Wanted to close out this thread with a couple lessons learned:
-I've always tried to support independent shops whenever possible, but never thought about a commodity like tires in the same way. No longer. Local family-owned shop had zero issues (at least that they told me about) and mounted all 5 tires on stock wheels. Cost a few bucks more than the national chain but actually did the work = priceless.
-General Grabber A/T 235/70R16s look damned good on a D1! Steers a bit heavier and seems to wander a tiny bit, but also feels much more planted to the pavement.
Thanks all for the advice!
I had 2 great one location family owned shops near my former residence I utilized. They didn’t mind mounting and balancing my internet tire purchases at all. However, selling tires wasn’t really their thing.
Where I live now there is one shop, also small family owned. They are awful.
Before we moved here we vacationed here often. During one of our visits my wife’s alternator went out at only 40,000 miles. i didnt have tools here at that time so we had it towed to that local shop. $850 and two weeks later (I had to return home and my wife stayed and waited for the repair to be done) we had a new alternator. It’s cool here even in the summer. You don’t need air conditioning. However, it was in August and the trip home takes us through west Texas and Oklahoma. You need air conditioning and my wife was was bringing back our 3 year old son and her 75 year old father who had advanced lung cancer. Fortunately, a few days after picking it up she realized the AC didn’t work.
She took it back to the shop and they told her the alternator going out damaged the AC compressor so they just disconnected it but they could repair it. No way were we going to have them touch it again. That was not at all mentioned when she picked it up. So, she took it to the closest dealer that is an hour away. The dealer supported the independent shop “diagnosis“ the AC compressor was bad and another $1700 later she had AC.
I don’t know how an alternator going bad could cause the AC compressor to go bad but they had us by the short hairs.
Years later I had a trailer tire blow out. I had a nice new pair in the trailer that hadn’t yet been mounted. I went back to that same small family shop thinking they couldn’t (years ago) mess up mounting a tire. They did it, no balancing, and it was $50 something to mount both. I was happy with that but when I tried to pay with a credit card they said they wouldn’t take a credit card for only $50. I asked if I could just pay a little extra to cover the fees the credit card company charges. They wouldn’t do it and I was stuck there until I produced the cash. I only had about $40 on me so I walked to an ATM and got the cash.
Now, I have found 2 small chains that have been great. One is Big O Tire. They have been absolutely great. I was having issues with a TPMS sensor and they corrected it free of charge. The tech got a nice tip. Then, my wife’s car started having a vibration at interstate speeds. I took it to them and asked them to balance all 4 tires. Again, they wouldn’t charge me. The tech got a nice tip. My next tire purchase will not be an internet purchase, it will be from Big O.
The other one is Forrest Tire. On one of my trips back I made it about 75 miles (of the 1100 mile drive) and the water pump went out in my old Ranger truck. I called one indy shop and was told $850 to replace the water pump (several years ago) but they couldn’t get to it for a week. The next one was the dealer. My memory isn’t great but I think that estimate was $1100. I called Forest Tire and their estimate was $250 and they could fit in the next day.
My only experience with a major chain since moving here is I took a set of tires purchased from Discount Tire Direct to a local Discount Tire location for mounting and balancing. I asked them to use adhesive type weights. No problem, they said. Well, they didn’t and said nothing about it. I didn’t fuss about it because the weights they put on, if removed, would have shown the damage to paint the weights caused if removed. I had put a lot of effort into making those wheels look nice.
Frankly, it’s a roll of the dice. I definitely prefer small shops but have had better experiences with small chains, here anyway.
