Cost Savings?
You can't really know the cost savings until you run through a set.
Seems to me for the risks involved, there isn't much of a cost savings.
Back in August I paid about $750 to have 4 Hankook Dynapro AT-M's installed at Discount Tire. Assuming you could get a set of Treadwrights for $450 that's a savings of $300 (but does that price include installation or any kind of road hazard warranty?)
Now figure that the Hankook's have a 50k mile treadlife warranty so I can comfortably figure I'll get that many miles, which works out to roughly 1.5 cents per mile.
The hypothetical Treadwrights at $450 would knock that down to about .9 cents per mile. Now a 60% savings sounds great, but in dollars and cents, that means for a truck like mine that gets driven about 11,000 miles/year (I have a separate Daily Driver) that works out to $165/year on tires for the Hankooks or $99/year for the retreads.
And of course, the above number-crunching is a
best-case scenario. If that $450 doesn't include installation or road hazard, or if the tires last less than 50,000 miles, the savings diminish even further.
To me, at least, the ability to air down, the ability to have an easy balancing tire and the reliability of a new tire from a known manufacturer and installation by a dealer with shops all over the country is worth $66/year.
Of course, that's just me. Your mileage may vary!
