The second pair of 9” Flutes just came in (for the front), and I have settled on a relatively aggressive max-performance summer tire: Hankook R-S3 265/40 18”.

My tire guy can’t source these from his distributors, apparently an odd size, seldom ordered.

tirerack.com has them $284 each. Oops, that was yesterday: $285 after midnight! What if I wait until tomorrow?

Before I pull the trigger on these, does anyone know of a better deal? Sale? Rebate? Promotion? Used-didn’t-like-‘em-hardly-used?

Yes, I did see the $80 Hancook rebate on a set of 4 until June 30, but that’s only available on Ventus V12 evo K110: $788 after rebate.

Yes, I can see that’s a fairly beefy $352 delta.

Plan to order Monday or Tuesday evening.

Thanks,
Paul

 

Tirerack.com usually has the best prices that I see online, however if you can find another tire store that can source them for you, they will usually give you a combined deal that is better than buying them online and having a local store install them. In other words, let's say the local guy would make $100 in profit by selling you the tires and $20 by installing them. If you buy the tires online he's only going to make the $20. If you tell him what you're thinking about doing he'll think "hey... if I can sell him the tires at only $30 profit to me I'll still be making $30 more than I would if he bought them online and I installed them." So he'll cut you a good deal. Their deal might not be quite as good as the tires + shipping + installation if you bought them online, but it will be close, and the tire store will probably give you free lifetime rotation and balancing, which makes it worth it.

I've done that a couple of times. It helps if you have a smart phone so you can go online to tirerack.com right there in the store to compare prices. The tire store doesn't really like it, but what can they do? It's a competitive market. Take advantage of it.

 

By the way... I always shop online for my price, and I've come close to ordering a couple of times, but I always end up buying locally because the local guy cuts me such a good deal.

 

Same here. In our neck of the woods, nobody can touch the manager of our local Discount Tire store. He knows I've done my homework before I ever set foot in his store to kick tires and talk deals, and he's blown tirerack.com (and everybody else) away since I met him in early 2007. I still do my online research and he knows he's going to have to cut me a deal to get my business, but he always does....

I have two Yokohama YK580 rear tires for my wife's XK8 on order with him right now. They should arrive on Monday or Tuesday....