Why the huge difference in tire price.

[irwin]

I have a 7510 with 33" tires, could I put on a truck tire? It is 4wd though.

Tractor tires are different from car and truck tires...but any tire that fits your rims can be mounted...I have LT truck tires on the front of my IH 2424 (it's a 2WD) ..but ag tires on the rear.

A 4WD tractor has a front wheel lead ratio the should be kept to minimize the chance of front axle damage..You need to know what that front wheel lead ratio is and what the rolling circumference of the replacement tires are. It's easier to just put the right tires on.

 

[N80]

I have to agree with the 'gouging' assessment. That other stuff about inventory and all that does not compute here. We're talking about a difference of $250 per tire! That's more than double the retail price offered by the other places! 200% markup, over retail, seems like a little too much to be explained by hedging inventory.

The guy who sold him the tires was obviously able to order him a new tire, sell it to him for $200 and presumably still make a profit or at least break even. Certainly he's not selling at a loss, right?

So something else is going on here other than an unstable market.

Are you sure you weren't comparing radials to tires?

 

[Patches]

I think that what's happening in the tire business is being driven by the fluctuations in oil prices. Wholesalers who stock tires don't know how much they will have to pay for replacement inventory - so they jack up the price of the tires they have in stock in hopes of covering it. There are some wholesale distributors who are not trying to anticipate the market so their existing inventory is being sold based on its cost. Although this seems the most fair to consumers it actually threatens the health of those businesses because inventory investment is about to rise, maybe substantially, without planning for it.

That's using oil industry reasoning. As soon as something questionable happens in the world, the price jumps immediately;but when crude prices fall the standard answer is;"We have to get all that high priced oil out of the pipeline before we can lower prices" What about all the low priced product that was in tha pipeline when the "world event" happened