Where do you get your tires mounted?

[hufflepuff]

Hey all, where do you get your tires mounted? I have had bad a experience with a local gas station that marred my wheels. I think it'd be nice to share info on price, convenience, quality of balance, ect, of preferred locations.

My current go-to is a small shop off of Smith Avenue in lanham md (i forget the name at the moment). I live in Bowie so this is convenient. They did it for $80 for four 205/50-15 mounted and balanced off the car. They didn't damage the wheels and the balance feels good.

Goss's garage wanted $100 as a special tirerack pricing and wanted me to leave then wheels and tires "until they got to it". Another shop right next door wanted $130.

[Rock Star]

Cheapest is Costco. I've had good results there. I dont really care about my rims, though they havent damaged them yet. I think $9 per wheel and $1 per tire for disposal if you need it.

[yardy8301]

I am not too concerned about wheels being damaged, but I use merchant tires in alexandria. If tires purchased from tirerack or discount tire direct, its 11.25 per tire. Cheap and effective.

[hufflepuff]

I am not too concerned about wheels being damaged, but I use merchant tires in alexandria. If tires purchased from tirerack or discount tire direct, its 11.25 per tire. Cheap and effective.

Thats a darn good price. Thanks for sharing!

[hufflepuff]

Cheapest is Costco. I've had good results there. I dont really care about my rims, though they havent damaged them yet. I think $9 per wheel and $1 per tire for disposal if you need it.

Not bad- do you need the costco membership? Thanks Rocky.

[FamilyTruckster]

I thought costco stopped doing M&B on tires they didn't sell. LAst time I checked M&B was $14 or $16 there.

I had 2 sets of tires done at walmart. They bitched about the small sidewall of the 245/45/17s and took an hour to do 2 loose wheels. The next set I brought in they completely destroyed my wheels. Frigging morons.

I've been wanting to buy a tire machine and balancer. I've seen them used for the pair under 1500 bucks. Then I would do 10 buck M&B on the weekends and make the money back quickly.

[echan]

The absolute cheapest place I had tires swapped was at Bingo Tires (they typically sell used tires). They changed tires for $10 a wheel and didn't change a disposal because they planned to sell my old tires. Also, I had to pay them cash.

If your worried about your wheels getting damaged, I recommend P-Tuning in Manassas. They have a slick Italian tire machine that doesn't touch the rim. If you use them, plan on dropping off the tires because they don't do it very fast. So you're better off returning the next day. They aren't the cheapest but if you have expensive wheels (my alloy race wheels on the TR6), I highly recommend them. Just don't expect fast and cheap...

[Rock Star]

[quote="hufflepuff"]Not bad- do you need the costco membership? Thanks Rocky. [\quote]

Yes you need a membership.

[quote="FamilyTruckster"]I thought costco stopped doing M&B on tires they didn't sell. LAst time I checked M&B was $14 or $16 there. [\quote]

I dunno, last time I did it there was three years ago. The price or their policy may have changed. IIRC they filled the tires up with dry nitrogen too FWIW. You may be able to talk them into it even if their 'policy' has changed.


Wherever you go, bring cash. You might just find someone on break that is willing to take care of you

[v10climber]

I've gone to the Merchants Tire in Alexandria next to the Giant/Lowes and they did a crap job. Took chunks out of the inside of all 4 rims and didn't get them balanced properly. I had to take all 4 wheels back in and they re-balanced them but still didn't get them 100%. It was cheap but totally not worth it.

Last time we had Caitlin's tires mounted/balanced we took them to Beltway Discount tires in Alexandria off Eisenhower Ave. They did a solid job and I think it was ~$80 for all 4 mounted and balanced. I think that might have been with the tire rack discount though.

I've been wanting to buy a tire machine and balancer. I've seen them used for the pair under 1500 bucks. Then I would do 10 buck M&B on the weekends and make the money back quickly.

I looked into this too but I would have to buy a new air compressor as well as the mount/balance machines. Apparently the mounting machines take a huge amount of air that I don't think my 30gal compressor could put out.

[david.valeri]

Apparently the mounting machines take a huge amount of air that I don't think my 30gal compressor could put out.

Meathead racing racing runs their basic machine off of a ~30 gallon Craftsman oilless compressor. Expect the compressor to cycle once per wheel. I think the machine that Meathead has only uses air for the rim clamps and the bead breaker. No fancy system to seat the bead. Just mount tire and inflate until the bead seats.

[Dan133]

Frank got a good deal at Walmart on tires we purchased from TireRack.

[NoVA_STi]

So, what I'm gathering is that the small business shops will usually M&B tires that they didn't sell you.

It's the bigger shops (Costco/Merchant/Firestone) that will only M&B tires that they sold you, or they M&B through vendors such as TireRack.

Is that correct?

I just acquired a set of new but barely used SP600s from another subie owner, but I'm seeing now that I might have an issue finding a place to M&B these tires. A small shop isn't out-of-the-question, as long as they don't mar the rims (needs to have decent turnaround time, unless I have them done in winter, since I've a separate set of winter wheels/tires).

[dhowell]

When I bought my new StarSpecs this year, I had them mounted at the Firestone near me (Odenton, MD). They were on the Tire Rack installers list. $12 each if I remember correctly. No complaints, but results may vary at other locations.

Edit: That was the price for Tire Rack customers. Not sure what it is otherwise.