So why is it Sears fault that Falken made a bad tire?

Sears is a retailer, not a manufacturer.

How did you drive the car? I can make a set of 80,000 mile radials last less than 10,000 if I really wanted to.

Tread life also depends on driving habits. It is easy to tear up a tire with fast turns, hard braking, and peeling out.

That was exactly my point. Around here you always see the hondas and hyundais with the oversized spoilers on the back, booming stereo, and spinning the tires out of a red light. Once in a while I get the temptation to show them my taillights, just to show them their place, but then I figure they're not worth it anyway... They're in a hurry alright. They're in a hurry to buy new tires.

well in normal and heavy rain I think I'd rather wide tires(with the same quality tread as our constant), the car is more balanced, more grip, more tread, more chance you're not in a puddle/bottoming out in a pot hole, and when the road is wet half of the time its not even raining and half the time it is(guestimates here) and only maybe 10% of the time is it raining hard and 0.001% of the time you are hydroplaning ill take my chances, ever ride a street bike in the rain?

also, id rather wider tires in snow bigtime

i think this may be different for each car though, i have a light car so i would think wider tires would help me stop better

maybe a heavier car would do better with thin tires i dont know im not a tire expert, just speculating here

I never got an alignment with those flakens(spelled wrong on purpose), only at the get go still it was probably more like 27k, who has the time to get alignments? my current schedule im barely making 15k each time ahgg, but still the alignment schedule was every 10k, no reason they shouldve gone that quickly sears sells crappy tires, and the owner of sears also owns auto zone, I heard this on the radio, and from what I know hes doing a very bad job of owning sears...(and a good job of making money off of autozone(well known + rip you off on certain items, hire people unknowledgable on cars which tell you incorrect information, and pay them nothing)) but as for their tires maybe he could choose something better to sell.. regardless they say hes doing a good job owning autozone... autozone sells fram filters, which are garbage you should NEVER use on your car, they fall apart and release filtered gunk into your engine once in a while(and rips you off for oil, $6.99 a quart for penzoil synthetic.. you can buy it at walmart 20$ for 5 quarts), need I say more? autozone=suck try napa, sears tries to be everything and winds up being nothing, in this recession which is weeding out the useless businesses, sears is crumbling... thats my distaste with sears... I think the tires they sold me were junk and I never peeled out or drove that aggressively just never got the stupid alignments which wouldn't have mattered anyhow with these crap tires I was riding on

Hope everybody who needs em bought tires by now. Obama just raised the price with a tariff.

Where I am, America's Tire Store has far and away the best overall package with better warranties, service and lower price.

Firestone has a Lifetime Alignment for less than the cost of 2 alignments.
If you have the alignment done every 10,000 miles, or sooner if your teen drives, tires will last longer and your car will ride gooder too.

So I ended up getting the Sumitomo HTR's instead, since I felt that 165's would work out in the long run. So far, I'm loving them. I got nearly 50k out of the last tires I had. Hoping to get more out of these tires soon.

I just got quoted $519 for a set of 4 Nexen Roadian AT2 with alignment, warranty and all that jazz. If you convert to metric they come out to being 265/75r15s. I was skeptical about them since it isn't 'one of the big brands' but with a treadwear rating of 560 and a traction rating of A I don't think I'll find a better tire for the price!

Nexen Roadian (I don't think they have a further name like "AT2" or anything) are the tires I currently have on my truck. They have decent traction in dry and wet. Snow traction is probably as good as any tires, I just remember the past two winters when they've been worn and me getting stuck in snow that's taller than my ground clearance. I guess snow traction won't be a big issue for you in New Mexico anyway. :)

I can't quite remember how long I've had them. It was easier when the truck was my only vehicle and I put a lot of miles on it all the time. I think they have worn pretty long, far over 50,000 miles. They've had few punctures and simply plugging it myself has provided permanent repair.