Thanks very much Andy for doing the research for all of us.
Uh, and also thanks Frank!!
I'll go to tirerack
You also need to be aware yourself, sometimes Tire Rack can be a real pain to work with when resolving issues with faulty tires. I bought a full set of Bridgestone tires for my MB S550. Had two incidents where the sidewalls gave out, one about 100 miles away from the Salt Lake City Rally when traveling to it. Had a tire drop shipped from Tire Rack there. Had a second instance later of similar nature and another drop shipped to another location near my home in WI. I just figured i must have hit something which caused the problem. Last winter the shop I had put my winter set on noticed cracks in both the the Bridgestones not yet replaced.
I stared the conversation with a service rep that handles these types of issues, I guess. It was an extremely frustrating ordeal to get the two remaining tires back to them and to get some consideration. I was the one that had to keep calling. I'm not sure she ever returned a call, it was always me following up. In the end I finally said screw it, bought a replacement set of Good Years from a local shop that I knew would take care of me if there were problems.
If you don't have problems than they are a great buy. The gent I've used to purchase a number of tires, including the replacement Goodyears for my GT that most on the forum find substandard to others, has been great to work with. Ethan always responded quickly and if he didn't know something he'd find out and get back to me. A pleasure to deal with ... when buying.
Unfortunately, when issues arose Ethan wasn't the one who I needed to deal with. The lady I did deal with seemed to view my problems as a pain in her butt, and was not forthcoming or very pleasant to work with for that matter. At the very end, when she was out of the office another gent worked to help me. I will get a few hundred bucks back for two tires with 5/32 left, what Tirerack said was 1/2 the tread left. Even though the two previous tires were replaced with the same failure they didn't do anything for me. Although they said this was a Bridgestone decision, Tirerack didn't offer to go beyond and didn't appear willing to use what I expect to be their considerable leverage for me.
Part of this was something I should've been aware of, that being the manufacture date. Never dawned on me to look. In this case all four that failed were 2007, the two,replacements that I had no problems with were 2010.
I've also learned that Bridgestone has one of the worse reputations for service and a helping response in the industry. Heard this from a gent a Tirerack as well as others.
Bottom line, if no manufacturer problems arise with the product you purchase, it's a good deal. If there is a problem, my experience is that they won't go out do their way to help and its a real pain to even get them to follow up. I look for service after I purchase as well as when I purchase.
You'll probably be ok. For me I'll probably pay a little more to be taken care of as I take care of my customers, clients, tenants, etc.
