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New Shoes for Blue

Midlife

Midlife

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Blue is my 2006 GT Coupe. It came with the factory supplied Pirelli PZero's, which I do not like at all. I can lose traction while taking a corner with power, and they are worthless in modest rain. The only good thing about them is that with 55k miles so far, there's still a lot of tread left. I figure they are "hard" tires, so grip is poor, but have good mileage.

So...I go onto Tirerack and check out what's available in this size (235/55 R17), and most of it is crap, according to the reviews. I narrow the search to Sumitomo HTR ZIII, Yokohama S.Drive, a Continental DWS, and a Goodyear GT. I'm looking for good dry and wet traction (don't care about snow/ice...it don't exist where I am), quiet ride, and reasonably good mileage. So...I make the rounds around town, and except for the Goodyear, nobody has anything in stock. The Yokohama's had the better reviews, but mileage ranged from 10k to 25k, maybe 30k. They were the second cheapest after the Sumitomo's at $145 each. They should be in town early next week, and I'll give a review a bit later.

Sigh...I remember when tires could be had for $100 for four, new! Yeah, they were bias-belted and if you were lucky, they lasted 10k miles, but $708 for four tires? Sheesh! One place wanted over $1k! I could see that for track tires, but for a daily driver?
 
I paid over 1K for new tires on my F150 this year. Of course I bought a little bigger than factory size and aggressive tread but yeah, tires aren't cheap!
 
Sorry!

I know a lot of people are Tire Rack fans, but www.discounttiredirect.com beats them almost every time - That "Free Shipping" is HUGE!

BTW, I've run into problems the last couple years getting local tire shops to mount new tires bought elsewhere. They SAY "insurance rules" prohibit them from mounting tires not purchased from them... (BS!) Let us know your experience. I have switched to my local FORD dealer for most of my mount/balance work lately - price is reasonable, and they have the latest hi-tech mounting and balancing equipment. They have a wild-looking 2-armed tire machine that never touches the rim and road-force balancing... I think I paid $80 last time to M&B 4, including valvestems and tire disposal fee.
 
Having spent a short time associated with the tire business, I can understand shops not wanting to mount tires purchased somewhere else. If the tire has any problems in balance or any defects, many customers want the shop to take care of it. If the same customer has new, custom wheels, that adds another dimension to the problem. The company insurance can reject a claim for injury if the tire was not purchased there also. Crappy ins. coverage but I have seen it. Also, if an incompetent employee damages the tire during mounting, the shop is liable for something that is not theirs. Still have to replace a tire but they have ways to help cover in house screw up on their tires.

Some shops will actually work with an on line sales location to become an authorized installer for those tires sold. The shop I was in did that and it changed the way things were handled if there was a bad tire or other problem. Might search at the on line company for a list of installers they authorize.
 
I bought the F1's on the rear of my car from TireRack because they were the cheapest I found, I bought the fronts from Discount tire, they matched the tire rack price.
 
"Midlife" said:
So...I go onto Tirerack and check out what's available in this size (235/55 R17)
Click to expand...

So Randy why are you staying with the original size? Why not a 255/50 R17?

235/55R17 255/50R17

Section Width: 9.25 in 235 mm Section Width: 10.03 in 255 mm
Overall Diameter: 27.17 in 690.11 mm Overall Diameter: 27.03 in 686.56 mm
Revs per Mile: 765.5 Revs per Mile: 769.5
Actual Speed: 60 mph 100 km/h Speedometer1: 60.3 mph 100. km/h
Speedometer Difference: 0.0 Speedometer Difference: 0.522% too fast

The difference is so slight, besides if you look at the revs per mile of different tire manufacturers it can be no different than the difference between these two tire sizes. I'm just sayin. fd
 
Finally got a good drive (over 100 miles) in a good rain storm. These tires are outstanding in the rain! I drove into long depression in the road where water accumulates and the car tracked straight and true without a hint of hydroplaning. I think I'm gonna like these tires!
 
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