I just bought a set of wheels and tires for my 07 Accent, from these guys, and I was very impressed with their service.

Shipping was prompt, and the items arrived in flawless condition. They balanced the tires at no additional charge, and also supplied some nice 'Gorilla' brand lug nuts as part of the overall package.

I've bought countless things on the internet over the years, and I would rate this purchase as one of my best experiences to date.

hooray for tirerack.com!

:clap:

tirerack is expensive in my book.

Good stuff is not cheap...it all depends on what you elect to buy. They don't specialize in lots of lower-tier products...for sure.

I had no problem with paying 59 dollars-a-tire for Yokohama AVID TRZs (all season tires rated at 80,000 miles...right up there with the best Michelins). You won't find those locally where I live for twice the price. And, 105 bucks a piece for real flow-formed Japanese rims (Kosei K3s) would be very hard to beat, anywhere. Let me know if you find those cheaper somewhere else.

If you have any particularly great places to buy wheels and tires on the net please post the URL here, and I'll be more than happy to check them out.

This post has been edited by moonz: Dec 17 2007, 12:08 AM

on discounttiredirect.com they have the enkei GF1 on sale for $70 a rim.
wheelmax.com has some good prices, they also got nice hankook tires for cheap.
wheelsnext.com is also pretty good.

This post has been edited by accentman07: Dec 17 2007, 08:23 AM

Thanks for the links.

Unfortunately, Enkei, one of my own favorite wheel brands in the past, is now having their cheaper line of rims manufactured in China, with only their more expensive wheels still being made in Japan. Tirerack offers a couple styles of Enkei that are the more reasonably priced, but they are the Chinese models. Hey...at least Tirerack will tell you where their wheel products are manufactured. That is more than you can say for most other online automotive wheel sellers.

I have nothing against Chinese rims, persay, but I've noticed that the Chinese still tend to use the cheaper gravity-casting process to make their products. In order to get rims manufactured using the superior pressure-casting and flow-forming techniques you almost without exception still have to buy wheels manufactured in Japan. I would guess that this will change in the future, as more wheel manufacturers start up facilities in China, to remain competitive, and eventually adapt those facilities over to using the better casting processes.

What tires you prefer really depends on what you want in a tire, and what size you need. I was looking for some extremely long-wearing all-season tires to put on my Accent. Something very close to the OEM size. The larger footprint performance tires don't last very long, and cost a lot more money...I'm an old man now, and I'm no longer willing to sacrifice economy for looks.

I've never owned any Hankook tires, so I have no opinion about those. I tend to stick with what I know to be the longest-wearing tires I've ever owned. Those would be Bridgestone, Michelin, and Yokohama.

This post has been edited by moonz: Dec 18 2007, 02:30 AM

i agree on tha chinese rims opinion of yours and yokohama is nice. but you sohuld try hankook tires. great performance and tread... FUZION tires suck for anyone who is reading this...

I'll keep the Hankooks in mind the next time I need tires for my Mazda Protege5. It requires a more performance-oriented, wider style of tire, and I've had some trouble in the past finding a good selection of tires in the sizes that will fit it.

cool, cool. hey have you put your rims on? if so post up some picks.

I put my new rims on the day FEDEX dropped em off. The very next day we got 8 inches of snow...

I love the way they make my Accent look. Such an improvement over the sucky OEM plastic hubcaps. Later this week, when most of the snow has melted off, I'll snap a pic and see if I can get it up on here.

My new tires are just slightly flatter than the GS OEMs were...down from 70s to 65s, and that seems to improve the handling just a tad. I stuck with 14 inch rims because they were the most reasonably priced, and 14 inch tires are cheap, and easy to get. They don't look as cool as bigger rims do, but they still improve the looks of the car 1000 percent.

:frozen:

This post has been edited by moonz: Dec 18 2007, 07:15 PM

*UPDATE*

Now that I've had these aftermarket tires and wheels on my Accent for a few months, I need to add a few more comments to my original post:

The wheels and tires themselves are great, and TireRack did an outstanding job of balancing the wheels, but the Gorilla lugnuts that TireRack had thrown in are s**t. The chrome finish on them is rusting very badly after just this short time. By comparison, the stock lugnuts on my old 1992 Isuzu pickup truck are still not rusted up at all. Also, the cool-looking red finish on the aluminum valve stems and caps that came on my new wheels is wearing off already. I've never seen an anodized finish so poorly done.

There has been a lot of rain here in the midwest over the last few months, but this would not have caused any problem if these parts weren't so poorly manufactured.

I light of this I feel compelled to change my statement from: "TireRack...simply the best" to "TireRack...needs to do better"!

:whistling:

you feel that tire rack needs to do better because of the lug nuts that they threw in for free? interesting... most places wont even give you lug nuts unless you pay for them....

i have found Tire Rack to be VERY inexpensive compared to retail stores or local tire places... (even adding in the shipping).... next time i buy tires (which will be at some point this year), i will certainly be buying them from TR.... (never bought rims from them because i cant afford new rims, and the ones on my Sonata are not bad in themselves - they are at least alloys)

Well...I'm afraid I don't really believe they are ACTUALLY giving anything away...I'm pretty sure I got charged for the lugnuts, one way or another... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/whistling.gif)

Tirerack is not a bad place...providing lugnuts that start to rust almost immediately is not a good business idea....better to either not supply lugnuts at all, or supply em with better plating, so they don't rust right up and ruin the great looks of the many wheel/tire sets they sell.

This post has been edited by moonz: Jan 8 2009, 01:08 AM

I bought my Continentals from Tire Rack and would do it again in a heartbeat. They are fantastic, great customer service and I think the prices are resasonable.

They get my seal of approval.

This post has been edited by lovemysantafe: Feb 12 2009, 09:23 PM

I got 20's on my Tucson and TireRack is the only Place to go. Im from Canada and if you want a set of 20' or 22's you SOL and paying a fortune for tires. I live far from Big City centers.

My last set of 20's I got was around 600$ shipped compared to the same tire here for 400$ each. So When you live in butt **** knowere Buying online is the way to go.

I bought Continentals from Tire Rack for my 300C and Crossfire cheapest around and I shopped a lot. The best price I got for my rear tiers on my Crossfire was $340 each I then checked Tire Rack their price $304.00 each still cheaper with the shipping.