Price of tyres

[prm]

What has happened to the price of tyres, they've gone through the roof, and kwikfits website has changed, you can't get them cheaper if you pay online anymore....

 

[petecb]

part worns if you can find em - just picked up a conti 225 40 18 with less than 500 miles on it for £35 fitted . thats the real deal ! Id imagine new would be well over £100 . Look around , theres loads of places offering these part worns for peanuts.

 

[prm]

Just rechecked on Kwikfart site and all back to normal,. Thanks for the heads up Petecb

 

[JOB-BLACK-RAT]

part worns if you can find em

I know that every one is finding times hard in cash terms and that part worns seem a good idea.

Just remember what it is that holds you to the road, 4 bits of rubber the size of a fag packet, and with our bigs cars we ask those little patches to do a lot of work.

You dont know the history of a part worn tyre, visual checks by the fitter will not spot all issues that will cause a tyre to fail. Please if you can, buy new rubber.

 

[HR17]

Check out blackcircles - me and The Wife have used them a couple of times and always been cheapest for us.

 

[cussy]

try elite .com they were cheaper than all sites when i bought 4 new winter tyres
4 weeks ago.delivered next day to my home.

 

[wheels-inmotion]

Rubber plantations are reducing production for more profitable crops.

Transportation and production costs of rubber has hit an all time high, meaning the production runs has become much more expensive.

In reply to this the manufacturers only make tyres to an expected sale level and do not hold reserves, this means competition for the tyres has become high as does the price.

 

[fatdazza]

Unfortunately rising prices will be common place from now on.

There are a billion people in China, who until recently have been happy to produce cheap goods for western markets and in return receive a bowl of rice a day! Well now they want more than a bowl of rice and have sampled the delights of richer foods, motorised transport and many of the other things that we take for granted. When you take into account the other developing countries such as Brasil, India and to a lesser extent Russia, then it becomes a classic case of supply and demand. Limited natural resources, increased demand, rising prices QED

 

[tagnut]

Rubber plantations are reducing production for more profitable crops.

Interesting. I'd assumed that the majority of tyres were already made from synthetic rubber and that the price rises would be linked to the rising cost of oil......

 

[C43AMG]

If you are in the Surrey area ( near Woking ) give Paul at Martins Tyres a call, I've used him for a number of years and find him very competitive. 01276 856846, a few members have used him in the past.

 

[sportyreptile]

I was talking to my neighbour before christmas who runs a local tyre place, he says they're getting hit with higher environmental charges for disposing of old tyres which of course he's having to pass on to the customer, it's going up again later on this year

 

[Rory]

In reply to this the manufacturers only make tyres to an expected sale level and do not hold reserves, this means competition for the tyres has become high as does the price.

There seems to far too wide a range of sizes now, with some fairly ordinary cars using tyres with very few sources. There's surely no reason why car designers couldn't specify a common size?
We have a Honda Jazz in the family on 16" wheels and the tyres (from memory 185/55R16) are only listed by a couple of manufacturers and I've seen comments that they're not freely available.

I found the 225/50R16's for my MB not easy to get last time, and they had jumped a lot in price.

 

[prm]

Thanks all for your comments, i'll be scouring the net for a bargain.....

 

[timskemp]

Etyres works for me, normally buy their "mid range" recommended brand which comes in as one of the far eastern or indian manufacturers - not had any problems with grip or wear although not as refined as Michelin - no worse than contis though. I have a local fitter I use as well.

90 quid per corner fitted at my location for 245/40/18 last time I used them, cheapest at KwikFit was 150.

 

[grober]

Interesting. I'd assumed that the majority of tyres were already made from synthetic rubber and that the price rises would be linked to the rising cost of oil......

Think that's closer to the mark.

 

[219]

I always shop around and have found eTyres and Black Circles to be consistently among the keenest on pricing - besides eTyres will fit them at my place of work and BC have a fitting centre 3 miles from my home .

For the last couple of years , I was paying £75 for Conti Premium Contact 2 205/65 15V ; at the end of last year I was almost at the legal minimum and needed two tyres for the MOT - unfortunately , there was no stock anywhere in the UK . I could have got Michelin from Costco at a cost of £130 per corner , but I'm not a fan of Michelin and held out for my Contis .

Thankfully , the tyres were still (just) legal and the car got through the MOT just before Christmas , and wasn't going to get much use over the holidays . Eventually ( mid January ) the tyres became available again , but the price had risen to £95 each .

I have subsequently noticed that most places have since dropped the price back to around £80 per tyre - so really not much of an increase at all .

 

[effbee584]

Yes - Tyre prices have increased substantially as I have just found out. I just paid £163 each for two Conti Eco 3 247/45/17 (W211) and that was competitive at my local small tyre dealer. Reason I needed them was that the inside of the two front tyres was so worn that the steel and fabric was showing through for about 25% of the tyre - hard to spot as well - caused by road speed bumps due to my straddling them over the past three years, rather than putting just one wheel over them as I do now. The tyres had done about 23,000 and had about 10,000 miles left in them. Spending on tyres for this reason is a 'distress purchase'. Be wary of speed bumps!

 

[219]

I seriously doubt that straddling speed bumps would cause the tyre wear you mention : you will cover a minuscule fraction of your overall mileage traversing these objects , even then your suspension deflects to accommodate them .

I have straddled speed bumps in all of my cars without abnormal tyre wear .

Most likely your steering alignment or some other aspect of the car's geometry is not quite right - an early check on this would be money well spent .

 

[219]

As well as the above , your rear tyres would wear in exactly the same way as the fronts if straddling the bumps were to blame - assuming your rear tyres are not worn on the inside edges it points to mis-alignment .

Hopefully Wheels In Motion will be along to comment as he is the recognised expert on this subject .

 

[gina2201]

Blackcircles for me too, working for RM I have a discount code, not a great deal but its more money in my pocket.

I use Protyre down here in Plymouth, they are very good and always knock down their price if you just ask! Doesn't take much really!