Holy shit, what happened to the price of tires?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve needed better tires on my car ever since I got it. The factory tires are useless in the winter, and I’m uncomfortable with them in rain as well, and I’m returning to Denver soon and also returning to my favorite hobby of wandering around in the mountains on winter weekends. So, OK, it’s before the winter rush–it’s 80-something degrees in St. Louis today–so it must be a good day to go drop $500 on some decent all-season rubber, right?

Holy fucking shit! Online research told me that there’s a rubber shortage, and $500 isn’t really realistic for decent tires right now. All right, I decide on a top three list that might be good enough and don’t cost a grand. At two different places, none (none!) of the three were available in my size, and neither place had any idea when they might get some. So I’ve got to spend a lot more, or get worse tires. Wonderful. Oh, well, that’s life . . .

What the fuck has science been doing for the last 120 years? Where’s the synthetic substitute for rubber?

What the fuck has the government been doing? We’ve been through two world wars where rubber was a strategic resource, and scarcity of rubber caused problems in the war effort, and on the home front. If another world war started tomorrow, how in heaven will we get the rubber to support that war effort? I"m going to assume that we’ve got a Strategic Rubber Reserve.

And, what the fuck is the free market doing? Why, it’s making tires that nobody will buy because they’re too fucking expensive or too fucking horrible, and not making tires that people have bought to such an extent that they’re unavailable.

So, suck it, science, and grunt on this here for a bit, government, and, free market, you may simply fellate me. I’d say fuck you, but I can’t. There’s a rubber shortage, after all, and after today I’m terrified to go price condoms.

2

There is synthetic rubber of course. The development of styrene-butadiene rubber during World War II was vital for the war effort since the Japanese controlled the Asian rubber plantations. Right now the price of synthetic rubber is also very high because of the prices of the raw materials, especially butadiene.

I would strongly suggest winter tires if you are planning on being in the Colorado mountains when there is snow on the ground. All season tires are not optimized for snow. Your best bet is to find a set of cheap rims for the winter tires. This also could also give you a little more flexibility with tire size.

3

Wait until you see the mileage guarantees are gone. You but them and they blow up in 1000 miles, your problem.

4

A good set of all-seasons have worked well enough for me in the past. They only need to handle fresh snow and slush, and I can usually deal with ice OK. Winter tires would just go to waste in Denver; usually the snow and ice is off the roads within 48 hours of falling. (January excepted.) I don’t try to take the dirt road between Meeker and Steamboat Springs in the winter.

My current tires don’t even handle fresh snow, and are untrustworthy on ice, and unreliable even on wet pavement, and have been that way ever since I bought the car. With 30,000 on them, they need to go.

5

My 8 year old Toyota Sienna is on its fourth set of tires already.

P.S. Look at Costco.

6

Your answer can be found here and here.

Short version: Obama administration levies 35% tariff on imported (Chinese) tires. With competition removed, other manufacturers raise prices as well.

[my opinion]: You’re paying more for tires to fund a presidential payback to the unions.

7

Horseshit. The price of tires has been steadily creeping up for the past decade or so. Maybe some tiny amount of the price of very low end tires is because of the tarrif, but for the most part that has nothing to do with it.

8

The Sumitomo HTR’s I have been buying since 2004 have gone up in price about 10%.
The BFG AT T/A KO’s I have been buying since 1998 have risen about 7% in price since then.

Both my vehicles have 15 inch wheels. Used to be the most common size.

Are you sure this isn’t a case where this vehicle has one of the newer size wheels (16, 17, or 18 inch) and you aren’t familiar with tire prices for them?

A friend has a late model Ford truck with 18 inch wheels and purchased BFG AT T/A KO’s. For similar overall tire size:
Mine 31x10.50x15 = $156 per tire from Tire Rack
His 275/65R18 = $209 per tire

9

What? Not even close. What price data are you looking at? The price of rubber has exploded exponentially the past couple years.

10

I realize you are referring specifically to tires where I gave the price of rubber. Though the correlation coefficient isn’t 1, I’m guessing it’s pretty high. I’ve been unable to find a tire price index (that you don’t have to pay for).

11

That could be (they’re 17), but that doesn’t explain why I can’t find any of the ones I want.

12

Tire Rack, my friend, Tire Rack. Not that they’ll be free, but they’re generally cheaper than local stores. And anyone should be able to mount them for a small fee. Even with the mounting fee I paid last time, it was cheaper to buy the tires through Tire Rack.

13

I’m thinking about it. That’s one of the places I looked for reviews and specs.

I’m just ready to get the hell out of St. Louis, and don’t know if I want to stick around long enough to do that.

14

What car? I agree with Hbns that this may just be an issue of increasing wheel width and diameters. I still get tires for less than $350 a set for my older cars with 6 inch wide 15" wheels, even less for cars with 14x5 wheels (used to be a really common size). My newer car, I just spent $600 for decent tires on 17x8 wheels. The bigger the wheel, the more rubber used, and the more engineering that needs to go into the tire to remain strong yet flexible. In an era where minivans come with 19s, tires are necessarily going to get pricier. Also, the wider the wheel, the fewer the options (in my experience). Sportier cars have fewer choices.

15

Yeah, but ISTM that those 14" and 15" wheels used to be more like $200 a set.

I need new tires now for my 2000 Accord, and it’s definitely sticker shock time. I’m pretty much figuring I’ll be paying in the $350 neighborhood, all told, but it took me a bit of research to realize that.

16

Another possible consideration. I’ve got the impression that over the years tires have gotten bigger/thicker than they used to be. Maybe it a little of everything. Bigger/thicker tires. Inflation. Increased labor/material/environmental considerations/costs. Tariffs. Poor countries that make em not being quite as poor anymore and now charging more. Increased transportation costs. Increased “hidden” taxes that affect the final cost. Perhaps a cost death by a thousand little cuts?

17

Your opinion is showing a significant amount of tread wear, on what were cheap retreads to begin with. See here, where it’s gotten so thin that the steel belts are showing through? Legally, I can’t allow you to leave on these, because if you were to become distracted by talk radio and had an accident, I could be held liable.

18

Seconding this. Once you go Rack, you’ll never go back.

19

I just checked for my truck and they came out the same as my local tire place, more if you add shipping.

Personally I’d never buy something like tires from a place I can’t walk into if I have issues. If you get a defective tire you kinda screwed dealing with it in a timely manner. The installing shop isn’t going to back a product they didn’t sell and the mail order place can’t get you the tire same day and isn’t going to provide a free replacement until they can confirm it was defective to begin with.

20

Well, firstly, I was just refuting the claim that the tarrif on Chinese tires (and by extension union largess) was what was driving the price increases. Undoubtedly the price of rubber is what has driven the increase in tire prices.

Perusing the various news articles, the prices of tires have gone up something like 6-8% in response to the recent price spike. Considering that the graph in that link shows the price of rubber at least doubling this year, I would guess the correlation coefficient is pretty far from 1.

This isn’t exactly a price index, but try this (PDF): http://web.archive.org/web/20000303022406/http://www.tirerack.com/tires/pdf/tires.pdf

It’s the Tire Rack pricesheet from 2000. Some of the brand names have changed and some sizes have fared better than others, but on the most part tires that still have identifiable decedents are about 50-100% more expensive on 2011 Tire Rack than in 2000. Considering how much the price of everything else has gone up, that’s a tangible increase but not really “exponential”.

In my observation as a tire consumer over that period, the process has been gradual (i.e. “creeping up”), but that is only anecdotal. If you wanted to get really ambitious you could use the Wayback Machine to pull Tire Rack prices from other years and make your own price index!