I decided that it was time...its been over 90,000 miles, balding and frankly was starting to be unsafe, so begins my search for new tires. First of all having a sporty compact car, they come up with some of the wierdest tire sizes... Mine being 195/55/15 to be exact. So I start the online process as normal froogling, comparing sites, even calling around and checking ads in the local paper for specials. To me honestly, a tire is a tire... there are a couple quality specs like you dont want to get a low heated spec or crazy slick tires either. My hunt bought me to Ebay where I found a special was going on in the state right next to mine; obviously making the shipping cost lower. The total for 4 brand new tires shipped would cost me $228.10 so about $57.02 per tire which is alot better price than what I was quoted at the local places here. On the plus side they were a fantastic brand, Kumho Solus with excellent ratings. I decided to pull the trigger, add delivery confirmation, and wait. Two days later, the tires arrived by Fed Ex and I stored them in my garage.

They stayed there for another week, while I called around to do the mounting and balance work. I fully expected to pay at least $100, but I did my insane calling around and found that actually Walmart's Auto Center was the best price wise, about $60 or so for the entire job. However I decided not to go there. We went to our Sears Auto Center, which was about 5 minutes away from my house and paid about $22 more than the Walmart quote. In my head, first it was much closer than the walmart and would save me on gas. And second, I imagined that Sears would do a much better job, and was worth it to pay them an extra 20. So yesterday, I drove down to the Sears, dropped my car off for about an hour and picked it up. The guy there was nice enough to explain what they did and exactly what I was being charged for.

So here was the final rundown-

Four New Kumho Tires: $228.10

Mounting/ Balancing/ New Valve Stems: $88.68

Total: $316.78

Another vehicle maintenance mission COMPLETE.