Costco.  Home of the cheap.  Or should I say inexpensive?

You know what I mean.  It’s a good place to snag the occasional super bargain.  When they send out those “Passport to Savings” coupon books, it can be a really good place to save.  Many times, they have a handy coupon in there that will cut a nice big chunk off of a tire purchase.  Even when they aren’t rockin’ the coupon, they usually have pretty good deal on rubber.

But there’s a controversy.  Should you really buy your tires at Costco or not?

Here are a few reasons why you might want to do it…

• If you have one of their coupons, it can be almost like getting a free tire.
• They will rotate your tires for you once every 7,500 miles without charging you.
• They sell tires with a pretty cool lifetime warranty arrangement.
• They als do a lifetime balancing thing for ya.
• The sell name brand products at a competitive price.
• You can have a famous CostCo hotdog while you wait for installation.

That’s a pretty compelling list.  Here are a few of the reasons some people are staying away…

• Installation can take a great deal of time.
• Your average CostCo employee isn’t a genius and may know less about tires than you do.
• They won’t let you make an appointment for rotations, etc.

You can read a lot of customer reactions about CostCo tires right here if you’re still trying to make a decision.

Now, there’s one other bit of weirdness that deserves a mention.  Costco tires don’t come filled with air.

No, they don’t give them to you flat.  They just fill them with nitrogen instead of air.  That’s right, nitrogen.

They say that nitrogen holds up better and that you won’t need to top off the tires as often as you otherwise would.  I’m not a scientist, but that seems a little strange to me.  If I remember right, air is largely comprised of nitrogen in the first place, so I can’t imagine it makes a whole heckuva lot of difference.  Some of these other non-scientists agree with me.  As such, I’m just calling the nitrogen thing a wash.  It isn’t entering into my decision calculus one way or the other.

So, what’s the bottom line?

In my estimation, it’s pretty simple.  If you aren’t worried about waiting around a little bit and the price for your particular tires happens to be considerably lower at CostCo than a local alternative, you might as well buy them there.  If you’re constantly in a hurry and can’t imagine waiting to for a tire rotation or installation, look elsewhere.  Time is money, but not all time is worth the same amount of money.

Personally, if I could save some money and had some other shopping to do while the Costco tires were being installed, I would go for it.

The fact that many of the Costco employees are something less than tire experts doesn’t really bother me.  Tires aren’t that complicated.  Installation isn’t that tough.  The computer diagnostic equipment and tools used in the process would seemingly allow even less-than-Indy-pit-crew talents to slap that rubber on your rims without putting you in jeopardy.

I get the feeling that many (not all, but many) of the people who have reservations about CostCo tires believe that the whole process is a little more complicated than it is and may mistakenly believe that the kid who’s on tire detail at a dedicated auto shop is some sort of Goodyear Guru.

If you like the deal, buy the tires.  That’s the way I see it.  Unless you show up and the line is three miles long, it seems reasonable to me.