Station 01 / Tires
Tires, fitted right the first time
Fifteen brands on the shelf at 722 Southwest Blvd, most sizes in stock and mounted the same day you walk in.
Chapter 01
What we carry, and why the list is that long
Michelin, BFGoodrich, Uniroyal, Bridgestone, Continental, Cooper, Dunlop, Firestone, Goodyear, Hankook, Kelly, Kumho, Maxxis, Nitto and Yokohama sit on the shelf at Boulevard Tire & Service, and that is not a showroom list picked for looks. It is what a Kansas City shop needs on hand when a customer walks in on a Tuesday with a tire that will not hold air and a car they need back that afternoon.
Any brand, make or model is usually available the same day, and if it is not already on the shelf at 722 Southwest Blvd we can generally still get it in before the day is out. That is the point of stocking fifteen brands instead of two or three: a family visiting Kansas City on their way through, or a regular who has driven a Michelin sedan and a Cooper pickup on the same week, gets the same answer either way.
The painted yellow smiley-face tire mark on the Boulevard Tire & Service awning, Kansas City, Kansas
Mount, balance, and the bit most shops skip
Buying the tire is the easy part. Mounting it right is what actually keeps it round on the road, which is why every set that goes on at Boulevard Tire & Service gets a computerized balance, not a guess with a hand weight. A tire that is off by even a small amount will show up as a shimmy at highway speed, and it is far cheaper to catch on the balancer than to diagnose later as a phantom vibration.
New rubber valve stems go on with every tire we mount, no exceptions, because reusing an old stem to save a few minutes is exactly how a customer ends up back in the lot two months later with a slow leak. Lug nuts get torqued to spec, not snugged with an impact gun and eyeballed. None of that shows up in a photo, but it is the difference between a tire that is mounted and a tire that is mounted correctly.
Chapter 03
The Total Tire Protection Plan, in plain numbers
Every tire we sell comes with the option to add the Total Tire Protection Plan for $27.50, which the shop prices out at a $50.00 value once you add up what is actually in it: professional installation, computerized balance, new rubber valve stems, approved tire disposal for the old one, free rotation for the life of the tire, and road hazard protection if you pick up a nail or run over something in a Kansas City pothole.
None of those six things are add-ons priced separately elsewhere in the shop. They are bundled at $27.50 because a tire that gets rotated on schedule wears evenly and lasts longer, and a customer who is covered for road hazard calls us instead of driving on a damaged tire until it fails.
How to tell you are done guessing
Press a penny into the tread with Lincoln's head upside down. If you can see all of his head, the tread is worn past a safe depth and it is time to talk about a replacement, not a debate. Check pressure cold, before the car has been driven that day, since a warm tire reads a few pounds higher than its actual cold pressure and will mislead you into thinking you are fine when you are low.
Uneven wear tells its own story. Wear concentrated in the center of the tread usually means overinflation, wear on both outer edges usually means underinflation, and wear on just one edge points at an alignment problem rather than the tire itself. Bring it in and we will look at the wear pattern before we quote anything, because replacing four tires to fix an alignment issue just means the new set wears the same way. Call (913) 262-0111 and we will get you on the schedule.
Boulevard Tire: fifteen brands, same day fitting, and the Total Tire Protection Plan on every set. Call (913) 262-0111.