Walmart recently increased fee for non-WM tires

[slacktide_bitog]

Walmart now charges $10 extra to install tires not bought from Walmart. It used to be $5. Just a heads-up for anybody that buys their tires somewhere else.

This doesn't affect me since I bought my tires there, but when I saw the sign I had to let everybody know

 

[eljefino]

Interested if this is a local store rule or company-wide. Strikes me as a local rule.

 

[JHZR2]

So whats the bottom line cost?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
So whats the bottom line cost?


$15 per tire now.

Used to be $5 mount , $5 balance.

 

[SHOZ]

Last set I had were $17.50 a tire with all the fees. That was last summer.

 

[Mr Nice]

Wal-Mart has to profit after paying employees to mount / balance tires not purchased at their store.

 

[Sayjac]

$48 set of four basic installation package. Add $40 per set for tires not purchased at WM or WM.com. My speculation would be they were seeing a respectable volume of tires purchased elsewhere being installed there and decided to up the ante.

Click Tire Services

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Originally Posted By: Sayjac
$48 set of four basic installation package. Add $40 per set for tires not purchased at WM or WM.com. My speculation would be they were seeing a respectable volume of tires purchased elsewhere being installed there and decided to up the ante.

Click Tire Services



actually $54 for the set of tires since there's also a scrap fee of $1.50 per tire. Still not a bad deal though

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
So whats the bottom line cost?


$13.50 for tires bought at Walmart ($9 mount/balance, $3 valve stem, $1.50 scrap fee)
$23.50 for tires not bought at WM (the $13.50 above plus the $10 charge added)

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: Sayjac
$48 set of four basic installation package. Add $40 per set for tires not purchased at WM or WM.com. My speculation would be they were seeing a respectable volume of tires purchased elsewhere being installed there and decided to up the ante.

Click Tire Services



Wow, what finks.

 

[zzyzzx]

Originally Posted By: Sayjac
$48 set of four basic installation package. Add $40 per set for tires not purchased at WM or WM.com. My speculation would be they were seeing a respectable volume of tires purchased elsewhere being installed there and decided to up the ante.


I agree. They saw how much more the open market was charging and decided to close the gap, since they would still be the cheapest. Lifetime balance went up as well.

 

[SatinSilver]

One and done for me as far as having tires installed there. Now that a DT store is nearby I'll go there instead. I had to have WM re-do their sloppy tire install on the Matrix, plus bad attitudes.

 

[supton]

Did a set this summer and it was about $20/tire, mnt&bal. Seemed reasonable to me, it's what the local shop runs. Looks like $22 now (plus $2 disposal fee, if applicable). Just balancing is $9. Both cases include lifetime free rotations every 7,500 miles.

Call me crazy but it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. I'm not really sure how they make money at this. I mean, I get that, ignoring tire machine costs, mnt&bal is like 5 minutes of work the majority of time. But once you include labor and machine costs, and then any "free" rotations after that... dunno, wish everything in life was cheap&free.

 

[mk378]

You have it backwards. Buy your tires online through WM then take them to someone who knows what they're doing to install. They used to charge 50 cents per tire to carry them out un-installed, but they didn't to me last time.

Having an old Civic with 13 inch wheels, the only tires local stores keep in stock are one kind-- the awful cheap ones like Capitol that are simply not round. Walmart online has brands like Kumho and Hankook even in that size.

 

[dlayman]

I don't think the installment price is unreasonable, but for the same price you can get it done by a shop with more expertise. I had one set of tires installed by Walmart because they had the best price online and it was convenient to just ship them there and have them install them. It took forever and the balancing wasn't right. Local shop charges a little bit less than the new price and does it right. I'd rather deal with lugging the tires to the shop than deal with Walmart tire service again.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Originally Posted By: dlayman
I don't think the installment price is unreasonable, but for the same price you can get it done by a shop with more expertise.


This is what I was getting at.

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: slacktide_bitog
Originally Posted By: dlayman
I don't think the installment price is unreasonable, but for the same price you can get it done by a shop with more expertise.


This is what I was getting at.


Yep, better reason to go elsewhere...

 

[sciphi]

Originally Posted By: slacktide_bitog
Originally Posted By: dlayman
I don't think the installment price is unreasonable, but for the same price you can get it done by a shop with more expertise.


This is what I was getting at.


For about $25 mount and balance a local shop will roadforce balance the tires. I'll spend the extra $20 to support a local business and get a superior service.