I'm reminded of one lease company who did a contract with (I think KF) that they would only pay for tyres which had reached 1.6mm. I'd booked the mobile fitter to change both front tyres.

Unfortunately neither the fitter nor I was aware of this stupid policy and he reported that one of the tyres was at 1.8mm.

I was doing 1,000 miles a week, so the difference between 1.8mm and 1.6mm might just be a week. I had a furious conversation with the lease company, where I was asking "so if I set off on my business trip this week, I need to take a tyre tread gauge, and I'll stop at each set of services. When it reaches 1.6mm I'll stop driving and you can recover the car from there". They eventually (and reluctantly) agreed to change both tyres.

I escalated the matter within my company, and eventually the policy was changed to allow tyres below 2mm to be changed.

I wanted a couple of new tyres recently so shopped around online.

Much to my surprise the cheapest place I found was Halfords! They certainly wouldn't have been the first place I would have thought of to buy tyres from but, from what I found, they were the cheapest.

Made the purchase and paid for the tyres online and took my car to my local branch the next day to have them fitted. Pleased to say there were no problems whatsoever.

Galaxy I had the same Halfords experience once but so far it’s been a one off. The last few tyres have been Blackcircles. Their approved fitter is a mile away (ATS) so I can drop the car off and pick up later. I have spent too long over the years hanging around fitters to expect them to be quick even with prebooking.

Having said that I once arrived at HiQ tyres just before closing and he took pity on me and changed and balanced two rears (which had seized on) and billed me in about ten minutes. I am not saying they could work flat out like that all day but it was good as a one-off.

I`ve used them 3 times so far as they were cheaper and fitted at home, arrived next day after online order for 2 front tyres, rears were done a week later, and new battery week afterwards

Company OP used I will never use again. too many bad mistakes made!

Have a look at mytyres.co.uk. Last year they delivered four tyres and I paid a local outfit a tenner each to fit them. Total price £250.80 for my quick heavy Audi A8 sport quattro. Result!

Admittedly this price was only obtained by fitting slightly 'wrong' size tyres - for some reason the 45 profile was half the price of the 40 profile, which has increased the circumference by 3.7%, necessitating a close eye on the speedo! But getting more tyre for less money seemed a no-brainer, and they help to increase the somewhat low 'sport' gearing of the car compared to its 'limo' cousin. Might also have slightly softened the suspension, although I haven't noticed either effect.