People who live in places with real winters who say that there’s no point to winter tires and all-seasons are just fine haven’t ever driven with modern winter tires. That might have been true once, and it might become true again at some point in the future, but right now there is a huge difference in winter performance between good winter tires and even the best all-seasons.
Bolding mine. Yep.
Now, I live in ridiculous winters, It’s only 14 feet of snow so far (we measure, it’s been an easy winter). With the rest of March, April and May on the way. 30 feet of snow for the ‘season’ is not at all unusual.
Heh. Looking at the local news. There is a Blizzard warning out for Denver. I live 6000 feet ABOVE Denver.
Again, a mini-rant. I understand that few people need snow tires and 4x4. It would be nice to see snow tires as an option for a brand new special ordered vehicle.
This is a fantasy unconnected with how cars are manufactured and distributed. The manufacturer isn’t going make a special run of builds with just snow tires assembled all for the sake of the small handful of people that would need to use a car exclusively with winter tires, especially since most people don’t install snow tires even if they should. Even standard options below the level of trim options complicate inventory management and assembly flow planning, and for something that can easily be installed by a dealer or aftermarket it makes absolutely no sense to do so.
As for OEM tires in general, the manufacturers typically select commodity grade tires and buy them in bulk for the greatest cost savings. (You would be shocked at how little tires cost a manufacturer versus what they cost you to buy retail.) Since most buyers don’t see tires as anything but black blobs that hold the suspension up, it isn’t worth it for manufacturers to install more expensive tires except with special performance packages, and even then the tires they select are not generally the best performing in any specific capacity. The installation of aftermarket tires is definitely something you can negotiate with a dealer, and they may even be able to offer a competitive price to tire shops, or else you can have them dropshipped from TireRack.com and request the dealer install them at no cost.
Stranger
Unfortunately I think that’s going to be just too niche a case to cater to, at least on a large-scale level. Up here it’s becoming really common for people to run a second set of wheels - usually cheap steel rims with proper winter tires. Makes swapping back and forth a snap, and a lot of tire shops now offer to store the set of wheels you don’t currently have mounted. But while I run Hakka R2’s from November till April, it wouldn’t make sense for me to stick with winter tires year round ('less I went with WRG3’s). So dealerships are starting to promote winter wheel/tire sets as optional adders on new sales. That’s a lot less complicated than getting the factory to install different tires, though.
Does kinda seem like a potential opportunity for someone like Subaru to do a deal with Nokian and equip WRG3’s as new equipment in northern markets, though.
ETA: Replying to enipla, not Stranger
Pay for new tires, have them shipped, put on for free, and throw away the value of the tires that I am already being charged for that come with the vehicle. I’m out six hundred dollars because the vehicle manufacturer does not offer an upgrade option for better tires. I lose the value of the original OEM tires that is built into the price of the car.
Manufacturers do make special run builds with different engines, transmissions and other packages. Including tow packages (that requires additional wiring and hardware), sun roofs, which requires body modifications, motors and wiring, and suspension components. for ‘off road’ models. It would be a simple upgrade to offer decent tires. Yep, they sell thousands of them. And most people don’t care. Many do. So work that into the cost of how few actually want them. And charge the appropriate upgrade fee like anything else.
I will see if in my next purchase if I can ‘deduct’ the value of the original OEM tires and apply it towards decent tires. Once they are mounted, and removed, they are used. Not holding my breath.
You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that the manufacturer would only charge you the difference in the cost of the original equipment tires and your desired tires based upon what you pay off the rack. However, the OEM does not pay what you pay for tires off the rack. Their cost on factory installed tires is probably around 30% of what you pay retail. The Bridgestone Dueler H/P Sport AS tires that are listed as OEM on your car by TireRack.com at US$133.20/tire are likely running about $40-$45 per tire for the manufacturer due to the bulk buys and low latency delivery (which means the manufacturer and/or distributor have much lower warehousing costs). They obviously would not be able to offer this price on tires that they only buy in a very restricted volume for a few precious customers.
Yes, manufacturers do indeed offer different option packages, trim levels, and configurations on vehicles. They do this by configuring the production line to run a particular trim/configuration for 4-5 days at a time so that there isn’t any slowdown or errors by having to change tooling or confuse installers with different configurations on vehicles coming down the line. Having to install a few sets of special order tires for a handful of hypothetical customers (and keeping that inventory distinct from the standard tire configurations) makes absolutely no sense on a production line, especially when this is something a dealer can do on request, and is not otherwise an option that the vast majority of customers will consider or pay for.
Negotiate with your dealer. Tell them what you want, and what you’re willing to pay. If you’re expecting that they’re just going to buy you new snow tires and only charge you the retail cost difference between the OEM and your desired tires, you’re likely in for an unpleasent surprise, but they may be willing to offer you an at-cost price and free mounting (although their markup on tires is probably only in the range of 20% to 25%, so don’t expect miracles). No OEM is going to install your specially optioned tires unless you are buying a high end performance car or custom off-road vehicle.
Stranger
Bolding mine. I’m not talking about ‘Special Order Tires’. Only suggesting that they offer a choice (the manufactures choice) when you order your car. Not any different than the other choices that you can make. Makes sense especially for a car that the target market is for people that drive in a lot of snow.
Did you ask the dealer about this when you were purchasing the car? Or did you not realize that all season tires were what is included until you picked up the car? According to your OP and subsequent posts, this is a MAJOR deal to you, so I would have expected you to have figured this out before you bought the car. Most dealers are happy to upgrade your tires at time of purchase for a fee.
Sure, the dealer is happy to ‘upgrade’ for the full cost of new tires. They will mount them for free. So, I lose the complete value of the brand spanking new tires on the vehicle.
Because there is a tiny percentage of people who run only winter tires on their cars. Nearly everyone runs all seasons or summer tires at some point during the year, and therefore don’t mind the status quo. You are the exception and the car manufacturers don’t see a whole lot of benefit in crafting an option for you.
Sure, most people do change over from winter to summer tires. And if they purchase a car in the fall or winter the first thing they need to do after buying a new car is shell out an additional $600-$1000 to properly equip it.
It doesn’t make sense (from the manufacturer’s standpoint) for a car for which very few buyers will require all-year round snow tires, for which they will not be able to buy snow tires in significant volume to negotiate a discount, and which will raise the cost of the car by several hundred dollars over the OEM all-season tires that they buy in bulk at substantial discount (~30% of retail) that all but a tiny minority of owners will not recognize as being useful or worth the cost. Car manufacturers do not build a car for you; they build a car for the hypothetical 95th percentile owner, e.g. the people who fall within 2.6 standard deviations of the mean requirements in terms of height, petal reach, desired amenities, cargo space, et cetera. Far less than 5% of owners will ever by snow tires for their car, even if they live in a region where snow is a regular occurance during winter and they would be well-advised to do so. For that matter, most car owners don’t have any notion of the difference in performance between tires or, indeed, any clue about how sophisticated the modern automotive tire is and why application-specific tires offer a safety and performance advantage. The manufacturer will not realize enough sales to justfiy the cost and complexity of having to handle offering snow tires as a factory option, and apparently don’t recognize it as anything a customer wants given that it isn’t even a dealer-installed option. I’m sorry that this doesn’t suit your particular needs, but the manufacturer is interested in maximizing profit in fleet and mass consumer sales, not serving any individual customer.
That is the cost of having a special requirement that doesn’t apply to the vast majority of drivers, and hence, why there is a multi-billion dollar aftermarket parts industry that caters to people who want a vehicle configured in a specific way rather than just how the manufacturer offers it. Try shopping for a genuine off-road vehicle some time; after you go and buy a Land Rover Defender or a Toyota Tacoma with the TRD Off-Road package (at least netting you a low/high range gear, locking rear differential, and some largely costmetic protective shields/brushguards and fake beadlocks) you then have to go to a specialty house and install larger tires on beadlock rims, higher travel suspension, pull off the flimsy plastic or thin aluminum “skid plates” that wouldn’t support a Big Wheel and replace them with 3/16" steel skids, a snorkel if you intend on wading, et cetera. Why wouldn’t Land Rover or Toyota offer these as a factory-installed option, knowing that these are the most popular vehicles for off-road use? Because the vast majority of vehicle buyers, even the ones who buy these models, will never take them far enough off pavement to get any use out of them, and even genuine off-roaders are doing to want a vehicle configured they way they want it rather than pay the factory to install whatever options they decide represents a suitable compromise between all buyers (which will please no one; off-roaders are more opinionated than 1911 owners with it comes to configuration, even when it doesn’t make any functional difference).
Consumer vehicle manufacturers don’t cater to special snowflakes; they sell to the hypothetical buyer whose needs are within the aggregate mean. If manufacturers had their way, they would build one vehicle in three trim levels and available in any color as long as it is black or white.
Stranger
:shrug: what can I say. It is a mini-rant and pet-peeve. We all have 'em. It bugs me that vehicles that are often advertised for use in snow and bad weather, cars that have winter packages available, don’t offer the single most important thing for winter driving. Not even as an option that you can upgrade to.
The other problem is that snow tire users are (in my experience) pretty loyal to brands - there’s no upgrade package that would please the majority of likely customers. They’ll just go to TireRack and get the tires they want anyway, possibly with new rims as well. IMO, this is better handled by dealers and aftermarket firms; it’s a no-win situation for the car makers.
You have serious snow and (I seem to recall) a steep driveway. My various Outbacks have always just had the all-season tires and the only time I ever got truly stuck was when I got cocky and didn’t plow after a 20+ inch snowfall.
It’s a rare car dealer, even in Colorado, who is going to deliver a car on March 20th and think “We should give this customer snow tires.”
Is this what they offered you when you were negotiating the price of the car, or after you bought it?
If it was while you were negotiating the price of the car, you probably could have negotiated it to the difference in the price of the tires.
Except these cars aren’t just used in snowy weather. Subaru sells automobiles all over the United States and Europe in regions where snow rarely if ever falls. The need for all-year-round snow tires is such a tiny market that it doesn’t even factor into the calculus of factory-installed options, and people who buy a vehicle which they know will be mostly driven in snow will factor in the cost of an appropriate set of snow tires, just as someone who does a lot of heavy towing will add in the cost of more frequent replacement of brakes and an aftermarket transmission cooler to their truck. You can upgrade to snow tires; you just have to buy them and have them installed, which frankly, won’t be much more than the factory would charge you for installing a special low quantity option of winter tires they won’t be able to get a significant discount on to begin with, and that most buyers would be unwilling to pay for, resulting in a car that will likely sit on the lot for much longer until a suitable buyer comes along.
Absolutely true. There are dozens of models of winter hazard tires and many have their own speciality (traction in deep snow, traction on ice and hardpack, traction on slush) and the owner may have a particular preference. Some might want studdable tires because they spend most of their time driving on hardpack in rural areas, while others might live in a state where studded tires are prohibited and will not need or want that option. There is no one universally best snow tire, and given that each owner may differ on what they are willing to buy, it makes sense to leave that choice in the hands of the owner, or at least as a dealer-installed option. That there is an additional cost to the owner just reflects the very low customer desire to justify this option.
Stranger
This analogy doesn’t really work because you can order the ‘tow package’ on most pickups as a factory-installed option. My current vehicle is a 2004 F150 that has the tow package including a bigger transmission cooler, bigger alternator and both the 4-pin and 7-pin plugs (as well as a couple of other things I can’t remember).
Of course Subaru’s are sold all over the world. I suspect that the ones sold with the winter package are mostly sold where it snows.
Anyway, I suggested that this be made an option when you special order a car. So it would not be a problem with it sitting on the lot.
In any case, my Pathfinder had an option for a better tires for off road. Nissan seems to make the numbers work. Sure, snow tires are a bit of a different animal as most people only use them 50% of the time.
Sure not as many people would opt for that option. And Subaru would not get as good of a volume discount. And by option, I mean one that they charge for. They would still get a better discount on the tires than your average Joe.
I think it would be helpful for people that purchase a car in the fall or winter.
:shrug: (again) It was a mini-rant.
No one is arguing with your right to rant. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Bill of Rights. Most folks seem to be discussing the obstacles Subaru faces meeting your needs. They could do it, certainly, but every option package comes with a cost. Maybe some car maker will take the option.
I think the off roading market is much bigger than the market of people who always run winter tires. You’re the first person I’ve heard of who does that.