Tires

What is your solution for tires?

I presently have four Goodyear Viva 2 tires, P215 tread width, on my '96, purchased at Walmart.

Two of the tires have developed quite a bit of run-out both radial and lateral. The tires have less than 45,000 miles with a 60,000 warranty. I moved both to the rear for safety and comfort, and visited my local Walmart to see if they would give me any warranty credit for news ones, they argued that the tire issues are not due to tire design and/or manufacturing flaw. In my view (and apparently quite a few of internet commenters) tire warranties are hard to invoke because the cause of premature failure can nearly always be attributed to some maintenance issue (true or false), whether it is inflation, alignment, suspension wear, rotation, road hazards, driving style, etc.

What experience do you have with tire life? What kind of tires do you purchase?

I currently have a set of Goodyear Assurance ComforTred tires on my '00 Windstar. They have been wearing evenly. They're probably the best tires I've had on the van, which is at about 185K miles now. In particular, their wet and snow performance has been better than I expected.

I bought them through tirerack.com. Yeah, I have a friend with tire mount and balance equipment - but I even bought from Tire Rack before then, after finding a local shop that would mount and balance tires they didn't sell themselves.

I can't recall at the moment how many miles are on the Goodyears, but I believe I've gotten at least 60K-ish miles on past tires. If you're seeing strange wear patterns, it's time to look for worn suspension components.

Any legit alignment shop will tell you if anything is loose or broken prior to doing an alignment. I prefer the Michelin's from Costco but that's just me. I went through a few sets of Goodyears (that my dad swore by for years) on my Camry before making the switch, and I only wish I had done so sooner. $15 for installation and lifetime flat repair (from the inside), rotation, and balancing. Hard to beat. Sam's club has the same deal, except they try and find stupid reasons to not give you the ongoing service as time goes on, so I quit using them.

I like Michelin Defender, which replaced the Harmony.
For winter tire, I have Michelin X-Ice i3.

I ran the Harmony on my Windstar year round and the same on my Sienna.
I have a pair of the Defender on the Sienna in the summer.....and will replace the newer pair of Harmony with another pair of Defender when they come due.

Last winter I decided to try the X-Ice i3 on the Sienna and it did make a big difference in the snow.
I followed the advice on Tirerack and bought the recommended snow tire size for my Sienna, which is more narrow vs the summer tires.

Expensive and I find that I want to replace them BEFORE I get to the tread wear indicator as their traction does go downhill in a big way as you near the tread wear indicators.
However, I get very good service out of them.

I always go with Michelin. I've had a set of Goodyears that came with my VW golf when I bought it, they were almost new. However, the grip wasn't that great and they didn't last long. When it was replacement time I got Michelin Defenders. Much better grip, they're durable and they didn't make as much road noise at high speed.
I did once get a really good deal on a set of Pirellis on a Honda prelude I once had, and that was a dream come true. The problem with Pirelli is that at regular price, their tires are heinously expensive.

Thanks for the responses.

FYI, I just rebuilt the front suspension (new control arms, sway bar bushings, sway bar links, tie rods & both ends), then an alignment. I'm not too sure about the alignment b/c there is a pull to the right, but I'm not yet convinced it isn't a tire problem. I plan to swap the two front tires (then back two) to see if it starts pulling left.

I took it to Walmart for rebalancing of the two suspect wheels. One had a separating belt, was still technically under warranty, but the technician would not honor the warranty because "there was too much wear" on the tire. He said he would have replaced it if had purchased the Road Hazard coverage, but I see no reason to add $15 to every tire charge for a service that I'd (normally) never use. Besides, it is my guess that tire installers are in the business of giving people tires for money, or giving them nothing for money, but only very, very rarely giving them tires for nothing.

The other was discovered to have a bent rim.

With further research I found that Walmart warrants the tires themselves, not the manufacturer, in this case Goodyear.

I choose to purchase two new tires (one to replace the defective tire, the other to replace my full size spare and move the bent rim to the spare for now), which were Hankook brand from a different store than Walmart.

Thanks for the help.

My wife puts WAY too many miles on her car so I usually go with a decent used set once a year. ($130ish) for 4.

I buy decent tires for my car every 3-4 years as needed... Okay, maybe a few months past "needed" lol

I also get my oil changed every 5,000 and tires rotated at 10,000

I buy all my tires from Costco. I used Sams Club, once (usually same price or within a dollar or so) but had a similar issue of looking for any excuse not to honor the followup service. I guess it's part of the Walmart culture we've all come to know and love. Costco is just the price you see plus $15 for installation. Lifetime flat repair and the warranty is all included that.

Costco has always been great to deal with, and as a bonus, they use 100% nitrogen which means there's no water absorption and the pressure barely changes as the temperature outside changes. That's also included for the life of the tires. Plus, when they have the $70 off 4 tires deal, you get the discount instantly instead of waiting for a rebate.

Just my .02, but FWIW, I highly recommend Costco for tires.