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21" Tire Replacements (Hawaii)

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StephenM

Active Member
Dec 23, 2012
1,195
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21" Tire Replacements (Hawaii)

So I've placed my order for my 3rd set of replacement rubber on my Model S (close to 24k miles now). My first 2 sets were the OEM option (Continentals) but I wanted to try something different and chose the Hankooks, mostly due to cost and not coming across any bad reviews on them thus far on the general forums. Anyone else have any feedback as far as differing 21" replacements and if you do, which shops you use since Tesla refuses to work with anything non-OEM? I'm going with the TireRack recommended shop which is the Goodyear service center on Waialae.

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For reference, these are the other choices for us here in year-round-summer land.

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So I've placed my order for my 3rd set of replacement rubber on my Model S (close to 24k miles now). My first 2 sets were the OEM option (Continentals) but I wanted to try something different and chose the Hankooks, mostly due to cost and not coming across any bad reviews on them thus far on the general forums. Anyone else have any feedback as far as differing 21" replacements and if you do, which shops you use since Tesla refuses to work with anything non-OEM? I'm going with the TireRack recommended shop which is the Goodyear service center on Waialae.

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For reference, these are the other choices for us here in year-round-summer land.

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Since I have the Tesla road hazard warranty, I got the OEM tires from Tesla (they got rid of the continentals and use Dunlop now) as soon as the Road hazard warranty runs out I will get my tires from the mainland.
while doing comparison shopping I noticed that Nitto also has 21s in the right size.
for cheaper shipping I use shipToHawaii.com. I think that the last time I ordered tires the shipping was about $50 per tire, but that was a few years ago. I priced the same tire locally and I saved over $100 per tire getting them from the mainland including the shipping.

Some of the places I have shopped for tires...
DiscountTiresDirect.com
TireRack.com
 
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So Tessie got her new shoes this morning, and none too soon. I checked the treads about 2k miles ago and thought I had plenty of time. I was wrong.

A few notes about the installer. I used Goodyear Auto Service on the bottom of Waialae Ave. The total cost came to $139 (didn't do the alignment which would have run another $120 as I was pressed for time). They were quicker than they quoted, stating 2 hours, but finishing in a little over an hour. They had never worked on a Tesla before. The guy that received me had never even heard of it before. He would say "What's the make of the car? Tesla? Who makes it? What kind of car is that??" and had to manually enter it in their system. I told them about the unusually high torque specs (129 ft/lb) and to be sure to put in Jack Mode before lifting. With the work done, I checked the wheels and there were some tooling marks where the rubber meets the wheel (mostly behind the lip so it's not part of the curb rash). It's not too bad, and the curb rashes I have on two of my wheels look way worse than that so I'm not going to bother complaining to them about it, but be forewarned if you decide to use this installer that it may happen. It seems 21's are a bitch to install. They didn't bother to remove all of the gummy stuff on the sidewall from TireRack, and the wheels were very smudged up and dirty when they returned it to me. I had washed/detailed the car the previous evening so it really stood out. Maybe it's standard practice to not clean up afterwards? I don't know. Tesla service has spoiled me.
 

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So Tessie got her new shoes this morning, and none too soon. I checked the treads about 2k miles ago and thought I had plenty of time. I was wrong.

A few notes about the installer. I used Goodyear Auto Service on the bottom of Waialae Ave. The total cost came to $139 (didn't do the alignment which would have run another $120 as I was pressed for time). They were quicker than they quoted, stating 2 hours, but finishing in a little over an hour. They had never worked on a Tesla before. The guy that received me had never even heard of it before. He would say "What's the make of the car? Tesla? Who makes it? What kind of car is that??" and had to manually enter it in their system. I told them about the unusually high torque specs (129 ft/lb) and to be sure to put in Jack Mode before lifting. With the work done, I checked the wheels and there were some tooling marks where the rubber meets the wheel (mostly behind the lip so it's not part of the curb rash). It's not too bad, and the curb rashes I have on two of my wheels look way worse than that so I'm not going to bother complaining to them about it, but be forewarned if you decide to use this installer that it may happen. It seems 21's are a bitch to install. They didn't bother to remove all of the gummy stuff on the sidewall from TireRack, and the wheels were very smudged up and dirty when they returned it to me. I had washed/detailed the car the previous evening so it really stood out. Maybe it's standard practice to not clean up afterwards? I don't know. Tesla service has spoiled me.

wow, got them just in time. way back when I was in High School I managed to run "through" the cord and ended up with a very flat tire. I think it is best if the SC does your alignment since it is a 4 wheel alignment and most shops would only do a 2 wheel alignment unless asked to do a 4 wheel assuming they even have the right equipment to do it (I assume that Goodyear would) Even then I would probably do it at the SC. show them the pictures and it should be covered under the maintenance program.
Low profile tires are always hard to mount and many shops will avoid doing them. before I had my MS I would usually get my 245/45-17s tires (not as much of a low profile as the MSs 21's) done at the navy auto hobby shop and they always balked at doing them if the better "tire guy" wasn't there.
I would have expected Goodyear to do a better job cleaning and doing a neat job, but then again my last few tire changes were done at the SC.

When they flipped the car over to look at the tires should have been your first indication that they hadn't seen a tesla before :biggrin:(see attached picture in previous post)