I was looking for a tire for my sons car which is a 2007 328xi. We have had the car a little over a week now. I decided that I wanted the 225/45R17 Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice WRT (non studed).
When I put in the make year and model Tirerack show this tire as one that is available for my car. Shipping was going to be $200 (I'm in Alaska) so I check around here. Sam's Club has 4 in stock,no shipping and $100 for buying a set of 4, winner winner chicken dinner. I tell the guy great I will be down tomorrow, he says wait a minute.... we can't mount them on that vehicle because of the rating. He says he can't get a waiver. Hmm
i call my regular tire shop (they don't sell the Goodyear), he said bring them down we will mount them. So I bought them from Sams Club
This is my son's first car. Looking at the speed rating they are good to 118 mph...
Did I make a mistake in buying these tires?
Bump for Jim... Jim@tirerack
Tell them they're full of shit and ask for the manager, or find someplace else. All the studless winter snow/ice tires are T (118) or H (130) rated. You're not getting them to go racing. Pretty much any sedan nowadays can get past 118mph if given enough road, so by this guy's definition nobody would be able to use these tires (yet magically many people do).
These are the correct size and will fit your car. No issues using them. Worst case, if Sam's has the Michelins, Continentals, or Bridgestones, will they put those on your car? They all have an H rating which is 130mph, so that might get around whatever inane policy they have.
1999 M3/2/5 - Titanium Silver - Track/Weekend Toy
[QUOTE=
These are the correct size and will fit your car. No issues using them. Worst case, if Sam's has the Michelins, Continentals, or Bridgestones, will they put those on your car? They all have an H rating which is 130mph, so that might get around whatever inane policy they have.[/QUOTE]
I did buy them and having another shop put them on. We have a lot of winter up here in Alaska. Thanks for,your feed back.
Are you sure Sams wasn't referring to the Load Rating? I'm not defending them, but I overheard someone else having a similar issue at one of the local tire installers here. They were saying that some tires wouldn't meet the minimum load rating set by the car manufacturer. Seemed like a bait and switch tactic to me.
Either way, I would have done the same thing you did.
From reading this and the other thread about load rating, I strongly suspect that some big chains like Sam's are referring to documentation on the OEM tire specs for a given vehicle. The problem is that they don't seem knowledgeable enough, at least in these cases, to identify when it's ok for a tire with lower speed or load ratings to be used. For instance, in the case of a winter tire or a standard tire with a lower, but still acceptable, load or speed rating. It's probably someone who knows nothing about cars, let alone high performance cars, and is just reading a chart and following policy.
Also, the ratings of the OEM tires that came on a car aren't necessarily the minimums (which can be found in the owner's manual or elsewhere). They might be on a cheap crapcan, but they likely aren't on a BMW which likely came with some sort of performance tires (but can drive fine on much less). People at these chains are probably assuming that your car came with cheap shitty tires like many cheap cars do, and taking that as the minimum rating to allow.
Last edited by TostitoBandito; 06-19-2017 at 01:09 PM.
1999 M3/2/5 - Titanium Silver - Track/Weekend Toy
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