Tire dealer wanted $17 extra for black walls,,,

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2005 Mercury Mariner
Time to replace 235-70-16 tires. This car is our around town grocery getter, short commuter for wife, move sofa to kid's house vehicle.
Need good basic tires, dealer has General Grabbers HTS raised OWL for $79.99. Black walls are $96.99. Haven't had to deal with a choice in many years. Wife does not want to advertise for General. Asked dealer why the big difference, black walls should be less. "It's how we buy them." Looked at the other side of the white walls and they were just as you would expect; they weren't the "other side", they had General Grabber just like a black wall would.
Told the dealer I'll take the cheaper white walls and mount w/w inside. I'm sure if I had asked for black walls, I would have received the same tires but paid $68 more for the set.
Rant over.
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
I bet the mercury would look good with white walls.


maybe, but the tires in question are just White letters, not whitewalls (OWL=Outlined White Letter)

and keep in mind this Mercury is a Mariner aka a slightly fancier Ford Escape.
 
There are some truck tires, usually from BFGoodrich and Goodyear that have defined inside and outside sidewalls due to tread design. They will make the same tire in both a whitewall and blackwall, and usually there is a price discrepancy between the two due to popularity.
 
Originally Posted By: PhillyJoe
I'm sure if I had asked for black walls, I would have received the same tires but paid $68 more for the set.
Rant over.

- Are you 100% sure?
- What is the name of the tire dealer so that we can all avoid it?
 
Last time I checked, we live in a free market, where a proprietor can set whatever prices he wants

Obviously you like the blackwall better; but if you hold that logic, don't you think a lot of other folks also have the same preference you do, and like blackwalls better too.
So why would you think whitewalls should be more expensive, you don't like them, nobody else does too. Otherwise you would've titled this post: "I got a great bargain for whitewalls!" not I settled for (inferior) whitewalls that i didn't like to save $17/tire.

Therefore, supply and demand comes into play.

Sumup, the way to look at it is the whitewalls are a flop, nobody likes them anymore, and are "on sale".
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Vikas
Originally Posted By: PhillyJoe
I'm sure if I had asked for black walls, I would have received the same tires but paid $68 more for the set.
Rant over.

- Are you 100% sure?
- What is the name of the tire dealer so that we can all avoid it?


Tires, Etc. a 3 store tire chain in the Philadelphia area. Could not find these cheaper anywhere and they show their competitors prices on-line.
 
Originally Posted By: raytseng
Last time I checked, we live in a free market, where a proprietor can set whatever prices he wants

Obviously you like the blackwall better; but if you hold that logic, don't you think a lot of other folks also have the same preference you do, and like blackwalls better too.
So why would you think whitewalls should be more expensive, you don't like them, nobody else does too. Otherwise you would've titled this post: "I got a great bargain for whitewalls!" not I settled for (inferior) whitewalls that i didn't like to save $17/tire.

Therefore, supply and demand comes into play.

Sumup, the way to look at it is the whitewalls are a flop, nobody likes them anymore, and are "on sale".


I would think putting raised white letters on the sidewall would add a step to the manufacturing process and might be considered "a step up" for appearance on a SUV; justifying a higher, not lower price.
 
hehe, let me introduce you to car sales and marketing where they'll charge you extra like $4000 to REMOVE power doors, power seats, radio and sound system, AC, soundproofing, and other stuff from your car so you have a track edition car.
 
If I may:

Usually tire manufacturers produce tires in one configuration. If they decide to produce the tire with a white side wall (WSW) or OWL (Outline White Letters) or RWL (Raised White Letters), then only one side is white and the intention is mount the tire backwards for those who do not want the white out.

So pretty much all lines of tires are white on one side or black on both sides. That makes the production a bit simpler.

HOWEVER: Car manufacturers will sometimes demand both a white version and a black version of the same tire - and I suspect this is the case here.

Why would that make a difference? Because it changes the way in which the price would be determined.

In the replacement market, the tire manufacturer sets the price and while there is a bit of market pressure on that price, the pressure is the same regardless of size.

But if a tire is OE (supplied to a vehicle manufacturer), then what happens in the replacement market is that availability plays a much larger role in the price - and availability might be different for a white and a black - hence, the difference in price.
 
Originally Posted By: PhillyJoe
2005 Mercury Mariner
Time to replace 235-70-16 tires. This car is our around town grocery getter, short commuter for wife, move sofa to kid's house vehicle.
Need good basic tires, dealer has General Grabbers HTS raised OWL for $79.99. Black walls are $96.99. Haven't had to deal with a choice in many years. Wife does not want to advertise for General. Asked dealer why the big difference, black walls should be less. "It's how we buy them." Looked at the other side of the white walls and they were just as you would expect; they weren't the "other side", they had General Grabber just like a black wall would.
Told the dealer I'll take the cheaper white walls and mount w/w inside. I'm sure if I had asked for black walls, I would have received the same tires but paid $68 more for the set.
Rant over.


As ridiculous as that sounds when I worked in a shop and looked up tire prices for customers there were price differences on some for the white lettering. Never 17/tire more..usually just a couple bucks. It must just be a manufacturer thing..
 
A quick check of Tire Rack shows this dealer to be correct: there are two versions of the Grabber HTS in P235/70R16, OWL and plain blackwall. The OWL tires are made only in the United States, while it appears the blackwall tires can come from the United States, Brazil, or Mexico. There appear to be no differences to measurements (dimensions, weight, etc).

Interestingly, on Tire Rack, the blackwall is $0.03 cheaper than the OWL version.

It's a shame to not trust your tire shop enough to assume that they'll cheat a customer out of $68 and install the OWL version anyway.
 
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