Some of our local tyre places are turning away fitting of winter tyres for customers.

Why?

Ok tyres my not have originally bought from them but I would have thought it was easy money and if scheduled properly kept fitters busy so covered some fixed costs, etc.

Particularly as some are £15 + vat a tyre for fitting and balancing.

if they are busy selling/fitting tyres all day every day then it takes as long to fit a tyre that they haven’t sold as one they have sold for a profit.

Plus if one of the tyres goes “pop” who do you think is in the liability firing line?

how about whose liability if your newly fitted tyre goes pop?? and in effect your saying to a guy trying to make a living..” didnt want to buy from you but hey you can do the physical dirty work though …”

There is plenty of people who have set up to only fit tyres from online sites.
my tyres used to have a search for local people.

didnt want to buy from you but hey you can do the physical dirty work though

You’re still buying their services though. I paid £60 to have four tyres fitted that I bought online. What’s that, 20-30 minutes work? I can’t imagine they make that much on the tyres anyway. That doesn’t seem bad money to me.

Mind you, I just had some more fitted last week, different car this time, and 14″ wheels….didn’t bother buying online, because at £15 a corner to have them fitted it’s not worth it for me, never mind them. Not when you can have premium tyres fitted for £50.And they fixed a puncture on the spare for free…

Different kettle of fish with a set of big rims though.

This why I love still having steel rims. Fit at home no bother.

One of my local places will not fit anything but brand new, stickered up tyres.

Another one will only fit tyres that were bought from them.

At the end of the day, they know their reasons for the business decisions they have made, we don’t really need to.

As always, you can choose to go somewhere else.

I want some steel rims, everyone keeps going on about how cheap they are but I can’t find a set for less than £200

I want some steel rims, everyone keeps going on about how cheap they are but I can’t find a set for less than £200

A used set for my car for £92 from

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/bagilltcarspares

I emailed them my car details and asked if they had a set to suit…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/steel-rim-for-vw-passat-B5-4-stud-/160913296358?pt=UK_CarParts_Acc_Wheels_tyres_Trims_Car_Rims_ET&hash=item25772e0be6&_uhb=1

nealglover – Member

One of my local places will not fit anything but brand new, stickered up tyres.

Another one will only fit tyres that were bought from them.

At the end of the day, they know their reasons for the business decisions they have made, we don’t really need to.

As always, you can choose to go somewhere else.

Wow business must be that good eh … 😯

No scrappies near me have any wheels for newer cars (2006 in this case).

Depends on the size of wheel you are after, but discreetly ask in the workshop of your local ‘main dealer’ van supplier: vans with alloys as optional extras (think vitos and t5’s particularly) are often supplied to ther dealer with steel wheels fitted and the alloys plus tyres in the back of the van. Alloys go on in the workshop, steelies/tyres go out the back door for relatively little money to minicab firms who want them for the tyres.

molgrips – surely the wheels must be a common size/fitment used on other models by the same manufacturer?

Wow business must be that good eh …

Neither of them are ever quiet.

But then again, the reason for not fitting used tyres that they don’t know the origin of could be nothing to do with how busy they are ?

But then again, the reason for not fitting used tyres that they don’t know the origin of could be nothing to do with how busy they are ?

Does that mean they also won’t do puncture repairs if they have to pop a tyre of unknown origin off the rim?

All this talk of places only fitting tyres they supply and charing £15-20 per rim if they do makes me glad to have a helpful local tyre place that are happy to swap tyres/rims, do repairs, re-seat leaky beads, etc all for sensible money, often a few quid in the biscuit jar. Can you guess who gets my business when I do actually need some new tyres?

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Funny some of these places are happy to provide this particular service but not the outwardly simpler fitting and balancing.

My challenge is that some of our local places when I was looking for winter tyres advised “No – cannot get that size for you this year” otherwise they would have got my business – assuming competitive of course.

I’d naively think that £18 for a fit and balance represents a nice profitable earner for a tyre place given it may keep a fitter busy.

molgrips – surely the wheels must be a common size/fitment used on other models by the same manufacturer?

Er well there is some variation. Those B5 Passat wheels posted above won’t fit my B6 Passat.

Plus I already bought winter tyres to fit the original wheels, and on the Prius at least they are a slightly unusual size. If I had bought wheels and tyres together I could have got common sized wheels for cheap along with common sized tyres also for cheap. And you can even re-calibrate the speedo via the integrated GPS too on that car.

I’ve never had any problems. Most independents will do it. I had a set done a couple of weeks ago, cash, no receipt £40 for all 4, new valves, balanced etc…

benz – Member

Some of our local tyre places are turning away fitting of winter tyres for customers.

Why?

surely there’s a fairly obvious way to find out the answer to this question, and it’s not asking it on here… 😕

I’m not sure why people seem to think they know how best to run someone else’s business, when they have no real knowledge about the business other than potentially being a customer.

If the are turning away business, they must be something right, and probably don’t need your help.

Don’t think anyone has said that they could run business better.

On the basis of what little I know about contribution to fixed costs I simply wondered why not do this type of service but do repairs, rebalance, etc.

I would have assumed a fairly decent margin at £15 a corner therefore why turn business away.

If the are turning away business, they must be something right, and probably don’t need your help.

But when their business is helping us, surely that’s got to bite them in the arse some day?

They’ll have their own reasons but they’ll only have so many bays / ramps and if they are full all day every day then they need to choose the jobs that yield the least bother and the most reward. No matter how good the margin is at £15/corner if they can make a better margin doing/selling something else then they’ll choose to do that instead.

There may be another reason though – they might just think you’re ugly and you smell funny 🙂

Simple.

They don’t want to:

A: be done for handling stolen goods
B: be sued when a dodgy tyre goes pop
C: they make their money on selling the TYRE

My mate works in an independent tyre shop, buys my tyres in (Pirelli’s, 195/50R15’s on a Fiesta, so very common) for £29 each. They retail at £60 upwards and if he sells enough they get a bulk discount on their bill from his supplier. Charges £10 for fitting, which takes up lift/man hours and electric/air for the machines. Fitting is basically at cost. Same for puncture repairs.

So joe public who saunders up with four part-worn tyres gets told no*.

* unless you’re a mate, in which case you get let in after hours, told to do it yourself (easy job when you read the instructions) and told to make him a cuppa after you’ve finished 😆

But when their business is helping us, surely that’s got to bite them in the arse some day?

You might think that.

But they clearly don’t.

And unless you run a More successful tyre business than they do, I’ll reckon they know better 😉