OK, I'm sick of the stupid pricing on tires in our neck of the woods. Any tips or advice for getting a set of 205/60 15's in a performance tire (guy at Canadian Tire wanted to sell me mini van tires - ouch) at a reasonable price?

Road trip in Dec?
Shipping/customs?

Or should I just keep the skinnies and roast them off when/if that fink Parker ever sends my engine parts?

We've got a wholesale account at one of the shops in town here, but I've been buying tires for our customers from the US lately and just put an order in at tiretrends.com in vancouver, so we'll try them. Hard to compete with US pricing.

tirerack.com gives shipping quotes with GST, tire levy and brokerage included. We'll see if any expensive bills arrive later on from UPS, though they shouldn't.

I'm just sick of the tire people in Lethbridge, I drive up and they want to put me into some goofy non-performance tire and won't even offer to help most of the time.

Let me know how the Tiretrends thing works out, there are a few tires in the running that they sell. I'm going to need tires in the New Year for sure (providing I get the rear end in and brakes finished).

I've used Tiretrends, and they're great. Quick delivery, sold me exactly what I was looking for. Only problem is that you still have to get them mounted & balanced.

I buy from eBay. Prices are usually 1/2 the Tiretrends price, if you can find what you're looking for. Usually you can find something that's a reasonable priced tire with not terrible shipping to anywhere in the US, and occasionally you can find free shipping to the US.

Being a lot closer to the border than me, have you got a place down there you can ship to?

I am watching this thread.
I will also need tires come spring

tiretrends is competitively priced on some stuff. Like the tires I ordered today for instance. Customer had the option of michelin x-ice from the US or hankooks from BC for about $100 less and much quicker than cross border delivery.

These will be coming mounted and balanced.

That'll be tough for Craig to do obviously...

I've bought three sets of tires from the US now. One was the set Ian now has on his car and they were a private eBay auction. The other two sets were from discounttiredirect. Of course, they were all shipped to a US address and were retrieved on one of our trips to the west coast. This isn't so much of an option anymore although I think it would be a very good idea for some of us to explore the possibility of renting a PO box in Sweetgrass...

I've also read that you can have tires shipped to an approved installation centre and have them installed there. I was looking at Discount Tire and they can ship tires to a Great Falls shop and you go and get them mounted. I'm thinking about this as a Christmas option. Gets around the shipping address problem.

I'm not opposed to renting a PO box in Sweetgrass if anyone knows how to set that up and what the costs are. I'm a lot closer and could run across the boarder from time to time (we are up in Calgary fairly regularly).

Thanks to everyone for not commenting on my cars affect on tire sales staff...If Dale pulled up in his 122, I bet service would be more swift. I acutally had a sales dude tell me that I didn't want a performace tire 'cause they get hard when it is cold. First, I live in Lethbridge...what the hell is cold? Second, if it snows I don't drive my car (what is snow? - we get that for about 1 month a year...no white stuff yet this year). What a dope.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/205-60-1 ... dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/205-60-1 ... dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/205-60-1 ... dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/205-60-1 ... dZViewItem

There are a few choices. Discounttiredirect has similar tires at similar prices. The selection isn't great on 15" tires anymore simply because the performance market has moved up to 17, 18 and 19 inch...

And I would certainly be willing to share the cost of a PO box. I see Sweet Grass has a UPS Store. There are likely others as well...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/205-60-1 ... QQtcZphoto

$250 for a set of 4 Bridgestone Potenza G 009's...that's just crazy talk. Add in the $140 for shipping and the UPS gouge and that's about $500 mounted and rolling. I was quoted $150 per tire for something in this range (plus mounting and valve stems - about $750).

Thanks for the link...I'm still leary about e-bay tires...but I'm warming to the idea.

Craig and I had been chatting about finding a place to ship to just recently. There's a lot of stuff on Ebay that I'd like, but people don't wanna ship here, or its frigging expensive. The closest people I know of are in Washington, and neither of us know anyone just south of us in Montana. The closest TB member is what, in Idaho? But with the border only about an hour away, finding a mailbox wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

Just found out that we could simply ship the the UPS store in Sweetgrass and go and pick the stuff up - there is a minimal cost for the service, but we don't need a PO box.

Gah, really??? Sweet!

What are the lineups like at Sweetgrass/Coutts? Hopefully they're not as bad as they are at others like Lynden/Alderside, or apparently Detroit/Windsor.

This is very good news!

While I haven't crossed at the Sweetgrass border in a while, I don't think its too busy. The last couple times I've crossed on the #2 closer to Waterton, it hasn't been more than 5 minutes wait. Its less busy there, but I don't think it would be much worse at Sweetgrass/Coutts. More trucks I guess.

Edit: And its only about an hour away....not including the crossing.

This is a great option for those of us who don't mind waiting or driving down to get them!

Not really worth my time for customers, as any shipping savings would balance out with what I'd have to charge them to drive down and get tires. I've ordered 2 sets from tiretrends this week and probably another set either from them or tirerack tomorrow. Even with shipping it's still WAY cheaper than retail so they're happy.

Now if one of you 'bridgers was willing to do the border runs and trips to calgary out of the goodness of your hearts...