Tire Discounters and Discount Tire appear to be two different companies. Discount Tire has 1100+ locations, Tire Discounters, fewer than 200. But yeah, you could theoretically have a flat hundreds of miles from one of their stores. I live about 150 miles from Discount Tire’s nearest store, myself. With tires costing over $200 each, it’s still worked out well for me to buy their warranty.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
But yeah, you could theoretically have a flat hundreds of miles from one of their stores.

Easily, with either store. Or even a Costco/Sam's.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
$40 per tire passed the point of diminishing returns about $25 ago.

For clarity (not argument), what are you saying? I'm not following.

I skip every single extended warranty, EVERY ONE, except for tires. Carry them on both vehicles, tires for both are expensive and it's worth it and it's paid off for me.

Whenever I buy it, I end up getting a nail or screw in the sidewall and it’s not repairable.
Pay your quarter, take your chances.

I don't buy road hazards, but I plug my own tires. Much quicker for me to plug a tire than travel to a shop and wait on the shop monkey to get it done.

I'm okay with plugging one in a pinch, but for the long term it's going to a shop and getting patched from the inside.

My new set of tires from about 2 years ago have needed three patches for nails. The original set on the car had 3 instant blowouts on potholes and 2 bubbled sidewalls. Needless to say, I got the road hazard on the new set.

In the last 2 weeks both my truck and car (with original tires) developed slow leaks, like 5 psi loss over the week. You don't want different pressure (rolling circumference) on the rear of a SHAWD differential so I was topping it every 2 days. So today I stopped at the local tire place and I watched them remove the wheel, tire from the wheel, patched the hole from the small nail, remounted it, and put the wheel back on the truck with a toque wrench, all within 25 minutes. When I went into pay the bill was $20 ($21.60 with tax).

I was so pleased with their work and price I had them price the Continentals I was looking to buy for the Corolla. At 29,000 miles the OEM's were about shot plus one had that slow leak too. They quoted $169 each installed so I said order them and I'll stop by later this week. One of the things about having a compact car with 205/55-16" tires is they're relatively cheap. Being it's just a FWD vehicle I won't bother with a road hazard warranty, if they even offer such a thing. She did mention they do repair flats for no charge on tires they sell.

Is playing the lottery worth it? Is playing a slot machine worth it? If you play and win, of course you’ll say it was worth it. But rationally, using math, the answer is no, it’s not worth it.

If you buy the warranty on every tire over your lifetime you’ll pay much more than if you did not.

Do you feel lucky punk? Well do you?

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
<<snip>> It only costs 10 to 20 bucks to plug a tire or you can plug it yourself for a few dollars.

I put new tires on my Jetta early last year, and a few months later my daughter took my car on a long road trip. On the way she ran over something in the road that cut the sidewall of the tire, which of course cannot be plugged!

Had it not been for road hazard warranty, I would have been out the $120.00 for that practically new tire, plus replacement costs for another one! It was MORE than worth the $35.00 it cost at the beginning!

quote:

In general, is a road hazard warranty worthwhile?

As others have pointed out...
It depends on how likely you are to use it and how difficult it would be to return to where you bought it when you need it.

Sams Club has provided good service for me and it's included with the installation price.

I've been buying them ever since working at Pep Boys in the 1990s. It's paid off for me.

Back in the day you could sometimes get away with buying x number of tires but just 1 warranty without specifying which tire it was for. They caught on to that.

"Unfortunately, the nearest Costco is about 2 hours away."

Perhaps you missed the thread ,
They have 12 pumpkin pies !
For six bucks,

I suggest you make a day of it,
You'll be glad you did.

The weather is nice the leaves are turning color.