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Michelin and BF Goodrich Tires

June is the month to buy tires at Costco. It seems like every June they have a deal of $60 off for a set of four tires.

Costco only stocks only popular tires. However, you can order specialty tires at costco.com, they will ship them to your local warehouse at no charge and notify you when you can get them installed.

You can go to costco.com to get prices and compare with others tire shops. These will be the same prices as you get at the warehouse.

I compared prices for a Michelin HydroEdge P205/70R-15 95T at Costco.com with prices for the same tire at America's Tire. The Costco price was $113.99 each, while the America's Tire price was $103.00. (This is without the $15 per tire discount that is in effect in June.) It appears that Costco does not have such a good deal on tires. However, it is more complicated than that.

Although the price available through America's Tire was about $11 cheaper, it does not include the environmental fee ($1.75) the tire disposal fee ($2.00), and the installation and spin balancing ($15.00). Adding these extra charges, which everyone has to pay, brings the price to $121.75 or $7.75 more than the Costco price.

On a set of four of these tires, you'll save $31 by buying them at Costco. If you buy this tire in June, you'll save an additional $60, for a total of $91.

Costco's price includes mounting, balancing, a road hazard warranty, tire pressure checks, lifetime flat repair, free rotation and balancing for the lifetime of your tires.

Costco inflates tires with nitrogen. Nitrogen maintains better pressure than air. The technicians at Costco are trained and certified through Michelin.

Two big disadvantages of buying tires at costco are the long wait and the limited selection. Sometimes it can take hours, because they have so many cars to work on. As with most items, Costco only stocks a few brands. You can't find many of the cheaper no-name brand tires at Costco. :

Finally, consider this tip from Consumer Reports:

Buy fresh. Look at the sidewall of a tire for a designation beginning with DOT (for Department of Transportation). The last four digits of the designation indicate the week and year of manufacture. For example, 3307 means the tire was made during the 33rd week of 2007. Don't purchase tires that are more than a few years old.