At 10:35 PM 12/10/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>I have always bought my tires at "Discount Tires" type of places which
>really has helped me save some dollars. About a year ago a friend of mine
>cautioned me about getting tires from places like this. He is a Jeep
>mechanic and stated from his understanding that Chrysler gets a ton of
>tires from Goodyear and the like and the ones that don't pass their tests
>for balance and roundness are then sent back to the manufacturers and go
>back into the distribution chain and become the ones that ultimately end
>up at these discount vendors. He mentioned this was true for a large
>number of automotive parts, like say ring and pinion gears. To me this
>seems so plausible and the whole conversation that started it was about
>ring and pinions. He said he only installs them from the dealer because
>the crunch rate from a "Drivetrain Direct" or "Randy's Ring & Pinion" was
>greater.
>
>So, factually based conspiracy?
I don't know about the specifics of that, but I do know that there are a
lot of crap tires for sale out there. A lot of the distributors sell the
garbage stuff to those sorts of places, particularly in rural areas with
depressed economies. The tire shop I go to sells all of their used tires
to a tire shop about 80 miles away in a rural/depressed area instead of
selling
them to the public. A little less money for them that way, but a lot less
headache.
Based on the way so many things seem to work today, I wouldn't be the
slightest bit surprised...
-Bill
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