Buying decision
Where and When to Buy Tires: the 2026 Verdict
Last verified · How we are paid
The short answer
If you have a Costco membership, buy there: mounting, balancing and a five-year road hazard warranty are already in the sticker price. Time the purchase for early autumn or spring, when manufacturer rebates cluster.
Where to buy
Costco Tire Center, if you are a member. The price includes mounting, balancing, nitrogen, flat repairs and a five-year road hazard warranty, so the number you compare is the whole job. Tire Rack wins on selection, SimpleTire on price transparency. 1 2 4
When to buy
Early autumn or spring, when manufacturer rebates cluster, and the brand you want decides the deadline. In September 2026 six dated windows overlapped across Costco, Tire Rack, SimpleTire and Mavis. 1 2 4 5
Where to buy it
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Costco Tire Center 1
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Members buying a mainstream brand. Costco states that the tire purchase includes installation at no charge, plus a five-year road hazard warranty, rotation, balancing, inflation checks, flat repairs and nitrogen inflation. In late summer 2026 that stacked with $80 off a set of four Michelin and $60 off a set of four BFGoodrich, taken instantly at purchase.
Membership is required: Costco says installation is only available on tires bought at its tire center by members. Selection is narrow next to an online catalogue, TPMS service pack fees can be added on top, and not every make, model and size is covered by the instant savings.
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Anyone who wants the widest choice and wants to know the installed price before ordering. Tires ship free to one of 10,000+ independent Recommended Installers, and every installer signs a Price Pledge, so the installation cost shown on the site is what the shop charges. Mobile installation and a distribution-centre pickup discount are also offered.
The installer bills you separately, so read that line before you compare with a warehouse price.
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SimpleTire 4
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Buying online and wanting one all-in number at checkout. Shipping is free, and SimpleService bundles installation: mounting, balancing, rubber valve stems, tire disposal, TPMS reset and 12 months of roadside assistance. It also listed a $25 sign-up offer and a 5% military discount as of September 1, 2026.
Returns are limited to unmounted tires within 30 days, so a fitment mistake caught at the shop is your problem. The quoted install fee is standard installation only: a replacement TPMS sensor or an oversized vehicle costs extra, and the bundled install needs a minimum of four tires.
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Mavis Tires 5
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Drivers who want a brand rebate and a physical shop on the same visit. In September 2026 Mavis listed manufacturer rebates on select sets of four: up to $270 off Pirelli, $150 off Bridgestone and up to $150 off Goodyear. The Pirelli figure combined a $120 instant rebate, a $100 mail-in rebate and $50 in online-exclusive savings.
The headline number is the best case and mixes instant money with a mail-in form you have to file. Offers are limited to select sets of four, and the online-exclusive $50 is not available if you walk into the shop and buy at the counter.
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Walmart Auto Care Center 7
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The budget end. Walmart sells Goodyear, Michelin, Cooper, Hankook, Nexen and its own Douglas brand, and lets you book tire installation online through the Auto Care Center from the same page you buy on.
Walmart does not publish its per-tire installation fee on the category page, so we cannot tell you the installed price. Ask the store before you compare it with a warehouse quote that already includes the labour.
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WheelHero
—save $80 off a wheels-and-tires package. From our own partner feed, where it was still active with no published end date when we checked on September 14, 2026. We could not load the merchant site to re-read it, so treat it as worth one attempt at checkout, not a promise. ◆A narrow case: you are buying aftermarket wheels and tires together as one package. This is a wheel specialist that sells tires alongside the wheels, not a general tire shop.
Wrong shop for a straight replacement set. Of the two other codes live in our feed when we checked on September 14, 2026, one was wheels-only and one took $85 off any order over $1,600. Both carried an order minimum. We have no store page of our own for this merchant yet, so we are not claiming any cashback on it.
◆ Cashback rates and codes without a footnote come from Tenmomo's own program data. We read it again on the date under Last verified, unless the row's own footnote gives a later date.
When to buy it
- Early autumn and spring: manufacturer rebate season
- Tire brands put rebates on select sets of four, and each brand sets its own dates, so the brand you want decides the deadline. Costco's 2026 instant savings ran from August 24 to September 20, 2026: $80 off a set of four Michelin and $60 off a set of four BFGoodrich, installation package included. At Mavis in September 2026, Pirelli was up to $270 off, Bridgestone $150 and Goodyear up to $150. 1 5
- Labor Day weekend: the online sellers' own sales
- Tire Rack's 2026 Labor Day sale ran September 3 to 8, with up to $100 instant savings on tires, up to $80 on wheels, and an $80 rebate on purchases of $799 or more with the Tire Rack credit card. SimpleTire's 2026 Labor Day sale ran from August 31 to September 13 at up to 20% off site-wide, the longest of the Labor Day windows we found. 2 4
- Closed August 31, 2026 (Continental)
- Continental's rebate ran 7/1 to 8/31/2026: $110 on a prepaid Mastercard for a set of four qualifying tires, with $90 more when paid on its own credit card. It closed the day before the September cluster opened. 6
The long answer
The price on the tire is not the price of the job
A set of four is really four numbers: the tires, mounting and balancing, valve stems or TPMS work, and disposal of the old set. Retailers split those differently, which is why headline prices are not comparable. Costco folds the work into the tire price and states that installation comes at no charge to members. Tire Rack keeps them separate but makes every Recommended Installer commit to a Price Pledge, so the installation cost shown on the site is the cost you pay at the shop. SimpleTire bundles at checkout and lists what is inside the bundle: mounting, balancing, rubber valve stems, disposal, TPMS reset. Compare the four numbers, not the first one. 1 3 4
Tire discounts in early autumn arrive as a cluster of separate windows
Six separate windows were open as of September 1, 2026: Costco through the 20th, Tire Rack the 3rd to the 8th, SimpleTire through the 13th, Pirelli at Mavis through the 7th, Bridgestone at Mavis through the 30th, and Goodyear at Mavis through the end of November. They did not share a start date and they did not share an end date. Continental ran its own $110 rebate from July 1 to August 31 and closed it the day before this cluster opened. The practical reading is that early autumn is dense with manufacturer money, and the specific brand you want decides which day is your deadline. 1 2 4 5 6
An instant rebate and a mail-in rebate of the same size are not worth the same
Instant savings come off at the register. A mail-in rebate is a claim you file, and the money arrives on a prepaid card with its own rules. Continental publishes the full set: submission needs a dated itemised receipt, the form has to be postmarked or filed online by a deadline, fulfilment takes eight to twelve weeks, the card expires within six months of issue, unused funds are forfeited, and there is a limit of two cards per household or address. Those terms are typical of the format. When two offers look equal, take the instant one. 6
Buying online works, as long as you price the shop first
The online catalogues beat any warehouse on selection, and both of the big ones solve the trust problem the same way: they show you the installer cost before you commit. Tire Rack ships free to more than 10,000 independent installers and holds them to a fixed quoted price. SimpleTire lets you pre-select the shop and pay online with the install included, minimum four tires. Neither is automatically cheaper than Costco once labour is in. What they buy you is a tire Costco does not stock. 2 3 4
Why this page has almost no cashback on it
We list cashback only where we can pay it and prove the rate. For tires we mostly cannot. The large retailers on this page are not partners of ours, and the tire merchants we do have relationships with either have no live page here or sit on a network we currently cannot attribute a sale through. Rather than print a rate we cannot honour, we have left the cashback column empty on every row.
Questions people ask
When is the best time to buy tires?
Early autumn and spring, when manufacturer rebates cluster. In 2026, for example, six dated windows were open as of September 1, at Costco, Tire Rack, SimpleTire and Mavis. If you can wait for a brand rebate on the tire you actually want, that is usually worth more than a general sale. 1 2 4 5
Is it cheaper to buy tires online?
Only after you add the shop. Online prices are lower on the tire itself and the selection is far wider, but you pay an installer separately. Tire Rack and SimpleTire both publish that installer cost before you order, so the comparison is fair. Costco already has the labour in its price. 1 3 4
Are there working promo codes for tires?
Not in the September 2026 windows we checked. Every offer we verified was either an instant discount at the register or a mail-in rebate, neither of which needs a code. Among the tire sellers, the one code-shaped thing we found is SimpleTire taking $25 off for signing up to its email and text alerts. 1 2 4 5
Do the mail-in rebates actually pay out?
They pay, on a prepaid card, slowly. Continental publishes the whole process: itemised receipt, form by the deadline, eight to twelve weeks to fulfil, card valid up to six months, unused balance forfeited. Budget for the delay and diarise the expiry. 6
Does a credit card help on a tire purchase?
The offers we could verify were store cards, not general rewards cards. In its 2026 Labor Day sale, Tire Rack added an $80 rebate on $799-plus orders with its credit card. Mavis, as of September 1, 2026, listed $25 per Mavis-brand tire as a statement credit through October 31. Continental added $90 to its rebate for its own cardholders. 2 5 6
How we are paid
We earn a commission on almost nothing on this page. Costco, SimpleTire and Walmart have no relationship with us at all, so we earn nothing whichever of them you use. Tire Rack and Mavis are different: they are programmes we joined on an affiliate network that has since delinked us, so we can neither earn on them nor pay you, and they count as zero cashback here. All five are still ranked above the one merchant on this page we do earn on, because they are the better buy. WheelHero is a partner, but it has no page on this site yet and we are claiming no cashback on it. The order on this page is by what it costs you, and nothing on it is placed or paid for.
What we don't cover
- We do not track what other cashback portals pay on tire retailers.
- Discount Tire and America's Tire: their deals page would not load for us, so we list none of their current offers. That is our limitation, not a judgement on the retailer.
- Black Friday 2026 tire offers. As of September 1, 2026, nothing was published and we had verified nothing.
- Walmart's per-tire installation fee, which is not on its category page.
- Local independent shops and dealer service departments, where the price is quoted per visit and we cannot check it.
- Whether any of these promotions return on the same dates in 2027. We are recording this year's windows, not predicting next year's.
- Tire prices themselves. We list the discounts, not the shelf price, which moves by size and by week.
Sources
- Costco Tire Center — current instant savings and what installation includes — accessed 2026-09-01
- Tire Rack — Labor Day Tire Sale 2026 — accessed 2026-09-01
- Tire Rack — Delivery and Installation, including the Price Pledge — accessed 2026-09-01
- SimpleTire — Labor Day Sale and SimpleService installation — accessed 2026-09-01
- Mavis — Labor Day Tire Sales and Deals 2026 — accessed 2026-09-01
- Continental Tire — rebate offer and full terms — accessed 2026-09-01
- Walmart — Auto and Tires category, brands and service booking — accessed 2026-09-01
