Best Place To Buy Tires Online Free Shipping
If you're an automotive enthusiast, you're likely familiar with the offerings from Tire Rack. The Indiana-based online tire retailer and wheel seller has been the go-to for that hard-to-find wheel, offering tire sizes for everything from classic cars to trackable vehicles. Tire Rack tests tires on its track and on a road course. It also uses a hockey rink for ice driving and winter tires testing. It rates the tires on its site and you can browse its results to find a quality tire and best tire deals that fit your needs.
best place to buy tires online free shipping
Tire Rack's site has a Tire Decision Guide, a tool that helps guide you to the right tires for your vehicle. The survey suggests the right tires for you based on the answers that you supply. You can prioritize pricing and performance and find the best tire brand option for your needs. You can also search by type of tire such as summer tires, winter tires or all season tires. If you prefer to search by brand, you'll find a wide selection including Bridgestone, BFGoodrich, Goodyear tires, Michelin tires, Cooper tires options and more.
According to Matt Edmonds, executive vice president at Tire Rack, if you order a tire that doesn't appear to fit the vehicle you own, one of Tire Rack's customer service representatives will reach out to double confirm that you want the tires you have chosen. That's because returning tires that don't fit is not easy. Tire Rack does allow returns within 30 days of your tire purchase, but you'll need to call its customer service line to find the best solution to return tires that aren't right for you.
Tire Rack also offers a free two-year road hazard warranty on all the tires it sells (on top of the manufacturer's warranty for whatever tires you choose). If you get a flat thanks to a road condition like a pothole or hit a nail on your way to work, Tire Rack will cover your tire repair or replacement with limitations. Conditions do apply, so be sure to read the details of the warranty.
For tire installation, Tire Rack works with local installers all over the country that have been vetted by the company. You choose your tires and can have them dropped shipped to a local tire center that is a Tire Rack-approved installer. Installation costs vary based on location and types of tires. You can also utilize Tire Rack-approved mobile installers as well and have the tires drop-shipped to your home. Tire Rack offers free shipping on orders over $50.
In Consumer Reports' Tire Store report, Tire Rack performed well across the nine categories that CR readers were asked to assess and scored a 89 out of a max score of 92 on its rating scale. The online retailer was knocked for its lack of "free perks," which included free add-ons like free tire rotation, tire balancing and tire mounting. It does, however, have an A-plus Better Business Bureau rating.
Tirebuyer.com offers similar features to Tire Rack and Discount Tire (below) by allowing you to purchase tires online, ship them to a local installer, and get them installed. Tirebuyer.com is owned by one of the largest tire distributors in the US, American Tire Distributors.
If you buy your car tires at Tirebuyer.com, it'll ship them free to one of its 10,000 installers all over the country. However, the online tire retailer will also ship them to your home free of charge. Because it is part of such a large network of tire distributors, Tirebuyer says you can get your tires to your installer within 24 to 48 hours of ordering.
Tirebuyer does not offer a robust sizing tool to choose the right tires like Discount Tire and Tire Rack do, but should you end up with the wrong tires, you have a few options to return them. If you had the tires shipped to an installer, returns are free and handled at the installer. TireBuyer has its own network of trucks, which makes it easier to handle these kinds of returns. If you had the tires sent to your home or a non-Tirebuyer shop, you'll need to use FedEx to ship. The return shipping fees (usually $7.50 per tire when you drop the tires off at a FedEx location, or $15 per tire when you arrange a FedEx pickup) will come out of your refund.
Discount Tire is a bit of a hybrid in the online/brick-and-mortar tire space. While you can purchase tires online through its site Discount Tire Direct, you can also have them drop-shipped to your local Discount Tire or America's Tire shop (the name is different depending on where in the country you live). You can also choose to shop in-store for the right tire at a Discount Tire as well.
You can choose to shop for tires at one of the local shops or you can shop online, have the tires drop-shipped to the Discount Tire or America's Tire local shop of your choice, and have them installed.
If you aren't sure which tires would work for your vehicle, Discount Tire offers Treadwell, an in-house developed system that uses data from customers as well as real-world testing data (like that that Tire Rack creates) to help you find the right tires for your needs. You put in your vehicle year, make, and model; how many miles you drive per year; and the ZIP code you drive in, then the system gives you a number of suggestions based on your input. You can prioritize handling, stopping distance, the life of the tire and comfort and noise, from which the system will give you a recommended list. Discount Tire offers free ground shipping in the 48 contiguous states.
The site also allows you to make an appointment online to have your new tires installed. Discount Tire offers a handy tire size calculator in case it seems like you can't find the exact size that is currently on your vehicle.
Discount Tire says that if you're not satisfied with your purchase, it will do its best to make it right. If you've purchased tires online and they turn out to be wrong, you can return them, but the language in the return policy is a bit strict for Discount Tire Direct. You have to repackage them correctly with the original packaging or you could forfeit your return.
The tire vendor also offers a pretty robust road-hazard warranty, too, for a price. While it offers a pro-rated and free road hazard coverage, it also offers a warranty that extends for three years. It covers road hazard damage including tire repair for the first three years of tire ownership with its Certificate program that you can opt for when you purchase and have tires installed at one of its shops. The prices can range from $10 per tire to as much as $100 per tire, depending on how pricey the tires you purchased are.
You guessed it: You can, in fact, buy tires online at Amazon from brands including BF Goodrich, Good Year and many others. You can buy both tire and wheel assemblies as well as tires, and it will ship them to a local store or to your home depending on what you prefer.
You should know which tires will fit the vehicle you are shopping for before you start poking around on Amazon. Unlike Discount Tire and Tire Rack, Amazon offers a very simple series of drop-downs to estimate which tires might work on your vehicle. If you are a Prime member, you do get free shipping and, depending on the tire you buy, free returns.
Sales and discounts on Amazon are a bit hard to find since it will vary widely based on both the manufacturer and the seller. If you choose to go with Amazon it's best to really read the fine print and know what you are signing up for when purchasing tires via its online platform.
Priority Tire also does not offer to ship the tires to a local installer. It only ships tires to your home, and you'll need to haul them to an installer or find a mobile installer who is willing to come to you to do the work. It ships free via FedEx Ground, and while it does offer shipping to places like Alaska and Puerto Rico, it charges for those locations (around $150 to $200 per tire).
According to Petersen at Consumer Reports, there are more than 33,000 independent tire retailers in the US. That means there's a lot to sort through when you're shopping for them. Tire shops can range widely in size and how they sell tires. Everyone from big-box stores like Costco and Sam's Club and Walmart to small, local, independent tire shops offer tires for sale. These days, online retailers are also making it incredibly easy to buy tires online and have them drop-shipped to a location of your choice when you're ready to have them installed.
Petersen advises that the best way to make the most of your tire shopping is to take the entire cost of both purchasing the tires and getting them installed into consideration. "It's not like a TV," he said. "You buy a tire and you still have to have someone put it on your car."
He also notes that the minimum advertised price or MAP price is the lowest tire price that any resellers are permitted to sell tires at. If you find a discounted tire on sale, it's likely because those tires are older and being replaced by a newer model.
Most installers will offer additional road hazard warranties that cover things like a flat tire as a result of a pothole or nail in the road. These vary from company to company -- some offer them for free, while others charge a premium for them. Be sure you read about the warranties and how to take advantage of them before purchasing tires.
One other thing to consider, as Petersen points out: The big difference between purchasing tires at a brick-and-mortar store and an online store is the variety of selection. "Online retailers provide lots of different models and sizes of tire that are likely to fit your car. Brick-and-mortar retailers aren't going to have every model you might want to consider and if they did, all chances are they wouldn't necessarily have them in the size you need," he says.
Ultimately, getting tires has become easier in the days of online shopping and delivery. With plenty of places to choose from, buying tires online can be an equally good choice as getting them at a tire shop as long as the tires you want and need are in stock. While prices can vary slightly, Petersen says, it pays more to haggle on prices for installation, warranties and other things. Tire prices are largely set in stone by the manufacturer and installers rarely have any wiggle room to negotiate. 041b061a72