Cost of Bridgestone Potenza RE050A 245/40R/18?

[spiff]

I wonder how many will venture here (out of their other forums) to read this. I've done a search here, and also called around a number of stores, so I'm just gathering some last bits of information before making a decision.

I'm helping a friend who is after one tyre (apparently the other had a puncture from a nail and the dealer said the tyre had to be replaced not repaired), but I'm going to get a pro to look at it first.

Doing the callarounds, prices quoted fitted and balanced for one Bridgestone Potenza RE050A 245/40R/18 tyre was between $480 to $659.

Seems like these are also popular on the Mk6 GTIs and performance set, so I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas of the cost? The car's only done 5000+ks, so it's not worth looking at replacing all tyres at this stage.

thanks,
spiff

[STV4SYT]

I just had a similar thing a couple of months ago and ended up importing a single tyre from the US that matched the other 3. cost was under $300 inc fitting/shipping etc. tireck.com seem to have the greatest selection and ship to AUS.

[spiff]

I had a look at the site. Do you have to contact them directly to ask for a shipping quote? I used their online system but it was asking for a North american zip code.

The price on the site was $237 for one tyre. I'm guessing, USD. Do you just take the tyres to any regular tyre shop and have them fit and balance it? Any idea how much they charge for a service like that?

I was quoted anywhere between $37-$50 to repair the tyre if it is indeed in repairable condition.

[STV4SYT]

I didnt order direct, had a tyre shop source and fit for me (mates rates though)

any tyre shop will fit - $40 id imagine for F&B - any tyre shop is going to err on the side of caution with a repair. at the end of the day the tyres are the only thing between you and the road.

[spiff]

yeah. got that bit about the tyres keeping car on the road.
i'm not too familiar with the cost of this particular model and it does seem the range is quite broad, hence i thought i'd ask and see if anyone else knows an approximate cost.

[spiff]

Gosh. This is stressful. I rang more than 10 places. They keep to'ing and fro'ing and changing specifics, ratings, saying tyres are available, then not.

Turns out, there is no $375 RE050A. That was just a dream (or maybe they just made it up to get business in). And I think one of the stores which knew there was someone shopping around, went and bought the last 2 for the Tyrepower chain..and is asking $676 each. Ugh.

Bridgestone says there is only one, but it's a 97Y rating as opposed to a 93Y rating and they're changing $630, but another Bridgestone was only going to charge $599.

The numbers are coming out my ears. There's nothing to compare with, and it doesn't seem like half of them even have the same tyre to replace. I'm going to wait for Tirerack to confirm shipping cost and time it takes. If it's half the price of what I have to pay, I'd rather wait and take the bus :p

Steve, how did you convince the tyreshop to source it from tirerack?
vent.vent.vent.

[spiff]

I had a couple of quotes for around $100+ to $150 for shipping the one tire.

Just wondering whether it's cheaper to try and source one from the East Coast. Any idea?

If anyone can recommend a place they bought Bridgestone Potenza's RE050A from (anywhere in Australia apart from Perth), can you please share?

Thanks.

[spiff]

Mmm.. to share the outcome, I ordered 2 tires (cheaper than 1 and i'll keep the second as a spare) from tirerack.com
They only ship by fedex and take only telegraphic transfer (no credit card)
The tires arrived yesterday (total 7 days incl weekends) and the local tireshop charged me $25 to fit/balance the one wheel.
Cost incl shipping on the two tires was usd$701.76 (exchange rate that day was a paltry 0.8618 for a cost of aud$814.30)
Bottomline: aud$432.15 for one tire bought/shipped/fitted
It's still cheaper than the cheapest final quote aud$599 for a slightly different rated tire, which was the closest Bridgestone here had. The cheapest exact match was aud$676.

there ya go!

[Manaz]

I assume you put the two new tyres on, and kept the best of the old ones as the spare?

I'm guessing the low quote you got was for the RE050 rather than RE050A. There are also runflat and standard versions of the RE050A around, it's a very confusing tyre when you consider all the variations of it that exist.

I was considering them for my car at one stage, but think I'll just go with the RE001 instead.

[spiff]

Test. Is anyone else getting a cmpulsory login to photobucket? I typed a response using reply with quote..and it gave me that.

Ok. this works.

Response:

Nope. I had a look at the tires and also brought it to the tire store for the opinions of the pros. As the car has done only 3000kms (brand new tires), there's still lots of thread left. The right rear had a nail run through it - smack bang in the middle - or maybe someone put it there, who knows?

The ones I got are the RE050A, non runflat. Tirerack had two versions at the same price. One an ordinary one, the other is Audi. They couldn't tell the difference apart, except for the "AO Audi" and they said the manufacturer didn't/wouldn't tell them. Go figure! It was for an Audi, so I went with the Audi. Here's the link http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....0AV4&tab=Sizes