📰 Auto News Discount Tire to acquire Tire Rack

[Mook]

Discount Tire To Acquire Tire Rack And Merge Operations, Creating Leading Omnichannel Tire Buying Experience

/PRNewswire/ -- Discount Tire, a leading independent retailer of tires and wheels, is acquiring Tire Rack, a leading independent tire tester and...

www.prnewswire.com

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[Bob Kazamakis]

 

[Flyn]

Damn. I remember when Tire Rack started and how great they were at reviews and pricing.

If you can't beat them, acquire them? We'll probably see a bump up in tires prices now.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Discount tire sucks and tirerack is awesome. Hopefully they don’t ruin it

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Ugh. Not pleased. I did not like the service when I had my new RS rims mounted.

 

[Ron Vogel]

Kind of like when Comp USA took over Tigerdirect…that worked out great…

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

I'm not pleased either. That's taking away competition to keep the prices somewhat in check. Almost a monopoly. I'm surprised they're allowing it.

 

[bs009]

Discount tire is the shittt. Worked there for 2 years in college and it was one of my favorite jobs I had. I've always found better deals there after installation and shipping charges.

Tire rack is useful for reviews and testing and it looks like they're still going to be operating separately. I can't imagine Tire Rack is making much money with Amazon selling tires now anyway so they might need the assistance.

Still plenty of other competitors out there to them like Belle Tire, Firestone, Pep boys, Costco/Sams Club

 

[DEEZUZ]

Discount tire is the shittt. Worked there for 2 years in college and it was one of my favorite jobs I had. I've always found better deals there after installation and shipping charges.

Tire rack is useful for reviews and testing and it looks like they're still going to be operating separately. I can't imagine Tire Rack is making much money with Amazon selling tires now anyway so they might need the assistance.

Still plenty of other competitors out there to them like Belle Tire, Firestone, Pep boys, Costco/Sams Club

Me and N20GT were INC01.

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

Don’t have time to look right now, any info on what percent of the US market this will give them? I agree they’re both huge, seems like this has to be right on the edge of what the FTC would allow

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

Discount tire is the shittt. Worked there for 2 years in college and it was one of my favorite jobs I had. I've always found better deals there after installation and shipping charges.

Tire rack is useful for reviews and testing and it looks like they're still going to be operating separately. I can't imagine Tire Rack is making much money with Amazon selling tires now anyway so they might need the assistance.

Still plenty of other competitors out there to them like Belle Tire, Firestone, Pep boys, Costco/Sams Club

I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone have a good experience at discount tire.

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone have a good experience at discount tire.

We did my with g/f. She had some crappy tires that were slapped on that the previous car owner wanted. Kept getting sidewall blisters. After about a year or having to get tires replaced (pro-rated) I asked if we had any options. She was at the shop with two blistered tires, I was at home. Guy I spoke to gave her a new set of tires for about 50% of cost, no disposal fee. It was a few years ago, want to say she went from Falkens to Pirelli. It’s for a Honda Fit, so not like they were special tires.

That’s my only dealing with them directly in recent years.

My last few sets were drop-shipped from Tire Rack to my tire/wheel guy.

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

As a discount employee I think the company did an amazing job trying to satisfy customers (this was 15 years ago fwiw), but IMO it’s hard to keep everyone happy when the stores are as busy as most DTC locations are.

 

[Mook]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone have a good experience at discount tire.

They've been flawless every time I've gone there.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

Don’t have time to look right now, any info on what percent of the US market this will give them? I agree they’re both huge, seems like this has to be right on the edge of what the FTC would allow

Yeah I think who ever is running that place stopped showing up but keeps cashing the checks. They should of stepped on for the T-Mobile/att, Disney/fox, alphabet and the dozens of companies they buy, Facebook/dozens, ISPs... To name a few

Everywhere you look its just monopolies that could crush the little guys at any time if you threaten the bottom line enough.

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

Yeah I think who ever is running that place stopped showing up but keeps cashing the checks. They should of stepped on for the T-Mobile/att, Disney/fox, alphabet and the dozens of companies they buy, Facebook/dozens, ISPs... To name a few

Everywhere you look its just monopolies that could crush the little guys at any time if you threaten the bottom line enough.

I hadn’t thought about it but that is a really good point, you definitely would have expected them to step in and require some divesting to make those acquisitions work. When I have a minute I’m going to look and see if anybody has done any research on this

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

I could almost forgive the FTC for being too stupid to properly regulate the tech and media industries, but something like tires should be very straightforward

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

I use tire rack since they’re a few miles away from me and a local chain to install. Sometimes they’ll price match and pick up tires for me which is awesome. They’re also super quick and I’ve never had an issue or been there longer than 30 minutes. Usually I just drop off though.

 

[SleeperLS]

Interesting. I have typically had great experiences at DT until my most recent KO2 purchase. I had to go back twice to get it right which was highly annoying. I prefer to shop on tire rack if I am doing research on what tire to get, so it could be useful to combine both sites tire data on one site.

 

[Dan00Hawk]

I've always found that having a good experience with mounting and balancing comes down to the individual you deal with at the service counter and which guy in back is actually doing the work, and less to do with the name on the store.

If you make them aware up front in a pleasant way that you expect the wheels to look as perfect after mounting as they did when new, AND you bring in something like a large pizza or donuts for the shop and counter guys to share before they do the work, you'll find that you'll be quite happy with the results. Whether you want to "tip" them like this upfront is up to you, of course. But I'd suggest that spending an extra $10-$20 to make sure you have a good experience with your $1000+ set of aftermarket wheels is well worth it.

I've ordered nearly all of my tires from either Tire Rack or DiscountTireDirect, and then just had mounting and balancing done locally. I found a Firestone near me (520 S Weber in Romeoville) where there are a few performance cars parked out front that are owned by the techs and managers, and they take care of me with lower costs than normal on installs and matching the online prices. So that's my go-to place now and they don't give me grief if I bring in my own tires that I bought online.

 

[guspech750]

Tire buying experience.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

I've always found that having a good experience with mounting and balancing comes down to the individual you deal with at the service counter and which guy in back is actually doing the work, and less to do with the name on the store.

If you make them aware up front in a pleasant way that you expect the wheels to look as perfect after mounting as they did when new, AND you bring in something like a large pizza or donuts for the shop and counter guys to share before they do the work, you'll find that you'll be quite happy with the results. Whether you want to "tip" them like this upfront is up to you, of course. But I'd suggest that spending an extra $10-$20 to make sure you have a good experience with your $1000+ set of aftermarket wheels is well worth it.

I've ordered nearly all of my tires from either Tire Rack or DiscountTireDirect, and then just had mounting and balancing done locally. I found a Firestone near me (520 S Weber in Romeoville) where there are a few performance cars parked out front that are owned by the techs and managers, and they take care of me with lower costs than normal on installs and matching the online prices. So that's my go-to place now and they don't give me grief if I bring in my own tires that I bought online.

Biggest issue I’ve had with discount tire to get something mounted and balanced is their appointments are bullshit and don’t mean anything. Why did I make an appointment for 8am if it’s going to be hours as you take walk-ins at the same time and get back up? I know PANDA has had the same issues.
EmersonHart13 had fun with his wheels too

 

[P40E]

Tire Rack is awesome I’ve bought a lot of wheels and tires from them and it sucks they got bought out . I hope their customer service doesn’t change . They have helped me out in so many ways and have saved me money .

 

[01Cobra]

About Us

www.tiresdirect.net

I used these guys. One of the IT guys for them Dave was a member on cmc.

 

[sktchy]

I've always found that having a good experience with mounting and balancing comes down to the individual you deal with at the service counter and which guy in back is actually doing the work, and less to do with the name on the store.

If you make them aware up front in a pleasant way that you expect the wheels to look as perfect after mounting as they did when new, AND you bring in something like a large pizza or donuts for the shop and counter guys to share before they do the work, you'll find that you'll be quite happy with the results. Whether you want to "tip" them like this upfront is up to you, of course. But I'd suggest that spending an extra $10-$20 to make sure you have a good experience with your $1000+ set of aftermarket wheels is well worth it.

I've ordered nearly all of my tires from either Tire Rack or DiscountTireDirect, and then just had mounting and balancing done locally. I found a Firestone near me (520 S Weber in Romeoville) where there are a few performance cars parked out front that are owned by the techs and managers, and they take care of me with lower costs than normal on installs and matching the online prices. So that's my go-to place now and they don't give me grief if I bring in my own tires that I bought online.

This, there's alot of halfass tire techs that are either underexperienced or just don't care anymore. To add to that most chain stores are a frantic dash to get everything done on time while the counter guys are pounding you with walk in wait flats when the days already been booked full and then everyone back there ends up pissy and that doesn't help matters any. Not to mention it's manual labor which at least half of this country isn't into these days and the pay isn't that great resulting in less applicants and more likely substandard work.

I'm not saying all tire guys are idiots by any means, but alot of them just don't give a shit because its a shitty job. Somebody brings in a diesel truck caked full of mud and ruins your day your likely not going to be super enthused to work on whatevers next.

My advice, find an independent shop that will take the time to do things right and pay the extra if you don't want your wheels dinged up.