Are we getting bent over?

33 IMP · Nov 30, 2019

Does anyone besides myself think that mount and balance charges have gone crazy?
I recently bought a set of coopers for my diesel pickup (really nice, by the way)and a pair for my old camaro (long story), at a large department store, i won't name (but it rhymes with mal wart). Seven hundred thirty dollars or so. It cost another hundred and thirty bucks to get them on the car, would have been$150 if i had bought road hazard for the camaro. Is it just me, or has this kind of thing gotten out of hand?
I had a pair of 12x15 brand new rims, that i wanted some brand new drag radials put on, so i took them to a local tire shop that sponsors a race series at our local half-mile roundy-round, figuring they knew what they were doing. M&b, less than ten minutes work, $40. I wish i could make $240/hr!
I even have a pair of $50 each tires, that now will fit the car i want to put them on. I've got $330 into them so far, and they aren't balanced yet.
I'm considering buying a cheap manual tire changer and balancer, and seeing if i can do something about this. I have too many old tires that need changing.

themechanic · Nov 30, 2019

Aluminum wheels ain't cheap; if they scratch em they buy em. Maybe that's why they charge so much. I just paid about $90 for mounting and balancing 4 new tires at Discount Tire. Lifetime balancing.

tnfastback · Nov 30, 2019

I use a local tire store that doesn’t charge for mounting and balancing. They also do free lifetime rotation. They are usually the same price as tire manufacturers actually set pricing. They have removed and remounted drag radials off rims for me multiple times at no charge since I buy all my tires from them.

Jerry Hall · Nov 30, 2019

Agree, find a local store that has good prices with M&B.

33 IMP · Nov 30, 2019

Maybe it's just a west coast thing. I see by the responses that those of you who aren't getting bent over all seem to be from the south/south east.

khryslerkid · Nov 30, 2019

That's the way it is in my area. Buy the tires and the price includes mounting and balancing.

I had a wheel changed last year at my local tire dealer and I know it wasn't too much. Mom and Pop type tire dealer.

4mulas · Nov 30, 2019

33 IMP said:
Does anyone besides myself think that mount and balance charges have gone crazy?
I recently bought a set of coopers for my diesel pickup (really nice, by the way)and a pair for my old camaro. It cost another hundred and thirty bucks to get them on the car. Is it just me, or has this kind of thing gotten out of hand?

So, the way I read this is that you bought 6 tires total and it cost you an average of $21.67 ea to have them put you car and or truck on a hoist which cost several thousand dollars, in a shop where they pay heat, electricity, taxes, insurance, business taxes, and likely a mortgage or lease payment, and used both a tire changing machine and balancer which cost Several Thousand dollars to change your tires, where they assume full liability should one of them become damaged in the process they would replace it.

Do I think $130 was too much. Nope.

R413 · Nov 30, 2019

I bought my own tire equipment, tired of the $240 an hour and scuffing/scratching rims. Add in the time it takes to go there and wait. plus the crazy $4 each rubber valve stem!

Best money I ever spent

Wanna put some rollers together? No problem, tire store won’t do it for you anymore on old tires

Want to turn some white letters around, swap wheels, etc, etc, no problem.

PS, they have paid the light/heat bills and paid for the machines several times a MONTH with the rates they charge.

davek · Nov 30, 2019

Discount Tire also did mine. :thumbsup:

69a100 · Nov 30, 2019

33 IMP said:
Maybe it's just a west coast thing.

Because it is a West Coast thing!!!

Andew Sury · Dec 1, 2019

West Coast thing, probably. My tire mount and balance cost me just under $15k and it paid for itself within two years. At $10 a tire for anything under 17 inch, $15 for anything up to 22 inchers. But I wont put a 7 inch tire on a 10 inch rim for anyone.

Darter6 · Dec 1, 2019

And nobody mentioned the disposal charge and shop supplies charge.$4.00 per tire. Local guy gets $7.50 per tire for balance.
I'm like R413 and have my own equipment.
Most stores won't sell you carry out tires anymore. I guess law suits caused that.
I guess the adage "If you want to hear the band, you gotta pay the man" stands tall.
I almost forgot to say that a tire store a block away from my shop (the charges above) I could go out daily and walk the street and pick up a hand full of wheel weights that people paid $7.50 for that fell off.
Rant over...

33 IMP · Dec 1, 2019

I had to have a different pattern added to my auto-drags to use some cheap tires on my opel. I found a local guy who did the pattern addition for $35 a wheel, VERY fair in my opinion. But he also charged $30 to dismount and throw away the ancient slicks and tubes. I think that is reasonable too, cause i couldn't have broke the beads on those flimsy old pieces of junk. Then he was willing to mount the flimsy new sprint car tires, again, something i couldn't have done, but another $30, so....two GIANT new sprint car tires, $100, shipping $95, new steel stems $5, pattern change, dismount and mount,$130. Even dirt cheap (pun intended) aren't cheap anymore!

Moparnocar · Dec 1, 2019

I bought a harbor freight tire mount tool a year ago, thinking the same thing, it's still in the box...lol

Ceedawg · Dec 1, 2019

It’s everywhere, another way of making money. Local pic a part, core charge on EVERYTHING you bring to the counter. Of course my tire guy here in town charges $5 a tire to remove a tire. $8 to remove then mount and balance new tire. That’s fair in my book. The older you are the more you see this change (pun intended) happening.

33 IMP · Dec 1, 2019

Eight bucks is very fair in my book. That's about what i remember, about what it should be, in my opinion. However, "mall wart" here happily tells customers that charges are $15-$25 per tire, even for a $44 on-sale tire for moms minivan.
It's probably my own fault, for not spending a couple weeks shopping the almost unending tire shops around here.

YY1 · Dec 2, 2019

My last experience at tires plus, where they wanted $48 to dismount a bad tire and mount a good one with no balance and with me taking the old tire caused me to jump at the opportunity to buy a $75 vintage Atlas 10-10 machine which has paid for it's self many times over.

I also bought a used $250 manual spin snap-on balancer. Even though it crapped out after about 2 years, it came close to paying for it's self. Last year I replaced it with a Coats 700 direct spin from a swap meet. I paid $385, and it's well on the way to paying for it's self already.

This past summer, A friend who owns a shop bought a new tire changer. I bought his old Coats RC (rim clamp)-15 machine for $500.
It started paying for it's self the next day and will allow me to mount tires on my Dakota 17x9 wheels, my wife's car, and my Mopar road wheels and Spyders.

I have 4 registered vehicles, a yard driver, 3 project cars and a few parts cars that are rollers, plus 3 trailers.

I don't at this time do any tire work for anyone but me, but I am considering it since there are a few car guys in my shop complex besides me.

If anyone wants to buy a vintage Atlas tire changer.....

33 IMP · Dec 2, 2019

My best friends hubby threw away a perfectly good atlas changer a couple years back. I didn't find out till it was long gone.

Note: best friend is a woman i met at a car cruise in alhambra ca, more than 35 years ago. She was driving a b7 70 340 challenger, i was driving a 327 vega. The vega has been gone for 30 years, she still has the chally!

themechanic · Dec 2, 2019

themechanic said:
Aluminum wheels ain't cheap; if they scratch em they buy em. Maybe that's why they charge so much. I just paid about $90 for mounting and balancing 4 new tires at Discount Tire. Lifetime balancing.

I forgot to mention no charge for dismounting the old tires and disposing of them.

Moparmarty50 · Dec 7, 2019

I too bought an inexpensive tire changer (from Greg Smith Equipment) about 15 years ago. It has paid for itself easily from my swap meet finds and different cars I have had. A tire bubble balancer bought at an estate auction keeps things rolling smoothly. I help my local car buddies and they help me where they can. If I ever get into a high dollar range car I might change my style. Also, the county I live in has a hazardous material drive yearly. They take most hazardous materials that shouldn’t be dumped into the ground. They also take 4 old tires per family FREE of charge for disposal. Check in your local area to see if that may be available to you.

Are we getting bent over?

FBBO Gold Member

Oklahoma is OK

Well-Known Member

FBBO Gold Member

FBBO Gold Member

FBBO Gold Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

FBBO Gold Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

FBBO Gold Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

FBBO Gold Member

Well-Known Member

FBBO Gold Member

Oklahoma is OK

FBBO Gold Member

Similar threads