On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:24:39 +0000, Stormin' Norman advised:

Frank, I am not trying to sell you on Costco. I simply related my
personal experience. I also have excellent luck with Discount Tire,
in this part of the country they are a giant in the tire retailing
business and will beat any price you bring them, even the online
sellers.

I understand, and appreciate your recommendation.
I used to do all the things everyone else does, so I'm familiar with every
way to buy tires (if I skipped a method, let me know).

1. When I was a kid in college, I bought tires at junk yards right off of
junked cars, but I stopped doing that when my five-dollar tires wobbled
while driving. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the vibration
was, because the tires looked fine. People would point to my tires as they
drove by, when one day, a guy followed me off the highway and told me my
tires were flexing like a balloon. Replacing those junk-yard tires solved
my vibration problem; but it could have been (much) worse.

2. Swearing off junk-yard tires, I would then buy tires on sale at Sears.
They sold them mostly by warranty (of all things). So I would buy the tires
based on warranty as I recall (although this was in the day of bias ply so
I don't remember all the details). I do remember looking at a wall of
mounted tires at sears and trying to figure out what was the best tire
(which was basically impossible to do that way - but I didn't realize it at
the time).

3. Over the years, I learned about TireRack from the Motor Trend and Car
and Driver car magazine advertisements (there were two main companies that
always advertised with a full page of teeny tiny print that I could
actually read without glasses in those days before the Internet). It was
still impossible to select among tires, but at least the price was a *lot*
lower than it was at Sears. Tire Rack would ship to the recommended
installer and the installer would give me the Tire Rack price.

4. At some point, radial tires showed up (which lasted longer than the 25K
miles that bias ply lasted) and UTQG appeared as did Price Club (now
Costco), so at least I could now select tires from the floor-to-ceiling
piles at Costco by the UTQG numbers (and not by a silly warranty figure).

5. Finally, I got used to buying stuff on the Internet, and that was it for
buying anything locally, simply because of the stupendously huge price
difference. Sure, almost everyone will *match* almost everyone else, but
what good is *matching*?

I never understood price matching.
What's the appeal?

Under most circumstances, they match the same price you can get elsewhere.
Um. So what? That's not any better. And, often it's worse (because of sales
tax and selection considerations.)

The *only* reason, IMHO, to price match, is if there is *something* you get
for free out of the price match. But if all you get is the same tire at the
same price that you would have gotten anyway - what's the benefit of price
matching?

I'd rather give my business to the guy who advertises and sells at the
lowest price than to the guy who advertises and sells at a higher price who
only drops his price when you put a gun to his head.

Of course, if you get *something* for free from price matching, then it
makes total sense. Many examples can occur, but I'll just flesh out a
typical one which is that, say, you can get tires in 10 days from company X
online, where the total cost (let's say) is $400 for 4 tires, shipped,
taxed, and installed.

If you walk up to a tire shop, and say "will you match this price" and if
they match the *price*, then you're getting something for free because you
don't have to wait the 10 days for shipping.

So, to me, price matching is utterly useless unless you get something for
free out of the deal, other than price.

To me, *price beating* is what I like!
If someone says they will *beat* the Internet price by, say, 10 percent,
that's worth switching.

But just price matching?

Naaah. That's like replacing your favorite toolbox hammer with another
exactly similar hammer. There's no benefit whatsoever to the swap, and the
original hammer deserves a bit more respect.