Tires...

[Khan Klatt <khan@mediaaccess.com>]

I have done loads of research on tires, and thought I'd share my 
findings so that those of you who find my criteria for tire purchase 
are similar to your own can benefit from it. If you're not interested 
in my thesis on tires, delete this puppy now... it's long... ;)


MY CRITERIA
-----------

My criteria for tires to purchase were based on the following factors:

1. Considering I live in a very rainy part of the U.S. (Washington 
State) I wanted all-season tires, with good wet traction, and 
resistance to hydroplaning.

2. Considering our cars are sporty sedans, I didn't want tires that 
weren't capable of holding the ground in sporty driving. I wanted 
tires that would at least match my suspension-- an aftermarket 
Neuspeed SofSport package with Bilstein shocks.

3. I wanted tires that had an average to good treadwear rating. My 
thoughts on this was, "if I buy a more expensive tire and end up 
replacing it less often, that is a better value than cheaper tires 
that wear faster".

4. The tires I pick must be tires I have heard of before, either on 
this list, or elsewhere on the net, or from friends-- and not just 
once or twice, consistent referrals are a good thing.

5. I didn't want to plus-size (16 or 17" rims) because my budget for 
replacing the GA's was $500, which means keeping the current rims, 
and therefore, the same tire size (actually you may get away with a 
slightly larger tire, but I wanted to keep the size on the tire the 
same)...

6. I wanted tires ASAP.

This narrowed things down to the range of what are commonly called 
"Performance All Season Tires", or "Ultra Performance All Season 
Tires" in the 205/50-15 range (stock size for A3 Jettas).


THE FIELD
---------

The first set of tires I considered were the following:

Pilot XGT Z4
Pirelli P7000 SuperSport
Toyo Proxes FZ4
Dunlop SP8000

I heard a few good things about certain Bridgestone and BF Goodrich 
tires. And due to my disgust with the Eagle GA's, I didn't even 
consider buying a Goodyear tire. These were potentially crucial 
decisions that you may choose not to make. Bridgestone, BF Goodrich, 
and Goodyear may very well make great tires for our cars, or for your 
needs. It was convenient to exclude them because I either didn't know 
enough about them, or didn't want another Goodyear tire. Also rans in 
the early competition were Yokohama and Kumho tires. I did not 
consider very many other types of tires. You should know this, 
because chances are there may be some great tires out there I don't 
know about, such as maybe Nitto, or BF Goodrich, etc. If I didn't 
name it here, I probably didn't know about it. Don't go flaming me 
about these arbitrary decisions. I know they're arbitrary. I'm not 
purporting to say I made the best decision possible, but one of the 
criteria was coming to a decision quickly, and I figured that if I 
missed out on the "perfect tire", I wouldn't have missed by much by 
selecting the tires above. I don't think anyone can argue that the 
tires I missed out on are THAT OUTRAGEOUSLY BETTER than the tires 
above in the $125 or less per tire range.

Plus, this is my little article, and if you don't like my arbitrary 
decisions, go write your own article. :)

Anyhow, I narrowed the field down another step by eliminating the 
Toyo Proxes FZ4. Based on some comments on some web site (it was like 
integrapower.com) I had enough concern that the FZ4 could potentially 
lose it's initial stickiness after 10,000 miles. I didn't put a lot 
of faith in this report from the integra site, but considering there 
weren't very many bad reports on the other tires, I felt it was 
(conveniently) reason enough to reduce the field. There was another 
reason for this, which I'll go into next...


THE COMPETITION
---------------

The Tire rack web site (http://www.tirerack.com) was very helpful in 
determining the remainder of my criteria.

I did not end up buying my tires from Tire Rack, and I feel compelled 
to explain why. First, I believe in supporting businesses that have a 
good web site. I believe in this because building web sites is what 
my business does. I figure the people that "get it" have good 
websites, and therefore deserve to be awarded with my business. For 
this reason, Tire Rack *should* get my business alone (they've got a 
lot of good information!), especially considering how much I used 
their site for getting information about tires, and what sizes were 
available for each tire, etc.

But I did not, because I also believe in instant gratification. And 
while the Internet adds a lot of value, there is no value in buying 
from option A, and having them installed at option B, for an 
additional cost.

And the other reason why I eliminated the Toyo Proxes is that I think 
Les Schwab is a scary man with a scary company (I bet he gets a lot 
of truck drivers buying tires from him though-- plus--- FREE BEEF!), 
and that is the only vendor of Toyo tires in this area. Also, his web 
site MASSIVELY sucks. Combined with the negative comments of how the 
tires wear, I (conveniently) eliminated the Toyos.

I selected Discount Tire as my preferred vendor, for the following reasons:

a) They carried Pirelli, Dunlop, and Michelin.
b) They had a good web site.
c) There are stores locally I could go to.
d) Friends of mine had good experiences there.

The Discount Tire (or maybe it was Tire Rack?!) site educated me 
about one thing. There is no such thing as a Michelin Pilot XGT Z4 in 
our size. You must go down to the Pilot XGT V4 which is fairly 
similar, but V-rated (which still means you can go well over 120mph 
with them).


GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
------------------------
I did all of the above, before even going to a store, and checking 
availability.  I only went Sears the first day because I went on 
Sunday, and everyone else was closed.

So, the immediate thing I learned the first day was:
DON'T TRY TO BUY TIRES ON SUNDAY.

Sears Auto Center didn't have 4 of any tire worth buying.

Doing some more research that night on the Tire Rack web site, I saw 
review after review after review of people RAVING about the Dunlop SP 
8000's. The ratings on the Michelins and the Pirelli's were good, but 
not quite as enthusiastic as the Dunlops. Further, I figured, these 
are $40 to $140 less (considering all four tires) than the Michelins 
or Pirellis. There is no reason I SHOULDN'T select the Dunlops, 
except maybe for increased wear, but if I end up saving $120 over the 
next "x" years, and I only end up saving myself "x+1" years by buying 
a more expensive tire, there isn't much of a long term cost benefit 
to buy the more expensive tires, I'm just out the $100 until I have 
to replace the Dunlops a little earlier than the other, potentially 
longer wearing tires...

The next day, I went to Discount Tire and they didn't have any of the 
tires in stock. I even had them look up to see if they had Michelins 
or Pirellis. Although I wanted to do business with Discount tire 
(assuming they could match, within 10%, the prices I saw online, 
which were roughly $124 for the Michelin, $105 for the Pirelli, and 
$90 for the Dunlops), I said thanks, but no thanks, and went along to 
see if any other local stores had them (or really either of the other 
tires) in stock.

I drove to three other places. None of them had the tires in stock. 
Finally, I called Discount Tire, and asked them to order a set of 
Dunlop SP-8000's. I finally accepted I would not get instant 
gratification with buying tires, and instead dropped back to my 
selected vendor, and to the selected tire. I figured as long as I was 
waiting, might as well get the tires I wanted from the vendor I 
wanted.

This is what I learned on the second day: ORDER YOUR TIRES IN 
ADVANCE. They probably won't have them in stock.


THE GRISLY DETAILS
------------------
So, I ordered the tires on Monday from Discount Tire. They said they 
were on backorder 4-6 weeks, but when I asked if they could get them 
from another store, and they mentioned that I could with no shipping 
charges in a couple days, I said "great, let's do that". Remember to 
ask if they can order the tires from another store-- they may come in 
more quickly if you do that.

Well, today I called back (just three days after ordering) to find 
out when they would be in, like Monday or Tuesday next week or what? 
They guy that took my order mentioned that he had to run out on some 
emergency, and that he gave the order to someone else to fill, and 
apparently it never got done, so he'd have to reorder the tires, and 
"sorry about that". I said "fine" knowing that there really wasn't 
any alternative, secretly totally pissed off that my order got lost.

Right after hanging up, I started to call any tire store within a 30 
mile radius. Call after call after call, to at least a DOZEN stores, 
NONE of them had four Dunlop SP8000 in stock. Two of them had two 
tires in stock each, but I didn't want to play the game of buying 
from two places. Drive 30 miles one way, load up the tires, drive 30 
miles the other way, load up the tires, make two sales... too much 
trouble.

On the 13th call, I reached the best and most knowledgeable person I 
had ever spoken to in this experience. He said "No, I don't have the 
SP8000, but did you know that tire was discontinued? It's being 
replaced by the Dunlop SP5000, which, for a dollar more, is as good, 
if not better a tire. And if one gets destroyed somehow you can 
always easily find a replacement!"

I said "I'll look into it", and he responded "Yeah, there are lots of 
sites on the Internet, check them out." So I did, and sure enough the 
SP5000 on Tire rack's site looked to be an even better performer than 
the SP8000. I had overlooked it for some reason, perhaps thinking 
that the higher the number on the tire, the better a tire it was. 
Silly me. That's what I learned today NUMBERS MEAN NOTHING IN TIRE 
BRANDS.

First I called Sears back to see if they had the SP5000. Nope.

So I called back to Discount Tire to find out if they had the 
SP5000's in stock.  (the other Discount Tire that told me about the 
5000's was farther away and even though the employee was 
knowledgeable, I had no intention of driving that far if I could 
avoid it). They didn't have them in stock (big surprise there) but 
they could order them and get them in three days. They guy I spoke to 
was apologetic about my previous experience, so he said he'd give me 
a special deal at $90/tire and could have them within the next 3 days.

I could have, again, called the dozen or so stores asking if they 
instead had the SP5000's in stock, but as you can tell, I had spent 
hours on this simple task of selecting a tire, selecting a vendor, 
and getting the tire I wanted for a decent price. That's essentially 
what I was being offered at Discount Tire. The only part I was not 
getting was my instant gratification, but that would mean making up 
to 12 more phone calls, and that would still mean a half an hour 
drive to whoever had them in stock to get the tire I wanted.

Since Discount Tire was trying to make right by their earlier 
mistake, I thanked him for his consideration, and now I am waiting 
until Monday or Tuesday (depending on whether that was 3 days or 3 
business days-- I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) to go get my 
new Dunlop SP5000's put onto my 97 Jetta GLX.

I can't tell you how they run, because I obviously don't have them on 
my car yet. But I will when I do, and you'll be the first to hear 
about it. So, stay tuned for part II.


SUMMARY
-------
Make a list of criteria in what you want out of your tires. Do some 
research on which tires you want. Make a list of appropriate tires. 
Find out which tires are discontinued, and if there are replacement 
tires for any on your list. Do some more research. Eliminate those 
tires that, retail price wise exceed your budget. Then read the 
survey results at tirerack.com. Do net searches on the tires you 
selected.  Eliminate the ones that you don't have confidence in.

Put together a rough pricing guide, and call around to see who has or 
carries the tires you want. Once you have those details, make your 
selection on your vendor and your tires. Order in advance, check up 
every three days to see if they came in. Then go out and buy those 
tires, and tell us how you like them.

Or, you can go out and buy some Dunlop SP5000's knowing that someone 
else has done a lot of that for you already. (Note, you might want to 
wait until I have a few miles with those tires before you go out and 
buy tires from someone who hasn't actually driven the tires yet!!!) 
;-)

Hopefully this is coming in handy for you. Details about how I like 
my SP5000's in my next update on this topic.

-Khan

Khan Klatt                                         khan@mediaaccess.com

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