Tires: Best Place to Buy?

[propflux01]

Hello to all, I have read tons of threads on tires, which ones are great, bad, etc, however haven't had much luck in the search for WHERE to buy them ( Don't say local dealer, as there isn't one around here that will even order anything for old bikes...), any good suggestions?

[marvinsc]

Dennis Kirk has very competitive prices and all orders over $100 ship free. A lot of Guys like Southwest Mototire out of Tuscon too.

[DanTheMan]

I use http://www.motorcyclesuperstore.com for my Pirelli scorpion S/Ts.

[rapidray]

Chapparal is a good place also. Ray.

[Baatfam]

Just got a set of Avons from southwestmototire and the price/service was excellent....

Recommended by Joe Nardy....

[1978gs550E]

I don't know but I was wondering the same thing. I have to get new tires on my bike asap.

[BassCliff]

Hi,

I've collected some of the shared wisdom of the forum here:

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...tire_info.html




Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[Grandpa]

I recently used the following: http://www.americanmototire.com/ . American Motorcycle tire.

Very fast, reasonable prices.

[bwringer]

All the above are good. I'd also add http://tiresunlimited.com


Changing your own tires is easier than it looks and well worth the trouble.

[MrBill54]

Tires

Hmmm Southwest Moto tire used to be in here. One thing I learned about tires and this came from the owner, CHECK THE MANUFACTURING DATE, you get a new old tire, your asking for trouble. Dont buy anything more then 2 yrs old. Thats the bad thing though you have to inspect the tire for that date. Here is how you check for it, on one side of the tire, I forget which, though think its the right side, look for a small oval with numbers in it, it will have something like 2408 which means the 24th week of 2008 etc.

[bwringer]

If you buy from any of the large retailers mentioned, you'll get a pretty fresh tire. They do a lot of volume. I've never gotten one more than a few months old.

[Zook]

Check out donelsoncycles.com oin STL.

Great people, good prices and free shipping on orders over $100.
I've done bidness with these folks for almost 30 years. A TRUE Mom and Pop shop.

And these people are in it because they like bikes.
They have to since they sold BSA/Triumph/Guzzi for years. Still sell Triumph, BSA is gone and they sold Guzzi until last year when the factory signed up another dealer 5 miles away.
They also sell Hon/Yam/Duc and sell parts for Can-Am and BSA.
I feel lucky to have a dealer like this close to home.

[highmileage]

Chapparal is a good place also. Ray.

I have had excellent service from Chaparral (http://www.chaparral-racing.com). Although they are in San Bernadino, CA and I am in LSD (lower, slower Delaware), I ordered the last set of tires that I bought, the Dunlop Elite 3's on my GS 1000 GL from them. They shipped them out of a warehouse somewhere around Philadelphia and they were delivered to me the very next day. I was impressed! And the price was unbeatable.

So I will probably buy my next set of tires from them, too, just because I was so pleased with their price and service the last time.

But I have also ordered from Competition Accessories, Donnelson, Tires Unlimited, and Dennis Kirk in the past and each offered very good service and prices.

I've had no complaints with any of them.

Most of them advertise in the national magazines so it's easy to compare prices (be sure to include the shipping charge) and order from whichever offers the best deal. When the best total delivered prices get to be within pennies of each other, you know that this is what you ought to pay for that tire.

This is how I have always bought my tires - buying from one of these (what we used to call 'mail order') warehouses because since all of these huge warehouses do so much volume, you always get fresh rubber that was made within the previous month or two. This definitely beats buying a tire from a local shop that may have had the tire on the shelf for a year or two. The fresher the tire, the better it grips and rides. And their prices always beat the local shops because of their volume - often they will sell you a tire for less than your local shop would pay for it before they marked it up and sold it to you...

And if you want to save a few bucks more, be sure to check their web sites for any closeout deals. While these tires won't be quite as fresh, they'll still be fresher than those offered by your local shop and often they are incredibly inexpensive.

The few warehouse operations that I have actually visited turned out to be new bike dealerships that have warehouses nearby just for this purpose, and they are usually family owned.

And yes, I also mount and balance my own tires.

[propflux01]

Wow! Lots of good references! Thanx! Now just have to pick the best one!