Originally Posted by
CristianTabush
This is not even remotely close to being true. If recycling wheels, mounting your own foam tires can get the cost down to about $3 per pair if you buy donuts from Japan. With new wheels, the price goes up to about $5-6. Ulti donuts sell for $15.00 for 3 pairs stateside, so even then, the savings are substantial. This is at retail pricing too.
People don't mount their own donuts because somewhere along the lines we got pre mounted tires which had better glue jobs than what most could do as they would learn the process. Over the years we got conditioned to buy premounts and the art of mounting tires was lost in most of the Western RC World.
Once you factor in shipping, the time, materials, and effort it takes to mount your own...I would disagree. Then with recycled rims, if you are an average driver you'll have a lot that no longer spin true. And since manufacturers have switched to CA glue...some of the rims will no longer hold up to a soaking in lacquer thinner. And you can get pre-mounts even down in the $5 a pair range.
As for mounting tires I still find if I mount them myself they hold better than the pre-mounts of today...it just isn't worth the effort with pre-mounts as inexpensive as they are now.