Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief of the 60's
What people do not realize is that there is nearly no money to be made on tires in retail business these days, so local tire shops and box stores will not adjust their price to some on-line numbers. Tire shops and box stores rely on any upcharge they can find. When you pull a wheel you can almost always get someone to buy a brake job, shocks, front end work, an alignment or an oil change Now some charge extra for "special" wheel weights, resetting TPMS and almost always get you for valve stem repair. This is why I do my own.
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I agree with all the above. So I don't hold a grudge against the stores. I may be wrong, but a tire retailer who is buying hundreds of tires a week should be getting a better price on them than an individual like me on the internet. But possibly not. I try to give them a chance. Concerning the add-ons, I have to charge for them too. The coated stick-on wheel weights and some of the weird clip-on coated weights are fairly expensive and they add up. The biggest expense moving forward for tire buyers are the millions and millions of TPMS sensors that are now having battery failures by design. They are supposed to last 10 years and they do just that, typically 10-12 year life span. When I install a new set of tires on a 10 year or older vehicle and the customer wants to retain the system in working order, I insist that they buy a new set of transducers. If they refuse, I spell it out clearly on the invoice that there is no warranty concerning the function of the TPMS system because the transducers will never make it through another set of new tires if they are already 10-12 years old. 4 new sensors are about $125-150 a set now and last 10 years. That's about a buck a month for a working system. Of course I register and program no charge.