How much do you pay for tyres?

[Jim Haseltine]

This was reported in a UK consumers magazine (Which? magazine April 2001) I
may have the facts slightly wrong (cos I left the magazine at work) but
here's the general story.

An owner of an All-road needed a new tyre, none of the fast-fit places had
one the correct size and couldn't get one quickly so he turned to Audi. This
was a standard Allroad tyre - how much do you reckon he was charged?


GBP415 - yes thats right - GBP415 close on US$580. They even charged an
extra GBP8 'fitting' charge.

Serious complaints were made by consumers organisations with the effect that
Audi dropped their price to around GBP200, gave the guy a refund and are
offering similar to anybody else who was similarly shafted - sorry - anybody
else who bought one of the tyres in the last year.
Their latest price is still some 15% higher than anybody else. Audi blamed
the high cost on 'Not normally supplying tyres' and having to set up a
special system to import them from Germany. They had also 'overlooked' a
price reduction.

Yeah - right.


Regards,


Jim Haseltine