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Snow/Ice winter tires

708 messages, Last post on Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
For the general tire discussion topic, have a look at the Tires, tires, tires topic.
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"do you store an extra set of tires in these puny garages they build for you in the SF Bay Area?!!" I'm in Boston - most houses around here don't have garages. It's that frugal Yankee mentality. I store my tires in the basement - betcha ain't got one of those!! I built a rack out of 2x4's and 1X planks that takes up about 16 square feet. There is one upscale vulcanized automotive rotational device purveyor here that will store your off season set as long as you bought them there. Of course they wanted $1300 for the same tires and steel rims I paid $600 for at Tirerack. |
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| hey, geoff - have I said that I love visiting Portsmouth? Anyone who hasn't been there should make a visit. Drop some coin into the local economy. Cool place. | |
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"You can keep your Guldens (damned proletariat)" We proleteriat prefer French's but I know that's not a nice word anymore. Portsmouth is cool. Kind of a chic place to live and hangout if you can't afford Boston. Even Portland is going upscale. Keeping on topic - why is there so much more action in this topic now that winter is over??? |
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robr2 writes: Portsmouth is cool. Kind of a chic place to live and hangout if you can't afford Boston. Please check your facts on real estate prices. Portsmouth is the least affordable Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area outside of California. Going back on-topic, Portsmouth does have a Nokian dealer. They tried really hard to talk me into NRWs instead of Hakka Qs. If you don't take your car skiing every weekend, their advice is probably correct. I was torn between the Blizzak, the Michelin Arctic Alpin, and the Hakka Q. They're all superb friction tires with lots of siping (little channels to give the water somewhere to go) for ice performance. The reputation for poor wear turned me away from the Blizzak. I probably would have been just as happy with the Arctic Alpin. |
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no wonder I like Portsmouth - very little riff raff |
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no wonder I like Portsmouth - very little riff raff This riff raff has to get off to work. The Nokians have 3" of new snow to play with this morning. The drive to Vermont tonight will be into 18" of new snow. I'm glad I blew off swapping to summer tires this week. |
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Statistics can be read in many ways. That chart indicates the affordability index of homes in a metro area based on the median incomes of the residents of that metro area. It says nothing about the cost of housing itself. The interpretation you stated would indicate that the housing in the Lowell and Lawrence, MA metro areas are more expensive than in Boston metro. I would challenge that. In reality, housing in those areas cost more in terms of the percentage of median income of the residents. I know that the Portsmouth area is getting expensive, but I know plenty of folks who have moved to that area and commute to metro Boston because they can't afford to live in this area. Back on topic - I've never been able to find Nokians outside of Saab or Volvo dealers in Boston. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. |
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Re: Nokian dealer development: I'm seeing a classified ad in a buff book (Automobile?) for a full line Nokian dealer. I'll check out the prices and report back. Housing affordability index: the index is aptly named: it measures how affordable the housing is for the people who live in the area. Sure, I guess if you were to move New York City to Lawrence, Ma the homes would seem to be less costly. But they would not any more affordable to the people who actually live in the area than the price of homes in New York are affordable to the people who now live in New York. Net/net: Portsmouth is a great town if you are buying housing with dollars earned in the metro Boston economy and not buying housing with dollars earned, say, working at the Kittery Malls. |
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I recently had a snow tire changeover at Sam's Club. This was the second changeover I had. They damaged two of four tires due to sloppy work and they did not even tell me. When I was unloading the tires, I noticed wires were sticking out. When I went back and told them about the damage they offered to pro-rate the tires, the problem was they had no idea what the original tread depth was. So first they come up with 70% refund then they lowered it 64%. When I told them these tires had about 4000 miles on them and were driven only when it snowed, they just ignored me. When I asked to talk to the manager, he just bullied me (he was in late 20's, obviously he did not reach to a level of maturity to deal effectively with such situations. However, Sam's Club must be saving lots of money by employing such "managers"). I asked them to pro-rate the installion fee since it was not my fault that the tires were damaged. Their response was something along the lines "screw you!" but of course they did not use those words. At the end, I got back $56 for the tires I paid $106. I used these tires for two winters and about 4000 miles. I was expecting to use them at least another 8 to 10 winters and at least another 20,000 miles. By the way, the original tires that came with this car (Michelin MXLs) lasted 162,000 miles. Well, I guess I won't be shopping at Sam's Club anymore and hopefully at BJ's Club they treat customers better(?!) |
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