Price fixing among tire manufacturers

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> "Bill Putney" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> Anyway - if you don't need to pull the absolute max. G's on cornering,
>
> On a minivan? You kidding?
>
>> consider the Cooper CS4 or another good touring tire you may hear good
>> things about.
>>
>
> Firestone has apparently started another sale - a $50 off coupon on a set of
> 4
> Bridgestone tires just came in the newspaper today, good til Jan 6th....plus
> another 5% off if you use a Firestone credit card to buy them..
>
> Ted

They allow you to combine such discounts?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

> The water could be easily made up though. Everyone should just drink a lot
> of beer and pee a lot. The sea level will rise a few inches a month.

Edwin gets it! That's that conservation of mass thing I was talking
about. As Archie Bunker said after you heard him flush the 'terlet':
"Edith - you a can't *buy* beer - you can only *rent* it!".

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:39:48 GMT, Jeff >
wrote:

>
>You're so full of crap! The price had nothing to do with the cost? I
>hate to tell you this, but very few companies sell their goods for less
>than it costs them. Those that do, don't do so for long.
>
>> I was in the business then. I SAW
>> the OBSCENE profits made by some companies - particularly in the
>> higher end mini computers (bigger than PCs).
>
>The same thing is true today. If Dell could charge $4000 for a computer,
>it would. But, the problem is that HP, Levono, Acer and others will sell
>the same computer for about $2000. Guess where the costumers go.
>
>IBM and other companies are making a nice profit they way they made
>profits years ago: in services (like web services) in addition to the
>cost of the computers they sell.
>
>One of my New Year resolutions is not to keep responding to people who
>say nonsense. When you are able to say something that makes sense, I
>will respond. Until then, bye bye.
>
>Happy New Everyone!
>
>Jeff

Not full of crap at all.
I was in the computer business then.

There was a very large player in the "Business Basic" computer market
way back when that was making well over 100% markup on the computers
they sold at list price - which was about 90% of their sales. They
sold a few above list. When the memory chips they were using were
replaced in the market with chips of double the memory density for
virtually the same cost, they just put the new chips in and jumpered
them to half capacity and sold them for the same price. When the
customer decided they needed a memory upgrade, the "tech" went out and
snipped or moved a jumper, enabling the "free" memory and charged a
rediculous fee for the upgrade.

Same thing happened when the 1MB hard rive (I think it was) was
replaced with a 2 MB - at any rate the capacity was doubled. They put
the double capacity hard drive in as a normal drive with the small
capacity, and the expensive upgrade just re-jumpered the drive.

For those who know the business, the company was MAI (Management
Assistance Inc) or Basic/Four.

Then there were the "transporatables"
Like the Osborne, and later the Compaq Luggable.

They were pricy units.
The company I worked for imported a case system that allowed us to
manufacture a "lunch box" PC using standard PC parts for a
SIGNIFICANTLY lower cost. Until others got on the bandwagon and forced
the price down, we were selling them by the pallet load for just under
the cost of the established manufacturers, with a THREE YEAR WARRANTY
and making a killing. We could have sold them for a LOT less, but why,
when a small price advantage was all it took to buy xtensive market
share in our market area???
One of our resellers sold HUNDREDS into the local accounting and tax
preparation market. Those computers made him $1000000 in less than 3
years

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Ed White" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > Hi All,
>> >
>> > I've been recently looking for tires (size 205-70-15) and I am finding
>> > among the retailers that for the mileage I'm looking for (80K) and
>> > the UTQGS ratings (treadwear 700, traction A, Temp B) that the
>> > prices are virtually identical. The biggest difference is pricing for
> the
>> > road hazard warranties and for balancing, etc. from the tire dealers.
>>
>> Did you go to Tirerack.com and take a look at the choices they list for
> that
>> size? They have 40 tires listed in that size and there is a large price
>> range.
>>
>
> The problem with buying from an online shop like tirerack is you can't
> install it yourself - you have to involve a tire dealer to install it. If
> all 4
> tires are shipped out, arrive at the dealer OK, and the dealer installs
> them
> OK and they all wear to their rated life, then your fine. And, probably
> the
> majority of the people that buy them online have that experience. But,
> your taking an added risk. For example, a tire arrives shipping damaged,
> but you don't know until it's mounted and put under load. Now, you
> have no recourse with the shipper because it will be too long since filing
> a claim, the shipper will also claim the tire place damaged it on
> installation,
> the tire seller will say to go to the shipper for recompense, etc. etc.
> Or
> if the tire fails prematurely the dealer charges money to dismount and
> remount it even if tire rack gives you a free tire. Or if tire rack
> decides
> for whatever reason to deny warranty claim, the tire dealer that installed
> it since they are making minimal on the tire, isn't going to help you
> fight against tire rack. I could go on and on but clearly if you buy
> online
> instead of from the local dealer, your ability to get warranty
> satisfaction
> should you ever need it is much less.
>
> It might be worth assuming the risk if the tires cost $300 a pop from
> the local dealer and you could get them for $100 a pop online. But for
> $90 tires it's not worth it.

Actually it has been my experience that Tirerack does a really good job of
addressing these concerns. They had a really good deal on the odd sized
tires I needed for a Saturn Vue. Tire Rack has a number of certified
installers in my area. I picked one. Tirerack shipped the tires directly to
the installers. When they arrived, I was called and made an appointment. The
tires were installed just as if the installer sold me the tires directly.
Neither the Tirerack, nor a local dealer warrant a tire. The warranty is
provided by the tire manufacturer. It is my unprovable opinion that Tirerack
is as likely to fight for your warranty racks as most local dealers. And if
you are really worried, Tirerack sells there on raod hazard coverage that
should cover any concerns you may have. AND even if you don't actually buy
the tires fromt he Tirerack (or other online seller) you can often use their
prices as leverage with a local dealer to get a lower price. I've bought
tires from Tirerack several times with good results. However, most of the
time I can find similar (or even lower prices) for high volume tires at
local dealers. But when it comes to odd size or high performance tires,
Tirerack often can beat the local prices by significant amounts.


>> The tire in their catalog with the highest UTQG is a Michelin HydroEdge
> with
>> a UTQG of 800 (the tire is warranted for 90,000 miles). They cost $107
>> each.
>
> Yes, which is within a few dollars of what the local dealers around here
> sell
> it for. No real gain from buying the hydroedge from tirerack.
>
>> The next highest is a Pirelli P4 Four Seasons with a UTQG of 760 and a
>> cost of $66 per tire (the tire is warranted for 85,000 miles).
>
> None of the local dealers I contacted sell Pirelli's. But I will ask at a
> few
> others Wednesday about that tire.
>
>> The next
>> highest is a Goodyear Assurance Triple Tred with a UTQG of 740 and a cost
> of
>> $92 each (the tire is warranted for 80,000 miles).
>
> The quote I have here on my desk from Sears that I got 2 days ago lists
> $94.99
> for that exact model tire.
>
>> This is a range of prices
>> for tires with similar tread life. Clearly, if you do a little shopping
> you
>> will find a wide variety of prices.
>>
>
> Yes, but check again - most of the cheaper tires in the same treadwear
> rating
> of that size are unknown Asian/Chinese/Korean/Japanese brands. Your going
> to be hard pressed to find any reviews of them online since they just
> don't
> have
> that large a footprint in the US market.

What about the Pirelli P4 Four Seasons? I feel certain you have a Pirelli
dealer in your area.. Do you have a Sam's CLub in your area? My local Sam's
Club will order Perillei tires.

> Here in Oregon the largest vendor of Asian tires is Les Schwab.
> But -every
> one-
> of their tires (coming mainly from Toyo and Hankook) is a specialty model
> that's custom built for Les Schwab and isn't available anywhere else from
> anyone
> else.
>
> Now, I've dealt with LS over the years a number of times. I even bought a
> set of their passenger car retread tires 20 years ago one time when they
> were
> still selling them. And, I even got a quote from them when I started
> looking,
> despite the fact the current tires on the van (which are very noisy) came
> from
> there. But, the very first question I asked them when the guy handed me
> the
> quote was what was the noise level like and the guy immediately stated
> that
> ALL the tires the sold, no matter how expensive, would be noisy, and there
> was just nothing that could be done about it. Which, I knew from my
> research
> was baloney because people HAVE reported dramatic noise improvements
> in minivans with the right tires.
>
> In other words, the largest vendor of Asian no-name tires in my market
> isn't
> interested in my business if getting a quiet tire is a requirement. Well,
> I'll take
> them at face value - Asian no-name tires are noisy, period.
>
> In other words, the treadwear isn't really the whole story and you get
> what you pay for. So, back to the grindstone of comparing apples to
> apples, instead of apples to oranges.
>
>> For popular
>> size tires (i.e., high volume tires), the tires are likely to be
>> manufactured locally (in the US in your case) for most brands.
>>
>
> Well, that explanation really seems to make the most sense so far.
> In short, my impression that $100 a tire and $400 for a tire changeout
> for a car being really expensive is a complete and utter naieve
> impression. In reality, a $100 tire is a cheap tire! Ouch!!!

It is my opinion that buying cheap tires is a fast way to ruin a car. But
sometimes even expensive tires don't work out well. I bought a set of
expensive Michelin Cross Terrains for the Expedition I used to own - within
20,000 miles they were noisy. The tires looked perfect, and the tread wear
was great, even after 50k miles, however, I really wanted to replace them
(even though they had lots of tread). However, before I replaced them, I
traded off the trick (for other reasons).

Ed

On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:48:03 GMT, Jeff >
wrote:

>>
>> 1. Lower wages
>> 2. Virtually no enforced pollution controls
>> 3. Virtually no enforced hazardous waste disposal procedures
>
>I tend to think that 2 & 3 (and sometimes 4, below) are costs that we
>bear in the end, through environmental degradation. In fact, one can
>argue that we are just moving the nasty costs of manufacturing (CO2,
>pollution, environmental damage) to other countries for stuff like this.
>
>> 4. Virtually no enforced occupational health/safety regulation
>
>5) Add: Cost of transporting the tires 1/2 way around the world.

The cost of transportation is, all things considered, negligible. The
ships that carry the raw materials China has developed such a ravenous
appetite for would be coming here tires or no tires.

The shipping container industry is going crazy because of this. The
containers come over full of goods, the boats go back with bulk raw
materials that do not require containers. The cost so ship the empty
containers back is almost the same as the cost for China to produce a
new container, so the containers are sold off CHEAP over here, or
destroyed and returned as scrap metal to china.
>
>> Since it is a developing economy, wages will remain lower than the West,
>> as having an industrial sector job like making tires still pays more
>> than farming.
>>
>> Were China to meet USA or Canadian regulations for items 2-4, their cost
>> advantage would be significantly smaller.

Yes, and being a "centralized" economy, the vast reserves of american
and canadian dollars do not go into raising the living standards of
the workers so much as into government coffers. The government
controls (not nearly as much as they would like to) the earnings and
spending of the Chinese masses.

If they were to decide they had a point to make to the west, they
could, with present reserves, stop selling ANYTHING to the west for
long enough to bring the west to their knees, while continuing to pay
all idled chinese workers the same as they are being paid today, and
still have money left over.( Hint - it wouldn't take long)
>
>I am not so sure about. In the end, the costs would probably be about
>the same or even less, because they don't have to take care of as many
>sick people and our environment is not as badly degraded.
>
>Jeff
>>
>> --Gene
>>
>>


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Bill Putney" > wrote in message
...
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > "Bill Putney" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >>
> >> Anyway - if you don't need to pull the absolute max. G's on cornering,
> >
> > On a minivan? You kidding?
> >
> >> consider the Cooper CS4 or another good touring tire you may hear good
> >> things about.
> >>
> >
> > Firestone has apparently started another sale - a $50 off coupon on a
set of
> > 4
> > Bridgestone tires just came in the newspaper today, good til Jan
6th....plus
> > another 5% off if you use a Firestone credit card to buy them..
> >
> > Ted
>
> They allow you to combine such discounts?
>

The fine print on the coupon page says "cannot be combined with any other
offer" on both the $50 off coupon and the 5% off tires. I think that
depending
on who you talk to at the Firestone dealer, you might get both combined,
espically if you have a price match (and Costco is running a $60 off coupon
for the following week) Firestone is pretty flexible on discounts - the
company website for example says they will price match on any 'similar'
tire - the tire doesen't have to be identical. I'm not sure how the company
is structured internally but it seems like the store managers seem to have
a lot of control over pricing. Frankly if I owned a tire dealership I
would tell all of the counter employees that if an extra 5% off would
clue a deal for a customer, then by all means do it. Even if my margin was
only 5% and that would sell them at cost - the volume is quite often
pretty important in getting the attention of the suppliers further up the
chain, not to mention it helps starve your competitors.

However, on the same coupon circular, is yet another special - 10% off
on any -service- purchase. So, you could argue that the coupon for the $50
off applied to the -tire- purchase, and the 10% off applied to the -work
to install the tire- ie: valve stems, balancing, etc.... I might try
that...

Ted

<clare at snyder.on.ca> wrote in message
...
> On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:39:48 GMT, Jeff >
> wrote:
>
> Same thing happened when the 1MB hard rive (I think it was) was
> replaced with a 2 MB - at any rate the capacity was doubled. They put
> the double capacity hard drive in as a normal drive with the small
> capacity, and the expensive upgrade just re-jumpered the drive.
>

I ran across this trick on my father's 80286 clone AT system back
in the late 80's. He had a 20MB disk in
his computer and me being young and interested in DOS, one day
I copied his data files to floppies and ran fdisk to go through the
motions of installing DOS, just to see how it was done. I was very
surprised to see fdisk reporting the disk as having 40MB. When I
pulled the cover and looked up the info for the disk, it was indeed
a 40MB disk drive. The dealership that had sold him the computer
had fdisked the disk up as a 20MB disk.

Ted

"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Bill Putney" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> And your point is...? How long have they been without water? And they
>> are still living there? People in Ethiopia needing water does not equal
>> available water decreasing in general which is what you've been saying
>> (i.e., "Once it is used, it is gone forever"). There is a constant
>> finite quantity of water on the earth - period.
>
> Actually there isn't. Every time you burn Natural Gas you introduce water
> to the earth as your creating it from the burning of the hydrocarbon, as
> well as burning many other kinds of hydrocarbons. Introduction of water
> through space material (comets and such) hitting the earth adds some more
> and doubtless the decomposition of water as a result of lightning removes
> some,
> although those are minor in comparison.
>
> I think the amount of water on earth varies quite a bit, I'm sure there's
> other
> chemical actions that tie up the various atoms that make up a water
> molecule
> into other molecules.


The small fraction of the less then one percent of the earths total water
that you just listed is so tiny as to be INSIGNIFICANT!



>
>>
>> Seriously - I'm sure water management is a critical thing - in the
>> future as in the past. But when you say that when water is used it is
>> gone forever, you lose all credibility and that weakens any potentially
>> valid points that you may otherwise want or need to make.
>>
>
> I think it was Heinlein who wrote a Sci-Fi story about a future where
> spaceships used water as a reaction mass to get out of the Earth's gravity
> well - as a result of it, an entire political party on Earth was created
> over
> the outrage of the idea that Earth's water was being lost to spaceships,
> resulting in crushing and punitive restrictions on space travel. The
> party
> collapsed when the opposition brought a giant chunk of frozen ice from
> the Asteroid belt, landing it on Mars as a publicity stunt and offering to
> freely export water from Mars back to Earth... An amusing
> story, kind of like this argument...
>
> Ted


Yet you could not resist chiming in???

"Gene S. Berkowitz" > wrote in message
.. .
> In article <lkjej.886$nN5.202@trndny04>, says...
>>
>> "Jeff" > wrote in message
>> news:60iej.1373$jX4.873@trnddc07...
>> > Bill Putney wrote:
>> >> Jeff wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> The American Museum of Natural History in NYC has a neat exhibition
>> >>> called something like H2O - the stuff of life, that looks at how much
>> >>> water people, especially Americans, use, as well as the large amount
>> >>> of
>> >>> water it takes to grow the food to feed a cow for a single quarter
>> >>> pounder with cheese compared to the water to grow crops for the same
>> >>> amount of food energy say in a loaf of bread or a few ears of corn or
>> >>> other vegetables (not even adjusting for the toys).
>> >>
>> >> But water is not permanently converted or bound up once it is used.
>> >> It
>> >> gets released (OK - recycled) in short order. The only thing that
>> >> would
>> >> make it globally scarce is if it gets bound up for long periods of
>> >> time.
>> >> IOW - if I use 300 gallons of water to take one bath, it's not lost.
>> >> It's
>> >> pretty much immediately available for use (perhaps after some
>> >> processing). (and no - I'm not saying that people should use 300
>> >> gallons
>> >> of water for a bath - just an illustration)
>> >
>> > Yet water is rarely reused. There are a few exceptions where water is
>> > recycled. In some parts of California, they are planning on purifying
>> > the
>> > water and injecting it back into the ground. Some people recycle
>>
>> Well perhaps, if you exclude the largest source of recycled water,
>> RAIN...
>
> Much rainwater that falls in the USA is unfit for consumption without
> some sort of treatment process, due to atmospheric pollution. Often,
> that treatment is performed by another shrinking natural resource,
> wetlands. Otherwise, it is performed by treating the municipal water
> supply.
>
> 20% of irrigated land in the USA is supplied by the Ogallala Aquifer,
> which consists of water trapped in sediment during the last ice age. It
> is being consumed at four times the rate it is being replaced. Should
> the aquifer go dry, that 20% of (highly productive) land will fall out
> of production, as it doesn't receive enough rain to be productive on
> rainfall alone.
>
> Aquifers, not rainfall, supply 60% of the fresh water in the USA, and
> virtually all of them are being consumed faster than their recharge
> rate.
>
> --Gene
>
>

Consumed??? Wrong!!!

con·sume : to destroy or expend by use; use up.

It is water "before" being used, and it is still water after being used, at
most, it has been moved, but certainly not consumed...

Besides, in many areas of the world including in the USA, humans can and do
DRINK rain water.

http://www.auerhaus.org/systems/rainwater.htm

"Ed White" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Actually it has been my experience that Tirerack does a really good job of
> addressing these concerns. They had a really good deal on the odd sized
> tires I needed for a Saturn Vue. Tire Rack has a number of certified
> installers in my area. I picked one. Tirerack shipped the tires directly
to
> the installers. When they arrived, I was called and made an appointment.
The
> tires were installed just as if the installer sold me the tires directly.
> Neither the Tirerack, nor a local dealer warrant a tire. The warranty is
> provided by the tire manufacturer. It is my unprovable opinion that
Tirerack
> is as likely to fight for your warranty racks as most local dealers. And
if
> you are really worried, Tirerack sells there on raod hazard coverage that
> should cover any concerns you may have. AND even if you don't actually buy
> the tires fromt he Tirerack (or other online seller) you can often use
their
> prices as leverage with a local dealer to get a lower price. I've bought
> tires from Tirerack several times with good results. However, most of the
> time I can find similar (or even lower prices) for high volume tires at
> local dealers. But when it comes to odd size or high performance tires,
> Tirerack often can beat the local prices by significant amounts.
>

Tire Rack's price for the Pirelli's you mentioned is $73.92 including
shipping.

>
> What about the Pirelli P4 Four Seasons? I feel certain you have a Pirelli
> dealer in your area.. Do you have a Sam's CLub in your area? My local
Sam's
> Club will order Perillei tires.
>

The local Les Schwab will order these, but I probably would not go to them
for them. The dealer in the area that actually carries any stock of Pirelli
at
all is Americas Tire/ Discount Tire. They aren't that close to me or my
work,
although they are a long established dealership and I did in fact buy a set
of
tires from them about 17 years ago.

As for pricing - the Pirelli P4 Four Season tire I need is available from
them,
and they stock it, their website lists it as $90. That is comparable to the
other
80K mileage tires as for price range. Discount Tires road hazard warranty
is
actually a fairly good one compared to many dealers - 3 year free
replacement,
or tire mileage wearout, whichever comes first.

Now, you can go to discounttiredirect.com and find the same tire for $77
plus
$3 per tire for vale stem. Of course, if I try price matching to either of
the websites at the dealership, the dealer can simply say that the free
lifetime
balancing & free valvestems are only available on tires purchased from the
dealer.
Which would put it back at the $90 per tire price.

>
> It is my opinion that buying cheap tires is a fast way to ruin a car.

Actually you can't really buy a more expensive tire for my minivan than
about $100 per tire. Nobody makes the more expensive "performance"
tire in the size that's required.

> But
> sometimes even expensive tires don't work out well. I bought a set of
> expensive Michelin Cross Terrains for the Expedition I used to own -
within
> 20,000 miles they were noisy. The tires looked perfect, and the tread wear
> was great, even after 50k miles, however, I really wanted to replace them
> (even though they had lots of tread). However, before I replaced them, I
> traded off the trick (for other reasons).
>

Ted