Best place to buy light truck tires?

Do understand that tires that wear like iron have all the traction of an iron tire. The two basically are inverse of each other.

As an extreme example, I once had a set of Michelin snow tires. Looked beautiful in spite of the years service they'd had. After getting stuck on an arced bridge because I couldn't get enough traction to get up it, I got rid of those tires. Yes, they had many miles to go on them, just absolutely no traction.


Remarkably hard tires, they never wore down, and never got

It will ride like a brick with load range E tires on it.

Look at the Cooper line of tires. If you have snow/ice look hard at Cooper Discovery ATRs. They are awesome!

I second the Cooper Discovery ATR's. We have them on our Dodge 2500 4x4, our Nissan Pathfinder and soon will add them to the kids' '91 Explorer. We have had great luck with them year round but especially love them in the winter. Both my oldest DD and I are Vol. Firefighter/First Responders, so we're usually out on the roads when no one should be! They have never failed us!

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

Keeping it together with prayer and the "Handyman's secret weapon" - duct tape!

I've purchased Michelin speed rated tires at Sam's Club for my S-10 pickup. They had an 80K rating and were still on the truck when I sold it 105000 miles later though they were in need of replacement...

They were expensive but not as much as at other dealers.

I now have Mastercraft Courser HTR on my Silverado, they are the lesser name from Cooper...speaking of Cooper, they have a reputation of good wear...

http://www.michelinman.com/tire-sele...Reg.+Cab/tires

Here's a link with the recommended Michelin tires. It does show 15" or 16" tires for that year. You can change the option at the top to see the difference.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

WOW WHAT A GREAT DEAL!


I think its GREAT! You get a soft tread high traction tire at a low price , the kind most places would only warranty for 20,000 miles .THEN they even prorate that so that you actually are getting 3 YES THREE tires for the price of ONE!
Could you tell me EXACTLLY what model and brand you got?

BFG AT,or Goodyear Wrangler,good offroad,snow,ice and dry road,last forever

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BTW - Don't put P Metric Tires on and SUV or pickup. Use LT (light truck) tires.

I have bought about ten sets of tires for my vehicles at Sams/Wal-Mart and have never had a problem. Every set exceeded the mileage rating for the tires.

"O"

They are BF Goodrich, although I'd have to pull the paperwork to check the exact model. I haven't been impressed by the traction, but then I have 4WD to help me out! They weren't exactly cheap, either; again, I'd have to dig out the paperwork, but I think they came to around $600, and I don't think I've had them a year yet.

Well, after checking around, I learned from DH that I could order tires through the PX! Their prices are good, plus I'll save the 7% sales tax. Unfortunately, it appears they only carry 3 brands in the size I need, and two reviewed poorly on tirerack.com, so it seems I'll be going with the third, Kelly Safari Trex, described as a "premium all-terrain tire for quiet, even-wearing truck comfort."

They come with a 50,000-mile warranty. We'll see!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

You never did mention size you needed, but my older 4wd Ranger uses 15 inch tires. Can go anywhere from 205/75-15 to 235/75-15 without tires rubbing or the need for a body lift kit. Maybe newer Ranger like yours uses different size?

However I paid close to $500 for set four 235/85-16 E all terrain Yokohama tires for my F250. (took lot of shopping around to get that low of a price!) This is real truck tire. E rated tires are 10ply or the equivalent. As I said in previous post, so far I am quite happy with them. Though I put relatively low miles on this truck, no doubt the tires will dryrot/crack long before tread wears out.

Been some years since I bought new tires for Ranger. Back at that time cheapest 15 inch AT tires I found with good reviews were Walmarts "Liberator" tire made by Uniroyal I think. That particular tire only sold by Walmart. I noticed they have zoomed in price the last couple years. Wouldnt buy them now, not good price now for what you get.

Ok tire treadwise, but sidewalls sure cant take much punishment. Lost one to rock cut on sidewall about year after buying them. And I didnt get the optional overpriced hazard insurance. Hazard insurance on four tires at that time would buy a fifth tire outright... So in other words I'd been out same amount money either way. And I had to wait nearly 4 hours for Walmart to mount them in order to get the warranty. No warranty if you just cash and carry. I was not amused cooling my heels for 4 hour. Needless to say, I wouldnt buy another tire from Wally unless it was cheapo 13 inch for the Festiva and I could afford to just buy it cash and carry and not worry about any warranty. I mean I can mount dang tires myself by hand in whole lot less than 4 hour, geesh. Or stop at local gas station and pay them $10 a tire to mount and balance. They dont sell tires, just fix them, so dont care if you bring new tires in and pay them to mount them.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Size is 245/75/R16.

The Kelly tires I'm looking at are $99 each (no taxes since it's through the PX). My mechanic charges $15 per tire for mounting and balancing. I will get it aligned again too; can get that done in East Liverpool for around $40. If all goes well, should come in right around 5 bills.

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

Got my Generals from this place last year tireseasy.com Not the most glitzy web site but good prices and they beat tire rack, teletire and all the others at the time for what I wanted. I have used them twice now with no problems. The reason I got generals was that they were top rated and made in the Carolinas,not China. Way too many US tires are made in China and the quality matches the country not the brand. Cooper and BF Goodrick are also good tires. The Goodrich Long trails I replaced last year were shot to crap but made 70 K out of a 40 K tire.
I will NEVER buy tires at Sams again. Besides the price usually being higher they absolutely refuse to sell ANY other size than OEM puts on, PERIOD. I am a big boy and can take care of my own tire decisions considering I do most of my own work for decades. Besides when you add up the sales tax, tire disposal fee and all the other senseless goodies it far outweighs mail order and paying that small shop to put on your tires and balance them for 20 or 30 bucks.

That be what I gots; unfortunately, my experience hasn't been quite as good as yours!

I checked into buying them online, but the shipping charges seemed to negate any savings.

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

Thats a big tire for a Ranger. I'll have to pay attention in parking lots when I go to town to see how they did it. I knew modern half ton pickups were using 16s again, didnt know any Ranger did.

I suspect your $99 tires are load range C. But guess that would be ok for light weight vehicle.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

http://www.discounttiredirect.com has FREE shipping. Thats where I got my Yokohamas. You just gotta know what you want and not be comparing apples to oranges when you really want pears. Gotta know size you want, what load range, whether you want hiway tread, all season tread, all terrain tread, or some aggressive off road tread.

There were other online mail order type tire places with lower prices, but not when you figured in shipping. Free shipping on large items counts for a lot.

I was seriously considering retreads when I ran across this place. Ah, cant think of name of place selling the retreads, but its not the old kinda consumer retread, this place has very good reputation especially with off roaders. I read more offroader forums than I wanted, but nobody who had actually used these tires had serious problem and tread lasted very well. Tires hold up as good as new tires and they are serious about warranty. But when I found new namebrand tires for $10 a tire more, I went with new. Still lingering nightmares of some Sears retreads I had when I was young and dumb. The infamous 1000 mile tires....

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I've got a story about re-treads on a pickup, an 800 mile trip, a horse in the stockrack and Fonner Park race track.
To cut a long story short, nobody died. That's the moral.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

FWIW don't discount the online guys that you have to pay the shipping. Weigh it out against, sales tax, disposal fees, insurance mount and balance fees and all the other fluff they dump on you that adds up so. You have to balance convenience vs. money but many small shops do under the table tire mount and balancing if you know them. These guys like cash. You never see me anywhere near any of the regular tire stores anymore and when it comes to inspections, brakes and the like AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE.

Another FWIW someone said Goodyear Wranglers are good tires. Take a look at the reviews people give them. I have had 2 or 3 sets and they were all junk. This is the only nearly new tire I ever had that got a flat from a tiny piece of crushed stone in my driveway. The best part was that I pulled it out with my fingertips! I never even thought that was possible, Absolute junk with super thin cords.

Partially true, but...... The newer European winter tires like the Blizzaks and Nokians are made of exceptionally soft compounds that will stick to snow and ice better than anything, including providing shorter stopping distances on ice than studded tires. However, there are a lot of truck tires that will provide long service life and decent traction. I use Firestone Transforce and Michelin LT rated tires that last well over 60K miles with good traction. About 20-30% more per tire than some of the off brand tires, but well worth it.