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Comments
TireRack:
205/50HR15 tires, 4 @ $87.00 ... $348.00
Freight ... $35.72
Total ... $383.72
Installer (Midas in my area):
Mounting & balancing, 4 @ $15.00 ... $60.00
Tax ... $0.45
Total ... $60.45
Total charge for new Dunlops: $444.17
Which equates to $111.04 per tire, or $24.04 more than the base tire price at TireRack. So, when comparing prices, add about $25 to the TireRack price per tire and you'll be in good shape to compare those prices to the all-inclusive prices you'll get by calling your local tire store.
FYI ...
Meade
Dale: Had a little "spillage" in the trunk over the weekend, so you can LYAO (laugh...) all you want. A jar of vegetabe spread opened by itself - the lid. Thank God I had the trunk covered in cheapo plastic (the one they put over carpets in the winter in high traffic areas at the entracnce of some public places - clear, with little studs on the side facing the floor). The carpet is not stained, but it was a pain cleaning it all up. I threw away that plastic, but it did its job. I'll have to go buy some from Home Depot and cut it again. It doesn't smell, so no visit to the carwash with the trunk open
Dinu
Glad your trunk is okay, though!
How's your PRO? Any liquid-related incidents lately?
Mine is approaching 58K. And I had 48K in December.
Dinu
No recent spills, although I drove through heavy rain to get to work this morning, and it seems the precipitation had washed away some people's brain cells. Glad I made it to work in one piece.
I must say, the stock Poortenzas seem to be hanging in there. And believe me, I had PLENTY of opportunity to test their stopping power on wet road this morning.
Meade
P.S. I hate you. (I say that with the deepest envy.) We both have the same MY cars and mine has more than TWICE the mileage. Man -- must be nice to get to the three years BEFORE the 50K miles!!!
(I'm off Friday and I already have scheduled a four-wheel alignment for 1 p.m. -- dunno about your town, but here in Rishmun, Vajeenya, we just gotta half-price four-wheel alignment coupon from Firestone!)
Meade
My sales rep (Jim, extension 364), who two months ago had pledged his assistance with honoring the treadlife warranty on my Dunlops, this morning said, and I quote, "I'm gonna have to steer you to Dunlop on that one." He gave Dunlop's customer service number. The woman I finally reached was very terse with me and kept repeating that my alignment was obviously shot to hell and in no way would they even talk to me about the problem until I had paid for an alignment check at an authorized Dunlop dealer. (Thinking I was trying to argue with her, she even interrupted my attempts to ascertain whether an "authorized Dunlop dealer" included Goodyear dealers. I had to ask the question three times before she let me get the entire question out of my mouth.)
And here's a real kick in the pants: If they do honor the treadlife warranty, any "refund" will take the form of a credit toward the purchase of new Dunlop or Goodyear tires ONLY.
To be fair, TireRack offered me a discount on a new set of SP Sport A2s on the spot as a kind of "olive branch" -- $77 per tire instead of the current $85.
Sorry guys. I'll chalk up my $200 loss to experience and vote with my feet, as they say in the retail biz. No more Dunlop/Goodyear (I'll even pull my 5,000-mile synthetic oil changes from my neighborhood Goodyear now), and no more TireRack. Heck, the shipping and installation fees don't make them so attractive anyway for tires only. Wheels, maybe. But not for me!
Meade the Customer
Also, during the summers, I don't necessarily have to commute every day.
Dinu
PS: Maybe we should go to the Protege Posee dicussion.
my very opinion which made me vote in favor of Bjs when u all were shouting TireRack at the top of voices
so far these tires are FAR SUPERIOR performance-wise than my previous Bridgestone/Yokohama hybrid setup.
gotta shop around!
Meade,
It Whitten bros really thinks of you as a primo customer, they can authorize a certain amount of After Warranty Assistance. Typically, a dealer is more inclined to want to split the bill. Talk to the service manager, that guy with the beard, and ask if he can cover the cost as you have all your service done there (right?).
You think you're so great in defeating a know-it-all. Well, look out. You've just created an even bigger pain in the you-know-where!!!
Meade
But I have purchased five brand-new cars from the dealership since September 1991; I'd hope that'd count a little even in the service department. Let's put it this way -- from most of the service writers to the service manager (who does in fact have a beard, by the way) to the sales manager to their finance guy, I'm on a first-name basis with them. I show up out front and the sales manager comes running out, saying, "Hey Meade, guess what's coming?" or "Hey Meade, you gotta drive this 6 we just got in with leather and a 5-speed!" or whatever.
But one question ... the way you worded your initial response to me about what I called a TSB, saying is isn't a TSB "yet," leads me to think Mazda may be poised to escalate this to something they may in fact cover. Like I said earlier, it isn't something that's got me up at nights worrying when my clutch will die. Should I wait and see what happens in the near future, O Mazda Merlin?
Meade
Dinu: To prevent future spills, how about buying an Igloo (or similar) ice chest to carry in your trunk? I use one for frozen foods and to prevent spills like you had.
Be sure to buy one that is the same width at the bottom, not tapered. More stable, less apt to tip over.
fowler3
That is what I'm doing this point.
I just wish I didn't have such a commute. My buddy here in Richmond who has the identical car to mine (except for auto vs. manual), and who purchased it one week after I bought mine, only has 30,000 miles on his due to the fact that he has a truck he uses for work. His Protege is merely a transport to take him down to the Chesapeake Bay to go sailing each weekend.
Tammy too -- last year we traded her 7-year-old Chevy Cavalier on the Protege5. The Cav only had 52,000 miles on it. (Great mileage; we won't talk about how many head gaskets the car had been through by then.)
But that's the difference between my wife and me, and she'll attest to it: she views cars as appliances. Point A to Point B. She's never washed one; hardly ever looks under the hood; vacuum it? Wax it? You MUST be kidding!!! I enjoy driving. It's always been a form of recreation for me. I took a day off in March to drive up to a ham radio store in Woodbridge (100 miles exactly); got there at 10 a.m. and left at 10:30. Coulda been home by 12:30. But no, I'd already planned this as a "recharge" day ... mapped out and all. Headed west to the foothills and Virginia's wine country. Took some twists and turns unexpectedly and intentionally, because I avoid interstates wherever I can. Took a drive around Lake Anna State Park on a whim. Yes, my trip up to the store was two hours and 100 miles. My trip home took six and a half hours and 240 miles. And I got out of the car saying to myself, "I need to do this again ... soon."
I don't think I'll ever see myself hitting the end of a warranty's time limit before racking up the miles on the odometer.
Meade
Dinu
Maybe it's a good time to order a cargo net from Mazda (P/N 0000-88-5499-0A).
I bet www.mazdastuff.com can set you up for about $30 US. That's about $10,000 Canadian, right?
Dinu
I've found coolers work well, but they're usually so slick on the bottom that once you put one back there, you get to hear it whamming into the sides of the trunk every time you accelerate, stop, turn, etc.
I've found that a plastic milk crate (the kind that holds four one-gallon jugs of milk, available for "free" behind most grocery stores -- heh heh) works better for containing spill-prone items since they usually have some ribbing on the bottom that makes them hold the trunk's fuzzy mat better. They also are molded ("moulded" for all you SARS infectees populating Canada) with plastic handles that make them easy to bungee to the openings in the metal under the parcel shelf.
Of course, milk crates will not contain a spill. But they're sure great for keeping stuff like paint cans, cleaning bottles, etc., from rolling around in the trunk.
Meade
Anyway, sorry to hear about all your grief and I will secretly stop blaming you for having convinced me that the Sport A2 was such a great tire with good treadlife in the 1st place.
You will get a much different response from Dunlop in this case.
The entire package cost us CDN$460.16. Bear in mind that tax was CDN$64.20 of that total. Essentially, the package cost me about USD$294.97 in good ole greenbacks. This of course includes lifetime rotations.
Since nobody wrote back regarding my questions on this tire, here is some info. They are High Performance All Seasons 195/60/16, H-rated, Traction#A, Temperature#A, Tread Rating 300.
Initial impressions: Very light feeling tires that respond exceptionally quickly to driving input. Sometimes a little too fast as the car responds immediately. They are very, very smooth, but anything would feel that way compared to the state the Dunlop's were in. The car itself seems to roll a little more freely and easily and traction on the dry is excellent. They are at least comparable to the Dunlops at this stage of tire wear in the traction compartment and hold lateral grip as well also. Haven't tried them in the wet stuff yet, but will get lot's of time to experiment with that tonight and tomorrow as we are expecting thunderstorms. I'll provide an update at that time.
As an added bonus, my vibration issues are now resolved completely. I was travelling down the 404 this morning and passing a car hogging the passing lane. I didn't realize it, but looked down and was doing 160km/hour. I was somewhat limited before by the vibration i would encounter at 130km/hour and rarely ever pushed it beyond 140km/hour while the out-of-round Dunlops were on.
Anyway, too early to tell, but so far I am really enjoying this tire. I'll let everyone know how they wear.
Initial impressions:
First of all, the car sits noticeably higher when looking at it, and when sitting in it. Even though we're talking a quarter of an inch difference, after being at a certain height for three years, I could feel the difference (a) when leaning into the trunk to get the stuff I hid from the mechanics, and (b) when getting into the driver's seat. Kind of like that thing when one stair in a staircase is slightly higher than the rest and you land flat on your face, I guess.
The tires LOOK good on the car. After the Dunlops, which were 50 series, it took me a few moments to accept the "doughnutty" look of the new ones, but the more I look at them, the more I like seeing those tires fill the wheel wells. Larry was right; quality control isn't as great with BFG and my tires are covered with "hangnails" from the casting process (note I successfully avoided using the "mo..lding" word ...
As with Tim, I'll give very marginal commentary on their noise level and smoothness. *Any* new tire should be a much better improvement over the bald one it replaced. I will say they are quiet, if just a touch louder than the Dunlops when they were new. I do have one quantifiable observation though -- I have an accessory microphone to a two-way radio stored in my armrest, and I was used to hearing its metal connector rattle over every pavement variation -- almost a constant, Jetta-type rattle (couldn't resist) -- on my way to and from work. It was very noticeable this morning that the rattle was gone. They do ride more smoothly, at first at least. I was able to get them up to 80 mph on the way home yesterday evening, and they were smooth up to that speed.
This part astounded me -- even though these are "touring" tires with taller sidewalls, these tires (maybe because of their V rating over the Dunlops H rating) take turns better than the Dunlops did. I had gotten used to the squirming feeling the Dunlops delivered in a hard maneuver; this feeling is gone and they do make the car feel more like it did with the Poortenzas when taking the twisties. I must say I did not expect this from this "touring" tire.
They've got a good amount of tread depth from the factory and four fairly wide channels for water shedding -- not as wide as the ones in the SPs (nothing could match that width; almost made me look like a dualie truck, lol). So far all my driving has been on dry and damp (from our unforecasted thunderstorms last night) pavement; I'll let you know if I wind up in the cargo area of a Volvo station wagon again. Hopefully not ...
FYI, I paid $355 out the door at Costco, approximately $90 less than buying, shipping and installing the Dunlops from TireRack. Expanding on what Tim reported, Costco includes free lifetime rotation, balancing and road hazard insurance.
Initial summary: I like them. I hope they last. I'm not going to sit here and praise the hell out of them because of the crow I'm eating now for believing what others said about the Dumflops. Glad to see you got out of yours without hating me too much Tim; I could've pursued things with the friendly folks at Dunlop (!) but frankly I was glad to get rid of them. "Sadder but Wiser," as the song went in Music Man (which I starred in in high school -- yes, my friends, on top of everything else I'm a thespian).
At least I don't have to worry about warranty arbitration with these tires -- being V-rated, they have none!!!
Meade
RE: Left Lane Campers - I found out most ppl respond to flash-to-pass at night, yet there are still a few that look puzzled when you pass them on the right and look at them as you zoom by. I had this guy in a HUGE (see: raised) Dakota last nite going 90km/h in the left lane east on the 401@the Allen. But he did move over when I flashed the lights. Guess it's hard to ignore it at night.
Dinu
Congrats on the new tires. I hope they do better than the Dunlops. So, are you going to get the BFG Radial T/As for the P5 now?
And a perfed & padded vinyl steering wheel cover (the one with the spiral vinyl cord that ties at the bottom -- haven't we all had one of those ONCE?) is a must.
http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/bfgapp/catalog/tires/touringtavr4.- jsp
;-)
Meade
I am usually alone in my Pro as well and I generally don't ride with windows down (usually too hot in FL). I do leave all the windows cracked open for ventilation when it's parked. The Weatherflectors keep the rain out (unless it is a severe wind driven storm). I also crack open the rear windows if I have to put the AC on re-circulate when following a smelly/smokey vehicle (diesel, etc...). It's nice to be able to do this even when it's raining.
hey meade, i was bieng informative to others who might be considering them.
Dinu
But keep up. A link to BFG's .pdf file on the tires was posted yesterday.
Meade
Being the freak that I am, i actually took the car out during a big downpour at about midnight in order to give her a little run through copius amounts of rain. The tires and car handled admirably well. To be honest, I didn't really notice that the road was wet they handled it so well. The RE930's have two sipes like the Dunlop's (albeit half the size) for pushing water out the back. They also have a z-tread that pushes water out to the sides of the tires and increase lateral maneavours. The caveat here again is that the tires are new and i would expect them to handle well with a full tread. The test will be how they handle as they wear down. Right now, they handle straight line acceleration without wheel slip as well as the Dunlop's did when new. However, lateral traction in the rain while taking corners are much, much improved with the RE930's over the Dunlops. They have such a light feel to them that it takes some getting used too.
This morning I got to try them out in the rain at high speed. Again they handled very well and i never felt like i was losing any grip at all. Braking seems excellent, but I do believe the Dunlops were a little better at high speed driving in the rain (over 80mph) due to those large sipes on the tires. They probably just channeled much more rain away from them.
Yes, I get bored easily.
Dinu
Smeade
Of course there's a small fee involved, but I'm sure $350 wouldn't get in the way
And BTW, 2 questions (slightly off-topic):
1. How's the Rex?
2. What's this summer's drink?
Cheers!
Dinu