Hi there and thanks for the info. I may have passed through Custer at some point heading to the border. But I do get up to Whatcom County now and then to see Larry at Rainbow Auto outside of Bellingham. Over the years we have become quite good friends and for anyone with old Volvo's he is an outstanding resource!

Anyhow, I did end up going to Discount Tire on the mainland to get the Hankooks (not a snow tire - just an all season tire). Les Schwab offered the same tire locally but they ended up wanting $200 more than Discount Tire did and could not really offer any reason why I should pay that much more. They did try to sell me what they called a better tire (at least it had slightly longer tread life - of no use to me given our cars get only about 2K miles/year) for the same price as the Hankooks. But I decided not to bite...

When I went to Discount tire, I presented them with a long list of special instructions including:

1. the mounted left/rear is spare and should go into the trunk

2. the dead tire in trunk is left/rear

3. we have had trouble keeping air pressure - especially the tire in the trunk - please be sure to clean/scrape/wire wheel all mounting surfaces

4. the mounting studs/nuts are color coded. please make sure nuts are returned to the same stud!

5. at least one stud on left/rear is partially damaged - not sure how. these
are all old. so please use hand tools for mount + unmount. power tool is fine
for final torque

all of this is an effort to keep a great old car going as long as possible

I had no where to go while the work was done so I stood around and watched. They did everything I asked. So I was pretty happy.

One thing they did do was use the factory specs for air pressure - which for 195/70R14 shows as 28 front and 30 (or was it 32) in the rear. I have run like 32 all the way around for as long as this old mind can recall. But I will say that with the new tires and pressure the ride is smooth and my wife notices it.