craziness at the dealer....
 

so.. i got my GT last week for 37 and change, great price.
Then I looked into snow tires, and the dealer said '1299.00' with STEEL RIMS?

wtf? I can get Hankook or Dunlop tires for under 530, and Blizzaks for under 600. SO.. 600 bucks for steel rims? sheesh.

Anyone know of a manufacturer who does 17x7 5/114.3 steel rims besides Mazda?

Help.

your telling us you can buy 17" winter tires for 150 a piece?? are you sure you have the corrrct price?? Correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't 17's approx 250 - 300 per tire?

EDIT: Yes if you know where tell us! I"ll buy 8 of them tomorrow! (and i'm not joking)

Or if you can get them for that price, please post where. :)

not too hard
 

just do some looking.

a quick check at 1010tires.com in CDN currency - dunlop graspic ds2 = 169.99
bridgestone blizzak 199.99 - still only 800 for 4 (yes yes, shipping, taxes, i know. far sight from 1299 tho).
Using teh size recommended to my by the mazda dealer - 215/55R17

Blizzaks can be had from tirerack for 112 USD; add shipping/customs, its still well under 200 bucks. Tiretrends.com , which is canadian, has them for 186 ..

Dunlop Graspic DS-2 at tiretrends is $154.32

personally , i'd rather the blizzaks, but a winter tire at 154.32 is nothing to sneeze at. (and yes, i've seen complaints about the driving performance being poor on the graspic - but I'm not driving the car for *performance* in the winter, and they have a great traction rating).
That took me five minutes. Now, go to your local tire shops and do some haggling. I'm sure local stores will carry these at comparable prices.

I do not plan to run my RX-8 in the winter anymore and have a set of Hankook W300 225/50 HR17's mounted on 6 spoke alloys (painted a dark metallic grey) used for ~4000km for sale ($1000.00.) plus a set of factory rubber mats ($40.00). If anyone is interested and in the Toronto area; PM me.

so is that with or without tax? I'm interested becasue if thats with tax I'd say screw the 06 wrx I'll get the 8