Buying car tyres online

If you need tyres most people would usually go to the nearest tyre shop, choose one recommended by them and get it fitted. However, because of the current economic climate, an increasing number of people are searching for ways to get the best possible prices. The growth of the Internet has helped facilitate this process and it is not only possible to find the best prices but you can buy car tyres online and even search for a place to get them fitted.

It's time to get my tyres replaced and while searching for discount tyres, I recently came across the ValueTyres site which besides helping you find the best tyre prices via their competitor price checker tool, also has several helpful features like an online tyre size calculator to help you choose the right tyre and you have the choice of getting them delivered to your address or find a fitting centre in your area where you can take your car and get the tyres fitted.

If you are looking for great deals on tyres, check out the ValueTyres site.

Right tyres for fuel economy

According to Which!, the British consumer group, the choice of car tyres can actually make a huge difference to fuel economy.

Testing on a Peugeot 308, and 205/55 R16V size (one of the most popular sizes fitted in the UK), they found the the Pirelli Cinturato P7s and the Hankook Kinergy Eco K425 came on top for fuel economy, saving you an average of around £50 a year. These budget tyres were even better than tyres from big names like Continental, Goodyear and Bridgestone.

Choosing the right tires for your car

Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. I had a great time with family and few friends in London. While chatting with the guys about cars I realised that most of us had only one set of tires (or Tyres for those in the UK) which we only changed when they were worn out.

Like most people, I leave it up to the tire shops to recommend and change the tires. However, there are a range of tires to choose from but it is important to be aware that all cars have different requirements depending on the type of car and what you usually use it for. For example it would not make sense to have performance tyres usually used for racing for your family car which you normally use for every day commuting.

Moreover now that winter is here, it is a good idea to think about winter tires as well. The winters here are not that bad and so far we have had fairly great weather without any snow, we never know. It was fairly bad last year and I had a tough time driving in the snow using my normal tires. I have learnt my lesson and have got myself some winter tires which I ready to change to once it starts snowing.

Anyway, if you are interested in learning more about the different styles of Car Tires, check out Tires information site.

National Tyres and Autocare Spon End

Contrary to what some people might believe, I don't have anything against National Tyres and Autocare. If I have a good experience as a customer with any business, I will write about it and vice versa. In case you are wondering what I am talking about read my review "Experience with National Tyres and Autocare". It was about my experience with their branch at Gosford Street, Coventry.

I wanted to make sure that it was just one branch and not all branches cheating customers. This time I decided to try out their branch at Spon End, Coventry. However, I called them first to make sure whether their wheel alignment was only £12.50 as advertised. When I received an answer in the affirmative, I drove down to their workshop.

They checked my Volvo and I found out that I had to change one of the Tyres. This cost me £44 for a Tigar Prima (one of the cheapest). The final cost came to £62/

I was quite surprised when I found out that they had given me a further discount of £5/ which was quite welcome. Of course, this was before the reductions in VAT was announced.

More info about the branch is given below:

National Tyres and Autocare
70 Spon End, Coventry, CV1 3HA
Phone: 02476674206

Monday - Friday: 8.30am - 6.00pm
Saturday: 8.30am - 5.00pm
Sunday: 10am-4pm

Response to Anon - National Tyres and Autocare

Someone "Anonymous" left a comment on my post "Experience with National Tyres and Autocare". He or She said:

"hi there i work for national, the advert is not mis leading !! if you bother to read it properly it states, ON A RANGE OF BARUM AND AVON TYRES, SELECTED SIZES ONLY !! as for the tracking, the vocher (sic) sheet also states that prices are subject to change at any time, plus where else are you going to get tracking done for £15.00 any way ???"

In response to Anonymous, I am so sorry I forgot to read the SMALL PRINT. It does say that. Regarding the Wheel alignment offer, they have now increased the price to £12.50 from £11/ If it costs £15, why don't they just say so instead of misleading consumers.

This is precisely the reason why so many companies in the UK are unable to retain customers. They are so focussed on getting new customers by any means possible (including misleading ads). However, the most important part - retaining customers, is forgotten.

I left them a complaint on their web site and I am still waiting for their answer. A simple apology would have been enough and I won't have written the post and even if I had I would have written it in a more positive tone. Maybe "National Tyres and Autocare" got back to me and they were willing to even do the alignment for FREE. Amazing company". Unfortunately that didn't happen and I will go to the tyre shop near my house who are friendlier.

Remember it is cheaper to retain old customers instead of getting new ones. The old satisfied customers will bring new ones along with them.

Experience with National Tyres and Autocare

I needed to change my tyres and was quite excited when I found out that National Tyres and Autocare was offering two tyres for the price of one. As they say, "if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is." Found that their promotions and offers are quite misleading.


They have two branches here in Coventry and I went to the one in Gosford Street, near Coventry University.





Found out that the "Buy one tyre, get one free" offer is not available for my car tyre size. I only had one replaced - a Barum Bravuris tyre (195 / 50 R 15 82V) costing £45/

It's not that bad considering that I had one tyre changed at the "New Cheap Tyres" shop on Stoney Stanton road. It cost the same for a no-brand Chinese made tyre (the cheapest according to them).

Coming back to the National tyres shop, I wanted to take advantage of their Wheel alignment offer - only £11 according to the coupon. However, when I asked the guy in charge, he said that it will cost me £15. Of course, it's a difference of only £4/ but I do feel like he was trying to take advantage. Another thing that reinforced this suspicion was when he told me that the 2 rear tyres needed to be changed as well. It's obvious I am a foreigner here, but I am not stupid. They still have good thread depths. The minimum legal thread depth is 1.6 mm in the UK while on the tyres on my car, they are between 2.5 to 3mm.

the only positive thing I can say is that the whole process of changing to the new tyres was that I didn't have to wait too long and it was relatively fast. I also got Tesco clubcard points.

That's another shop I won't be going back to. I am not so sure about their other branch at Spon End.

Get lower prices on tyres

The OTR (off-the-road) tyre market is highly volatile and prices have increased dramatically over the years. There are several possible reasons for this but as I see it, this is directly related to the continued rising costs of raw materials. While the dealers and the manufacturers are blaming each other as well as the grey traders, for the price increase, the ones losing out are the customers.

If you are looking for OTR tyres, visit BuyBigTires.com. Located in Southeastern North Carolina, BuyBigTires.com is an international company specialising in OTR and specialty tire market doing business on 5 continents. They help customers find lower prices on those tires. They are able to do this by getting rid of the middleman and bringing the products directly to the end users.

A search of 4000R57 haul truck tires gave me two results. They have brand new tires from Michelin and Goodyear priced at $99000 and $105000 respectively.