10-31-2008, 12:34 PM
Some may have noticed that, with my son, I now have a tow vehicle and trailer that we're going to use to haul the cars to DE events. The truck - a Ford F350 SuperDuty dually - needs tires - LT265/75R16E. I was at my local Goodyear dealer and looked at a variety, including Goodyear and Cooper, and then went to the web to do more research. I honed in on a Goodyear that I really liked - it was $187 ea at Tire Rack and $250 ea at Goodyear. Looking to save the money, I called my local Ford dealer, where I'm about to take the truck to establish a baseline of service, and asked if they would accept a shipment of tires from Tire Rack. They asked me what I was looking for, claiming that they usually will beat any legitimate competitive offer. I printed the Tire Rack information and faxed it to Ford. Within 15 minutes, I received a call offering the same tires for about $50 less than the delivered Tire Rack price.
Now - it's not completely apples-to-apples, as I'll have to pay Ford the NJ sales tax, which will be slightly more than the price difference.
At the end of the day, though, with a difference of just a (very) few dollars, I'm getting the same tires at the Tire Rack price from my local Ford dealer. To me, this was quite a surprising, and pleasing, result, with no hassle and no worry about delivery being on time, or where I'd get the tires delivered to that I could then have the mounting, balancing, and alignment work done.
Now - it's not completely apples-to-apples, as I'll have to pay Ford the NJ sales tax, which will be slightly more than the price difference.
At the end of the day, though, with a difference of just a (very) few dollars, I'm getting the same tires at the Tire Rack price from my local Ford dealer. To me, this was quite a surprising, and pleasing, result, with no hassle and no worry about delivery being on time, or where I'd get the tires delivered to that I could then have the mounting, balancing, and alignment work done.

