sirkfc

Wanted to share a story and ask a followup question.
TPMS came on. Saw a nasty nail about 1 inch away from the sidewall in rear. Pumped air in, went to local Wheel Works. They said, "in at an angle, too dangerous to fix, and you should replace both rears."

I only have 9400 miles on the tires, and I absolutely baby the tires. I have never burned rubber on the car, and my MPG so far is over 25MPG, which is really good for a IS350 on CA gas. So I hated the idea of wasting the other perfectly good tire, and it'd cost me ~$600 for 2 Pole Positions when it's all said and done. I asked them to put on the spare for me while I went home and do some research on replacements. I went to the dealer, to get a second opinion, and they said I could probably get away with just changing one. I went back to Wheel Works, and said I'll live with the uneven tires for another 15K miles, as I'm sure I had more than 60% left on the good tire, so we ordered the tire. Upon leaving, I went to a new Les Schwab that recently opened to get another opinion/price quote. They at first said the tire has to go but the manager said that we should take apart the bad tire just to be sure.
He then came back and said "it is absolutely fixable." I said, "are you absolutely sure? cuz safety first." he said, "of the 3 decisions... 1) no way, 2) kind of close, your call. 3) no problem, it's definitely a no problem." The tech put in 2 patches, apparently, just to be safe, and they said it checked out ok.

So I asked him how much, and he said, "no charge but just think of us when you're going to replace your set." I was blown away by such service (assuming that the tire really was indeed safe), happy about the potential $300-$600 saving, and I would definitely give them some future business if the price was close. Lesson here, I can be bought for $15...

He then proceed to tell me how they are the exclusive dealer for Toyo and that the T1R are pretty good. Tire Rack doesn't carry that particular tire, so I couldn't find a comparison test. The Car and Driver tests from December 05 didn't rate them that highly either (last in dry, 9th out of 12 tires in wet). And they weren't that cheap, slightly over $1000 for the full installation/warranty.

So I was surprised when I searched here that so many members were using it, despite it not being featured on Tire Rack, where I thought most people got their information. So my question is, Why did you pick the Toyo's, where did you read about it, and how have they been after 5K, 10K, 20K?

Thanks.

passnu2

iTrader: (33)

thats awesome. discount tire direct will do the same service by me in IL. they have patched a few tires for free and have had my business for years. they are very nice to deal with. glad everything worked out so well for you! good way to start off the new year