Inflation or Gouging to Mount & Balance 4 New Tires?

[MoparCarGuy]

Did you ask those shops what they charged for the same tires including mount/balance?

After I bought the tires, I did not. I had checked before ordering from Amazon.
The local tire service center was $188 for the 225/60R15 RWL BFGoodrich Radial T/A's and $229 each for the 275/60R15 RWL BFGoodrich Radial T/A's. They did not stock them. Order was just a few days to get them but they charged $35 per tire to mount and balance. OUCH.
Walmart has these tires for $147.97 and $211.67 online ordering plus tire fee and taxes, $777.57 plus mounting & balancing.

The Amazon price was $148.97 each for the 225's and $184.99 each for the 275's.
There was a $4.00 FL State Tire Fee and $50.40 for taxes. The total was $722.32 with free shipping.

I do not believe any storefront tire center would match this tire pricing.

I asked one of my car buddies where he goes for mount & balance. He suggested a local used tire and salvage shop. Called them this morning and they quoted me $12.50 per tire mounted and balanced. This afternoon I loaded the tires and Rallye wheels (no center caps) and got there at about 3PM. Front of the place has 8 parking spaces with three bays. See picture.
They had about six guys working with floor jacks and impact guns. Two guys were waiting for the next "drive-up" customer and one of them got to my door before I could even get out. I told him "Four loose tires and wheels to mount and balance." and away he went. He did not even want me to touch a thing but I still grabbed a tire and headed to the center bay. He started mounting them immediately. No wait at all. I stood at the bay door and talked to him about balancing, using sticky weights versus hammer-on weights, etc. He had all four mounted in about 8-10 minutes.

Now for the balancing...
I told him I had bias-ply Polyglas on the car now and it rode like crap plus I have a high-speed vibration issue. My goal was to hint at the importance of good balancing.
He took a bit more time doing the balancing as one would expect. Another 12 minutes or so and I was paying with Apple Pay at the counter. $53.25 later and I was on my way. Total for the tires on the wheels and ready-to-install is $775.27.

I plan to swap the tire combo out either today or tomorrow and then check the frontend ride height. Planning to get an alignment after that.
I will let you guys know once I get it out on the road whether the tire balancing eliminated the vibration issue and I will post some pics.

[MoparCarGuy]

So here are the new Radial T/As on the car. I also dropped the torsion bars to the factory 1-1/8" suspension setting. Front fender height result was 25-3/4".

Test drive was like driving a new car. The Goodyear Polyglas F60-15s looked fantastic on the steelies with hubcaps but the ride was awful. Now the love-hate relationship with the BFGoodrich tires begins.
Pros: Look great, drive great, no vibration.
Cons: White letters often start browning, can have sidewall separation on occasion.

I know there are a lot of our members who will not run the BFG tires from their bad experiences. I have been fortunate most of the time and have only had one sidewall bulge issue ever. Black Magic Bleche-Wite, formerly Westley's, is your friend.

[JH27N0B]

Really has the right stance! 
I had pretty old tires on my convertible but really didn't want to put Radial T/As or Cooper Cobras on it.
I ended up putting the Polyglas FR70s on it when they were released.  I've been very pleased with them.
Kelsey had talked about releasing FR60s next but I don't think they ever did.
I have Polyglas bias ply repros on my '71 so I'm very familiar with them. Some roads in my area are so crowned I'm surprised I haven't had those tires pull me into a ditch yet! 

[Mixup7071]

I bought 4 tires from a friend who decided to go with bigger tires, I called around and all the big shops said because of liability if you don't buy them from us we can't mount them, I found a local mechanic shop that did it charged me 150 I was happy to pay, at least I got them installed , I have heard if your tires are over 6 years old they won't even rotate them

[Filthy Filbert]

Shop rate these days is $100-150 per hour.   

How long do you think it takes to mount and balance 4 tires and do it correctly?   

[MoparCarGuy]

For my four loose tires and wheels, less than 30 minutes @$53.25.
That is approximately $100/hr.
Off the car, dismount, remount, balance, and reinstall would be a lot longer.
Taking center caps off and on adds even more time.
That is why I chose to take them loose.

[Jay Bee]

My daily driver needs new tires (18 inch) so I'm starting to shop around. This thread got me to ask about installation.

Canadian Tire was the only place so far. Here's the breakdown with buying the tires from their store.
Installation & balancing: $37.50 each
Disposal fee: $5.50 each
Subtotal: $43.00
Total w/tax: $48.59 (13%)
Grand total for 4 tires: $194.36 CAD

Those places are franchised owned but I doubt there'd be any difference between locations.