Any good hints on where to buy a set of replacements for our worn out Potenzas on the '06 Outback.

 

We have to drive over tomorrow night, and I don't want to make a ROUND trip on the tires. I thought we might do better near a big city than in NW Montana.

 

Posted in Off Topic forum, but can't wait for the screening.

Just go down to your local Les Schwab. Decent prices on tires and you will get free rotations for the life of the tire. We have a couple in every town out here too. They have taken good care of our 96 Impreza.

Anywhere but Les Schwab. Seriously. I have had nothing but bad experiences with them.

Care to elaborate? Their customer service up here in Washington has always been excellent. We have gone exclusively with them for a decade at least.

 

The local Subaru dealers have also started to install tires at competitive prices but I would not recommend the dealer on the Kitsap Peninsula. They are overpriced on all the quotes I have ever gotten from them.

 

I would go with the Les Schwab in Whitefish since the prices will be the same as they are out here and you will all sorts of free services if you buy from them. Whitefish is a small enough town that if the Les Schwab has a bad rep, you will hear about if you ask around.

 

BTW

 

Subaru is moving away from Potenzas and going to Goodyears on their 08s.

i would only recommen not to get the potenzas, it is a crappy tire that wears out more quickly than almost any other tire.

Discount tire will price match Tire rack......

 

 

Get a quote on tirerack.com, take to Discount, they will honor the price + the cost of shipping figured in

 

 

Jamie

We shopped all the chains in the Flathead Valley. Les Schwab was the most expensive by over $200.00 (although the Whitefish store does have a good rep). And no, we weren't considering replacing the Potenzas, although we are just at 45,000 miles and still running on the OEMs.

 

I've rechecked them and they're not as bad as I thought, so we'll prolly just wait 'til we get back home and the stores have a distress sale this summer when everyone quits driving rather than pay $5.00/gal for regular.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, and feel free to keep the thread going, we may make a discovery yet, or someone in the PNW will need the info anyhow.

Oh happy day, an opportunity to bad mouth Les Schwab.

 

But first, a complement. I bought a set of Toyos from them with somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 miles and still going strong...I assume, I sold the car.

 

Now the bad...I went to get my struts replaced. I had done my homework and new I wanted KYB GR2s...I think those are the ones a tad better than stock.

 

They had the car on the rack, tires off, ready to go. They clearly didn't have the GR2s in stock so they tried to sell me the next model up. I'm still o.k. with this; I understand the need to make the sale.

 

Here's where I vowed to never enter a Les Schwab again (and to tell people how much I don't like them). I said that in a 1997 Impreza L that an adustable high performance strut is pretty pointless. Their response was, this strut is not adjustable and is the stock replacement. I told them to put the tires back on. They did not readily do so and I insisted. They finally put them on, but I was starting to think I was going to have to call the cops to get them to do so...it didn't go that far.

 

What this means to me is that they either were lying to me to make the sale or, they don't know their product. Either way, I don't want them touching my car ever again.

 

I replaced my own struts.

 

Since then, my mechanic strongly recomended Discount Tire and I've been more pleased with their service and honesty.

Now that strut issue is interesting since they have been very honest with us on replacing the struts. We have 102K on the Impreza and they say the originals are holding up fine. I had the same experience with 80K on another vehicle. If they ever say they need to be replaced, I will probably go to my Subaru dealer. I had the dealer verify the condition of the struts when I took it in for the last oil change and had them quote some prices.

 

Struts I would go OEM and go to the dealer. Tires are what Les Schwab are good at.

Discount tire will price match Tire rack......

Get a quote on tirerack.com, take to Discount, they will honor the price + the cost of shipping figured in

 

 

I tried that some time ago, on your advice. They were pretty upset, cuz of course I asked them if they match prices before I showed them the tirerack price. It was a whole lot of arguing and manager asking before we settled on a price. I did have to pay extra for shipping. The deal with discount is, they make all of their money on the install, and assume you'll buy a warantee for each tire.

 

I still say tirerack and take them to your favorite local small time tire installer who'll take 40 bucks to put them on your car.

 

Good luck either way.

 

 

 

 

 

Les Schwabby is a good place to buy tires. As reference, one of the tires I had my buddy buy for his car had a flat a couple of days ago. They fixed it, even though he'd used "fix a flat" on it.