Big O Tires

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Aug 6, 2004
Messages
247
Location
Texas
What are your opinions on Big O Tires? They have been ranked the #1 tire chain by JD Power for years. Have your experiences been positive?

They sell a private label line of tires and it would be interesting to solicit opinions about their quality.

Happy Motoring All,

cool.gif


Bugshu
 
Big O tires are the worst tires on the face of the earth they are crap
thumbsdown.gif
. My uncle owns and operates a front end alignment shop and he gets a lot of people who come in and tell him that there car vibrates like the tires are out of balance then he sees the Big O tires and he will not work on the car. He has balanced Big O tires but the car will still vibrate because they are consistantly made out of round. I have never owned any Big O tires so i don't have any first hand experience with them but my uncle does this for a living and he knows what he is talking about. I don't know who makes them for big O tires but they are junk don't buy them
nono.gif
i guarantee you will have problems with them.
 
Big O Tires is owned by TBC Corp, one of the nation's largest tire distributors. TBC focuses on private-brand marketing as well as retailing and distribution.

TBC also owns NTB, bought from Sears in 2003, and Tire Kingdom.

TBC is big enough to have their own tire molds designed to their specs. They have the tires mfr'd at various plants so a Big O tire could be made by a variety of name brand mfr's.

Read about them here: http://www.tbccorp.com/

Click on LINKS to see all their brands and retailers.
 
Cooper Tires is one of their major suppliers for the private labels (at least according to the Big O salesman I talked with).
 
I have been using "Big O" tires on my vehicles for 5 years now without any problems. Just put some of their MT's on my jeep wrangler and really like them. Use the XT's on a F250 4x4 and Euro Tour on a Jetta TDI.
 
I worked at a Big O for nearly a year in Ypsilanti, MI.

Most of the Big O brand tires are manufactured by Goodyear/Kelly Springfield. Mostly Big O sends what compound, construction and tread design they want for their tires and Goodyear/Kelly manufactures it for them. I have noticed some eerily similar tires elsewhere since I've started working at a Belle Tire now.

Big O's low end passenger car tire, the Aspen, appears to be VERY similar to the Kelly Explorer (same end of the spectrum). The Big O Super Sport SXP (my '98 Jetta TDI has a set of these on it) tires are EXACTLY the same as the old Penske Speedtrac tires. Does respectable in the snow, actually.

The Big O brand is probably more well known for their truck tires. While I have never lived with a set of these tires, they did appear to be very solidly constructed and had unique tread designs. Their high-end passenger car tire appeared to be constructed very nicely as well, again with the unique dual channel tread design. It's called the Legacy.

Big O itself tries to be the company that outdoes everyone with customer service. Our shop tried, but the circumstances were not ideal. The initial 12 or so Michigan shops were all the same franchise. Suffice to say, the owners were penny-pinchers and we often couldn't get what we needed when we needed it. Unpaid bills to the machine repair man so we couldn't get replacement parts for our tire machines when they broke on time, unpaid bills to the uniform company one week lead to us having no new uniforms or shop rags... The list goes on. It was utterly rediculous. The pay wasn't exactly competitive with other local comparable shops either. But I hired in not knowing better plus I just really needed a job and had no experience. So I basically just took what I could get.

But knowing about the company's policies, they do seem to be a reputable group. I'm not sure I'd bother with a Michigan Big O, but out west, where the company got started, I wouldn't doubt for a minute that they really would do you well for customer service. If you're a little unsure about the Big O brand tires, they do carry major name brands as well. Can't hurt to give them a try.

Interestingly enough, I know a couple Belle Tire managers who have jumped to Big O. One was the manager at the Belle Tire store I am currently employed at. He got removed from our store and placed at the store on the other side of town. He got fired after only a couple weeks there, then he ends up at the very Big O shop that I left just a few months prior!

Ok... enough of that. I got too carried away and
offtopic.gif


EDIT: back on the topic of tire quality, I have noticed a number of Kelly and Goodyear tires, particularly on the cheap end, get "out of round" as well call it. Seeing as how Big O's lower end passenger car tires are very similar, I can see where similar problems could arise... Stay with the higher end or stick with another brand like Michelin, Pirelli.. whoever and you should be ok. But I highly doubt that ALL Big O brand tires are that bad... Our shop did more oil changes in tires, and it's been so long that recalling the specifics on what tires had common combacks is a little difficult.

I don't mean to bash Goodyear, really... The Assurance TripleTreds are fantastic tires. But some of their other tires just aren't so spectacular... All around, I prefer Michelin for outright quality and innovation.

[ April 01, 2005, 01:41 AM: Message edited by: Matt-TDI ]
 
I live out on the west coast and Big O tires are fairly popular here. The competition is often fierce though. We have a very well respected tire chain out here called Les Schwab Tire Center. Very good service. The employees are always helpfull and give you freebies all the time. They aren't even allowed to have long hair or facial growth. Strict, but very professional. It's been tough for Big O to compete against this. The good thing is that in the end, the customer benefits from the competition....ah, gotta love that free market thing!
 
I agree with the customer service at Big O is second to none. If they found that a tire have a nail that doesn't go into the trend, they pull it out and don't charge. One time I brought a car in with a poorly installed sterm from Just Tire, Big O remount it with new sterm for me for free (I did tip the guy $10 to thank him though). They also ran a lot of free flat repair and have the cleanest facility.

The draw back? They are the most expensive and many times don't give warranty on alignment (tell you way ahead of time though).

I personally wouldn't buy any store brand tire, you know tires are the most important thing on your car for safety, don't cheap out on it. Buying the best tire usually last much longer and less likely to go out of round. Learn from bad experience here.
 
No Big O tire stores here, but somebody on another board I'm on just bashed the crap out of them. IIRC, guy calls local store, "Yes we have your size", getss there, "No we don't have your size but we'll get them from another store", guy waits, other store sends wrong size, "Oops, sorry", store sends out for other size, still gets wrong size and puts them on anyway. Dude ends up spending like 6 hours to get 4 tires put on. I own a small company myself and stuff happens I realize, but how hard is it to get the right size tires on?
 
To be honest, I buy most of my tires online from the tire rack. Always cheaper, even with shipping. I'm sure a rather substantial amount of people do the same. My only problem with this is that when I take my car in to have the tires put on, I get a bit of a cold shoulder from the shops. I guess they get mad because I didn't buy the tires from them. But seriously, what do they expect me to do? Pay more for the same tires to make them happy? In my opinion these shops/stores should be happy to have tires mounted at their stores. If this is how the market has become, exploit it, don't fight it. If a store can't offer the tires at the same price, don't expect customers to come rushing in. This is just reality.
 
andrews,
I think the problem is that, before Tire Rack existed, shops charged a "token" fee to mount and balance tires (which you had more than likely purchased from them), if you were not a cash and carry customer. Today, they still charge this token fee ($8 per tire or so in my area), and fee for new valve stems, even though fewer people are buying the tires at their stores. $8 per tire + $1.50 per valve stem is really not enough to cover dismounting and mounting a tire (without damaging alloy wheels) and balancing (which may use adhesive weights that are more likely to fall off) new tires.

Although I purchase my tires from Tire Rack, I still try to use the tire shops where I have them mounted for alignments and other service when I can, and I feel guilty if they refuse to charge me for rotating them.

Edit: I could solve the rotation problem by getting a jack and jackstands, but I don't feel safe working around them.
 
Around here (metro Atlanta) the local tire shops tend to charge $20-30 per tire for mounting and balancing. The cheapest place I've found installs for $12.50 per tire, and they're a Tire Rack approved installer.

The best tire/alignment shop I know of charges $25/tire for mount and balance. A buddy bought Michelin's from TR and took his car there to have them installed. Cost him $180 to mount and balance 4 tires on a BMW 3-series.

I'd love to find a shop that would do a mount & balance for $8.00 per tire!!
 
The place I go charges about $75 to mount and balance four tires. I don't complain since I rarely purchase tires from them. I would get my tires there if they had some that I really liked and at a price that matched the tire rack. It's called Les Schwab tire center, they have great service....second to none.
 
I'm on my 2nd set of Big-O brand tires that I'm not happy with.

The 1st set were already on a used truck I bought. That truck always wandered on the road. I replaced all the ball joints and tie rod ends plus had it aligned a few times and it still wandered.

I replaced the Big-O tires with Pep Boys brand tires and it steered straight and never wandered again.

About 6 weeks ago I bought 4 new Big-O brand tires for my Jeep. It wanderes just like the old truck did plus it had a terrible tire pull.

Rotating the tires around got rid of the pull but not the wandering.
 
I second the comment on Tire Rack. Still cheaper even with shipping. They will also drop ship them at your local mounting place if you want.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top