coverage. I seem to find every nut, bolt, screw and odd sharp piece of metal dropped by the city busses.

[Sufferin' Prius Envy]

Originally Posted by bbald123

I use Costco. The only tire store I've been to in 35 years of driving that actually used a torque wrench on the lug nuts.

And you get free nitrogen! (oh noooooo . . . not this can of worms again.)

+1 for Costco!

[skruse]

Consumer Reports consistently recommends Costco for price and service.

[mrblaise]

I used America's Tire store for my BMW's and they were great to deal with!!!

[morpheusx]

I posted a story a while back about how I bought tires for my wife's beetle at Sears. They accidentally sold me Summer tires. I recommend them though because even though we put about 15,000 miles on those summer tires and discovered their mistake about a year later because of a snow storm they completely took care of me and gave me a full refund / credit for a new set of tires. ($540 credit by the way) Its one thing if a business messes up, its another for them to step up and go above and beyond to correct themselves.