New Tires! :)

[Kari]

Well, I guess today was time for some new tires on ol' Marcie Vibe, who will be four years old in October. While my Vibe didn't come with the infamous Continentals...it came with the only marginally better Goodyears, which I'm surprised have lasted the 32,000 miles they did because they've been looking sort of crappy for a while. Today, however, Marcie Vibe's tires entered an emergency situation post-rotation. I had been noticing an odd noise ever since I had my steel wheels replaced by the dealer. I took it back for a (free) realignment since it wasn't quite right after that, and mentioned the noise. They heard it too but said they felt it would go away with wear. Well, it didn't. In fact, it seemed to get worse. At first, I was hearing a noise from the left front (or so I thought) around 25-30 mph. But for the past few weeks, I had been hearing it around 55 as well.So while I was getting an oil change today, I had them rotate the tires so that the problem tire would be on the back. When I got in the car after that, boy was I surprised at the new level of noise from my problem tire. Apparently it *was* on the left rear, and after that rotation, today it was on the front. And it was noisy. I could feel the vibration in the wheel, and it sounded like a jackhammer at 55 mph.Since I didn't want to take a tire *that* noisy on an extended drive because I didn't feel safe, CP and I decided it was time for new tires. It was expensive, but I think worth it. No more weird noise, and the road noise actually seems reduced. I got Kumho Solus KH-16s, which I saw have been recommended a couple of times on here. They seem to be a good combination of value and quality, since I really couldn't afford something expensive, but these are rated #3 on TireRack as far as their multi-point ratings system goes. (Behind two sets of Bridgestones, both of which are twice as much as these Kumhos on Tire Rack.)They inflated them with Nitrogen, so I guess we're going to find out if one actually gets better gas mileage with Nitrogen-inflated tires, eh? I did replace the green valve stem covers that signify nitrogen with some chrome blue ones from Wal-Mart since the green kind of didn't look very good on my car. I'll keep the green ones in the glove box though for when I take it in for rotations and stuff, which will be free for the life of the tires. I also got a free alignment which I desperately needed after that tire episode and a small run in with a curb during a snowstorm. Free rotation and balancing, and I went ahead and sprung for the $6 per tire protection plan since they were so expensive, just in case something happens to one of them. And that's a 50,000 mile warranty. Hopefully I won't have to worry about tires for a long time to come! I'm certainly not looking forward to dropping that much money again on the car for a long, long time! Nice new tires I'll work on getting the red dot off later...LOL.

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[BlueCrush]

Cool! Nice tires. I'm assuming they are all-season? How much if you don't mind telling?

[Kari]

Yes, they are Grand Touring All-Seasons. The High Performance All-Season ECSTA was $120 a tire, whereas this one was $100. It was $460 total for everything including tax, a $12 Ohio Tire Fee, and the road hazard warranty.As for the TripleTreds...judging from the fact that they are $110 on Tire Rack and the Kumhos I bought are $65 on Tire Rack...I would venture to guess they would have been far out of my price range. If I had ordered them off of Tire Rack, I would have had to pay to have them mounted, balanced, etc. and I wouldn't have gotten the free alignment, so I doubt I would have saved much, if anything, by doing it that way...in fact I may well have spent more. So I think I got a good deal. And I got tires today, with no waiting. And as for the Nitrogen...I knew they offered the feature but I figured you had to ask for it and it cost extra...turns out it's free and they do it automatically. I didn't ask for it...I was just wondering why they put those dorky looking green caps on. Then I saw it in the little warranty folder they gave me.

[ColonelPanic]

Yeah, we couldn't have matching cars anymore so we had to have matching tires. The Soluses, er, Solii, er, whatever the lil' Accent has on it seem to be fine tires.If nitrogen in the tires really pans out for bumping up the mileage, that Vibe of yours will be getting like 45 MPG. LOL!

[Kari]

I'm not sure if the green valve stem caps is standard or not...a news story I read from Florida on nitrogen tire inflation said they put on blue caps down there. It may just be something Tire Discounters (a large Tri-State based chain) does for their own reference since they offer free rotations and balancing so they are probably the ones usually messing with the tires, aside from the customer themselves. I did read on their web site, however, that you can top them off with regular air at any time, so that is good to know....that you don't have to hunt down a gas station with a nitrogen pump! I didn't really have time to do a lot of calling around or haggling, as I needed the tires for Sunday. Otherwise I might have tried the "order from Tire Rack" route. Maybe I'll do that next time if I have more time to plan...heh.I think Mike had the ECSTA ASXs, at least that's what CP could remember. The Soluses are good so far on James' Accent, and they get good marks on Tire Rack, so I figured they were a good choice. Should last a while with as little as I drive...heh.

[ColonelPanic]

He had the Ecstas on his, IIRC.