Which Stores Drive the Best Tire Bargains?
Last updated December 2021
Checkbook's undercover shoppers collected price quotes from a sampling of tire dealers in seven major metro areas for four specific models/sizes of tires. We included in our survey big tire chains, warehouse clubs, independent tire stores, auto repair shops, new-car dealers, and online sellers. We asked each seller to quote prices for four tires for each tire model, including mounting, balancing, and disposal fees.
Here’s a rundown of what our undercover shoppers found:
- Major price differences, with some outlets charging hundreds of dollars more than others for the exact same set of tires. For example, prices for a set of four Michelin Latitude Tour tires for a Toyota Highlander ranged from $830 at Costco to more than $1,500 at several other outlets—a difference of $500 or more.
- Among brick-and-mortar stores, BJ's and Costco consistently quoted the lowest prices. Big chain Discount Tire also generally offered low prices.
- Not all of the big chains offered low prices. Some surveyed stores for Goodyear Auto Service Center, Just Tires, Les Schwaub, Midas, and Pep Boys quoted prices that overall were often more expensive than average. Prices at Les Schwaub, in particular, were higher than almost all of the other stores we shopped.
- Although BJ's and Costco offered low prices, a big advantage to using a conventional tire shop is that selection at warehouse clubs is fairly limited.
- Online sellers Amazon and DiscountTireDirect.com also offered consistently low prices—with vast selection. These retailers will ship tires to your home or to a local shop for installation. Among the online sellers, we found that DiscountTireDirect.com’s prices were the lowest—about 15 percent lower than the average prices we collected from all the stores we surveyed. Prices at several other online-only outlets were just slightly better than average once we factored in installation costs.
- Stores that had low prices for one tire model tended to be competitive for others, but you can’t count on that. Some stores quoted low prices for one tire model but average or higher-than-average prices for others.
- When shopping for price, specify exactly what you want. If you want mounting, balancing, and valve stems to be included, make sure prices you are quoted include that. And because there are so many tire models, many with very similar names and specifications, double-check the tire model by comparing its parts number.
- Stores tend to specialize in certain brands, order some upon request, and refuse to handle others. They are likely to offer their best prices for their specialties. Indeed, some of the stores we shopped would probably have looked better if we had shopped for other brands.
Where can you get great installation service? Considering how technically complicated cars have become, you’d expect general repairs to be much more challenging than just selling and installing tires. Not so. In our surveys of tire-buying consumers, an astounding 25 percent said they did not recommend the stores or shops where they most recently bought tires.
One way to make sure you get a good price on tires and quality installation is to order tires from a low-priced online seller (in our survey of tire prices, among stores we shopped DiscountTireDirect.com offered very low prices), and have them shipped to a top-rated repair shop. Not all repair shops install tires, but many do.