I have done tirerack and tirebuyer online a few times. Last couple of times, I have just gone with pepboys when they run their buy 3 get 4th free promotion along with a rebate. I buy online and then schedule install which they usually complete in around an hour.
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I’ve used best used tire, discount tire direct, tire rack, walmart, and merchants when they have a special. I do my research on tire rack. If tire rack doesn’t carry it, I probably won’t buy it.
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I used TireBuyer.com (who presently has 8% cash-back through TopCashBack.com) and got the exact tires I wanted installed at a reputable local shop for less than the shop quoted when I asked them directly.
Generally, the TireBuyer prices on brand-name tires were good prices – at least as good as you’d expect from Costco or Sam’s Club.
It seems as though TireBuyer.com is setup through distributors and there’s usually several shops they’ll deliver the tires to for free – even if you choose not to have the shop install them. They’ll also quote you the installation price for several shops up-font. Or you can take the tires home with you and have someone else install them.
I originally assumed that they’d ship the tires by FedEx or UPS but I placed my order late in the day one particular day and was completely surprised when the tire shop called me the next morning to tell me the tires were received. Apparently they use the same local tire distributor that lots of shops use. There’s no way they had time to ship them in from anywhere else.
I was a bit worried that the shop would give me attitude about buying tires somewhere else and I was also worried that the pre-quoted installation price would be fake-news. As it turns out, they installed and balanced them for the quoted price and treated me perfectly well as if I was their own customer.
In the past I purchased from Tire Rack to get good prices on brand-name tires that I couldn’t get anywhere else for anything less than full price. I’ve also bought from Costco and Sam’s Club. In the future I’ll prefer TireBuyer unless I’m in a bit of a hurry or I want no particular brand of type of tire – then I’ll settle for Sam’s or Costco. The shipping cost from Tire Rack makes it hard to get a truly good deal.
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Another vote for Tirerack, I’ve used them multiple times. One year I just ordered an entire wheel package (tire and rims) and it came balanced so I could put them on myself. It was only a little more expensive than having them shipped to an installer to put them on for me.
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In past years Discount Tire has run Black Friday promos that amounted to an extra $100 rebate/discount on top of whatever deal they had going at the time. As long as you purchased them through the website on that day you qualified for the pricing (and at the time you’d schedule an appointment the following week to get them installed). I’d link you to a FW thread from the last time they did this, but you know… 
My only real gripe with Discount Tire is in a major city (with plenty of locations) it’s not too hard to get back in for rotations and such. If you happen to live in a city with only one Discount Tire store (as I now do) you’re going to hate the horrible wait times (even with appointment) and swear never to do business with them again.
Which brings me to Sam’s Club. Others have noted that they can get backed up and also be busy, but a trick is that if you’re a Sam’s Plus/Business member (and eligible for early hours) the tire center is also open during those extended hours and probably much less busy. This makes it much less painful to get in down the road for rotations and such.
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I usually go to a used tar store. $30-$40 mounted and balanced for a name brand Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone with 60-80% tread. Also use Ebay if you can get them mounted cheap and Craigslist, but you have to be careful there and check the tire closely.
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Mostly from wrecked cars. Used to be able to find great deals at self service junk yards but I see the same guys taking the tires off new arrivals and probably reselling them so that’s not a good source now.
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Yep. The tires on my son’s Infiniti were only 3 months old when his car was totaled. Made me sick to my stomach. Insurance made it right, but still.
For one of my other vehicles, we too had purchased from Costco. One tire lost a lot of tread so we went in to have it replaced under warranty. Costco advised that the wheels hadn’t been rotated enough/properly which was mostly true but they exchanged it out covering 80% anyway.
Most recently, we bought at BJs because Costco didn’t have what we needed in stock. We’ll go in next month for balance/rotation and see how they’re holding up.
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For an 01 Camry I would hit the local tire stores for used tires.you should get pretty good tread tires for 20 bucks a piece installed. You can find plenty of them on Craigs or google.
For me the cheapest place varies per month and type of tire. With Coupons and stacking sears is sometime cheapest. I’ve used tire rack and tire buyer mostly though. I check everywhere online first and then check the local stores to see if any are cheaper. Usually use time kingdom for installation only because they are the closest store to me.
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I have used Discount Tire in the past. But last time, I went with a specific tire based on my mechanic’s recommendation. I found that Walmart had the least expensive price on the tires, with free installation, balancing, and free lifetime rotation.
One trick that I’ve found useful on about 70% of my cars is that you need only buy 3 tires if your vehicle has a full sized spare and it’s never been used. Buy 3 that match it, and take one old tire and make it the spare since it’s just for emergency use.
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I took the liberty of merging both threads.
I momentarily read “Earl Scheib”, and thought, oh no, tires too. 
A problem with this trick is that there’s often a large rebate only when you buy four tires, so you may not really be saving much. For example, when I last bought tires they were ~$130 each Michelins but there was a $100 rebate for buying four.
Actually, to be more specific, I also had 2 that got damaged and pro-ration came out to paying about 80%. I negotiated up 0.5-1cm on the pro-ration credits (worth ~$30x2) as I said I otherwise definitely would ONLY replace the two that were damaged, but if those prorated a little better then I would replace all 4. So, I replaced all four tires. After the $100 rebate I only ended up paying for about 1 1/2 of those 4 tires (plus the ~$30/tire install/tpms fees, though, or whatever Discount charged at that time).
A second problem with using the spare is that most vehicles now don’t have a full-sized spare. (I have a spare full-size tire in my house due to this issue)
And, finally, a third problem (depending on how many miles you drive) is that the “spare” may end up being too old. If you replace tires every 4 years and you use a 4yr old spare – It would be 8 years old which seems pretty bad on the rubber, especially depending on climate where you are and depending whether you store it in a climate controlled area or not.
(I know, the quote is from the older thread 4 months ago… but since they’re merged…)
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Yeah. I had to replace a tire out of sequence so now I’m only shopping for 3.
I’m likely to just go with Costco as wait time doesn’t really matter to me,
Consider buying a set, and putting the odd man out in your garage. If one of your set then fails, you will have a slightly used spare that can hopefully mate with the remaining tires and you won’t have to buy another one. Of course, I’ve been using this strategy for almost 40 years and it’s only paid off twice. I’ve currently got a pair of Michelin’s bagged in my crawl space. 
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My extra brand new Michelin tire is inside the house in a closet. I figured the temperature and humidity control should be better for it to age slower. I DID use it though last year. (But it got replaced where I mentioned, above, with a brand new one when I bought 4). What it allowed was me to take in 2 tires for proration at one time instead of 2 separately, I had stuck the damaged tire in storage and then brought it back. Probably unclear what I did from that description, seems hard to explain clearly.
Agreed looking for the set with rebate and saving the 4th can make sense. Depends how good the “deal” on only 4 is. Like the $100 rebate and $130 per tire in my example. Makes that spare only $30.
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I go to either Costco or BJ’s.
One perk with BJ’s is that you don’t have to have a membership when you go back for rotation & balance or any other service(s).
Now, this may be a YMMV, but I’ve been told several times at different BJ’s: “Don’t need to see your card, the tires are already paid for.”.
FYI, I’m in MA and primarily go to two different BJ’s in different parts of the state depending on where I am geographically when I go for service and have heard the same thing.
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I’m a big fan of Costco tires and service. A couple years ago one of my tires had a flat puncture in the same exact place twice (I know what are the odds). They can’t re-patch a patch so the tire being under warranty, my mechanic suggested I take it back to Costco. My tires had just been upgraded to a newer better model and they were no longer carried in store. They upgraded all 4 of my tires with brand new ones minus with a slight cost differential to pro-rate the year that I used them. Think it was about~$45 out of pocket to replace all 4 tires with a better model of tire. I support companies that stand by their products and service.
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