Guys,

If you reside in Michigan , or perhaps anywhere that Belle Tire is established, I want to let you know that Belle Tire offered me $105 per tire ($525 for my set of five) as a "trade-up" on five Firestone Destination ATs. My out the door price including installation and 6-percent MI sales tax was $359.

I have read good things about the Destination ATs on this forum and on Tirerack.com (where the Destination AT is consistently rated #1 in its category). Now that I've had a chance to experience the ride associated with these tires firsthand, I can definitely say that it's not a bunch of hype. These tires ride noticeably smoother, are significantly quieter and look more "aggressive" than the stock Dunlop AT20s that came with my TE. The Dest. ATs also come with a 50,000 tread warranty.

For $359...

Wow, that's a great deal. Unfortunately, my T4R already has 4600 miles on it, so the trade-in offer wasn't available. Best he could do for me was $572.

Myron

Does a lot of tire places allow you to trade up and offer money for your old tires? I have a little over 500 miles on my stock tires and would love to upgrade them.

In my immediate area (the "thumb area" of MI) I was offered $100/tire by Discount Tire; $100/tire by a Firestone retailer, and $105/tire by Belle Tire. Before I took delivery last Friday I had made an arrangement with Belle Tire wherein I would drive immediately from the dealer to the shop to have my tires swapped out. I made certain that BT had all five tires in stock and available so as to avoid delay. The new tires were in stalled in just under an hour while I waited.

After reading a thread on this forum in which several guys cautioned about having a few of their lug bolts or lug nuts break upon having their tires rotated or changed (due to over-torquing), I insisted that the tire tech should hand tighten each lug once the torque approached 60. This he did, and I experienced no issues.

Going to call a few tire places tomorrow to see how much I can get for mine.

Good deal on trade in's . Discount Tire only gave me $75 per tire trade in when new . But ,they matched Tireracks online price ,which was $30 cheaper then Discount Tire's posted price and came with free lifetime balance and rotations.

Did your spare have a TPMS sensor like the dealer said it would?
Were they able to register 5 tires in the TPMS ECU for your 5 tire rotation?

Harper7,

Discount Tire initially told me $75 until I informed them that the Belle Tire shop a quarter mile away was offering me $105- that's when DT raised its price to $100/tire. I actually ended up doing business with neither, and instead, purchased my tires from another Belle Tire store that also offered me $105/tire, because the manager of that particular store came across as being a forthright guy.

Re: the TPMS issue; Before I took delivery of my vehicle (last Friday, the 18th) an informed employee in my dealer's service department verified that- and in contrast to what the service manager told me- that the spare did not have a TPMS. Moreover, the ECU would only read four (4) TPMS' anyway, no matter where they happened to be mounted on the vehicle. On a positive note, this saved me the cost of a fifth sensor. So as it played out, I now have five Firestone Destination ATs mounted to five (5) TE alloy wheels. So far, all is well.