Anyone have any experience purchasing tires online. Good or bad experiences?

I normally use a small local tire shop for all my tire purchases. However after contacting them today about a set of Toyo AT2's they told me they can't get that tire due to Covid which caused a BF Goodrich tire shortage that prompted higher sales of other brands which created a tire shortage of tires available in their warehouse. I didn't know if that was a load of crap or not so I called Discount tire. They told me the AT2's are discontinued and the AT3 is available but they would have to order them which would require a deposit and the tires wouldn't arrive for 3-5 days.

I'm considering purchasing a full set of Toyo AT3's from Simpletire.com. Anyone have any experience with them? I'm dead set on the Toyo tires so no need to recommend an alternative. The At2's have 45k of hard towing miles on them and they did great in the mud. It appears the AT3's will be even better. So I'm really looking for the easiest way to get these tires on my truck in the shortest amount of time.

The online shops are the same price as the local tire shops quoted me so price is not a driving factor for shopping online only for convenience. What concerns me is do the online tire shops actually have the tires in stock and available for shipment or is there a long lead time? Also is there any gotchas on shipping to a residential address, these tires are 55 lbs each? I had a bad experience with trying to get a Hein-Werner floor jack shipped to my home a couple months ago and would rather avoid that fiasco in the future.

 

The AT3 tires are not worth the money! If you liked the AT2 tires you will forever hate Toyo running the AT3. The rubber is soft, tread chunks easily on gravel and even worse mud traction. If you want Toyota look for the R/T or C/T.

 

Try Amazon or tirerack.com , Russ

 

The only problems with online tires is the shipping, if they come UPS you may not get them all at the same time because of a weight restriction on the amount of weight per day that can be delivered to a residence and mounting and balancing.

Denny

 

never had any issues with online tire/wheel purchases. always quick shipping; never had a shipping issue. have always used tirerack i think

 

I couldn't find anyone talking bad about the AT3's, do you have some sources? If they are a softer compound then they should perform better in the rain which is the only thing I didn't like about the AT2's. I agree they are expensive but then again any tire in a LT275/65R20 is over $300 a tire.

Not available at Amazon and backordered on tirerack until September 30th. Simple tire says free 3 day shipping to my address and are the same price per tire as Discount Tire quoted before labor.

Good thought, I didn't know if they would be shipped individually or on a pallet. I would think mounting and balancing would be the same regardless if I get the tires local or online.

Thanks for the replies it's nice to hear the experiences of others.

 

Make sure they don't mail you 4 year old tires is the first thing. When buying locally you can look at the date codes and make sure they are fresh stock before signing the work order.

The next issue is whether a tire shop wants to mount, balance, and install tires that you didn't purchase from them. Some will, some won't. Warranty issues loom, too. Tire shops are competitive in pricing so if you're not too concerned about maybe spending a few extra bucks it shouldn't be a show stopper.

 

Good points. My tire shop was looking for a set of AT2's and told me they would call back with an answer. I called them this morning since I never heard back, informed them the AT2's had been discontinued and asked if they could source the AT3. They could not, I then asked if I purchased the tires elsewhere would they mount and balance them. Their rely was no problem $25 a tire.

I called simpletire.com to see if they had the AT'3 in stock and available to ship. They said they had 14 available in that size. I was surprized as most other places are backordered.

I took the chance and ordered them from simpletire.com. Its not how I prefer to purchase tires but I need tires before the middle of October and it looks like tire stock is dwindling. Date codes should not be an issue since these tires were only first available in March 2020.

 

I used to purchase mine at Discount Tire Direct since they were less expensive than local shops, but now I find better deals on Amazon with free Prime shipping. Pay attention to the cost for a pair versus a set of 4. Sometimes it costs less to order two pair than a set of four, I assume this happens because of how the shipping weight is figured. Before ordering make sure you have a local shop that's willing to install them. Some places (like Town Fair Tire) will only install what they sell you.

 

My statement about the AT3 tires was from personal experience. Years of great success with the AT2 tires and the AT3 tires were garbage in 1500 miles. The tread chunking was unbelievable, the tires were replaced by Toyo in full and I went with R/T tires because the C/T were unavailable.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm hoping you just had a bad set and I don't encounter the same issues.

 

Our local tire stores charge 40.00 to mount a new tire youbring in. But they are at or better the tire rack price and usually mount them that day.

 

I have used Discount Tire Direct on numerous occasions. Great prices, free shipping l

 

I have used Tire Rack many times for car and SUV. Those tires are smaller so I ship them to my house. Tire Rack has a list of recommended installers. They will also ship to any installer that you choose.

 

Ive bought tires online from Tire Rack, Discount Tires, and Ebay. Biggest issue I had was a set of four tires did get broken up into two shipments and they arrived a few days apart but thats it for me, none of the tires were older then 1 year which is normal based on what my dealer sells.
I do work at a shop so I mount and balance my own tires and I do not expect any warranty with the tires like I could expect if I bought had them installed at a shop.
If I didnt work at a shop and the tire shop had the same price as online I would buy them from the shop so if their are any issues there is some type of warranty. I think discount tire shops have a good non optional warranty/road hazard protection.
Covid 19 has made some issues with stuff running out of stock, I was going to order a custom trailer till I found it wouldnt be ready till January at the earliest, it sucks but what are you gonna do.