shipping tires/wheels. Fedex or UPS?

[railer]

Rates are about exactly the same for either.

What I want to know is: Which one is easier? In other words, I don't want to have to box, or wrap, or do much funking around with these. Is one more tire shipping friendly than the other? It seems to me that I had a very good experience with Fedex a few years ago, when someone shipped me some tires, and they were pretty much loose tires with a Fedex label tape to the side. But that was years ago and the details are foggy...
This will be for four approx 55lb each, tires mounted on wheels, FWIW.

If anyone has current experience please chime in. Thanks!

 

[SithSolo1]

When I get tires from tirerack they come UPS, bound together in pairs with plastic shipping ties and plastic wrap. If I got wheels, I'd want them in boxes. Wheels with tires, I dunno, I'd probably still want them boxed but you might be able to bind them/wrap them into a column.

 

[jlee]

I shipped wheels/tires via Fedex after wrapping them with that stretchy wrap stuff that comes on a roll from moving supply places. I sent them in pairs wrapped together.

 

[waffleironhead]

For tires on wheels, as the bare minimum I'd tape/wrap a flat piece of cardboard over the wheel to protect it from damage during shipment. If the wheels are nothing special, you could get away with just stretch wrapping them up.
You dont have to go quite this route, but you probably should.
http://www.tirerack.com/about/return_tires_wheels.jsp

At 55lbs each, they should all be sent as separate packages imo. You could get away with combining two together, but you will be over the 75lb mark which makes them awkward for handling and requires them to marked as heavy. In my experience, the more heavy the package, the higher the chance of damage.

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

Remember to drain the air out of them before shipping. Saves some weight.

 

[IcePickFreak]

When I got winter rims & tires all mounted up from Tirerack, they came UPS wrapped like in the link above and everything was fine. Actually they would be pretty hard to damage that way.