An update to earlier posts here, which may assist someone pondering new tires: I'm in a rural area far from the big tire stores, so chose to order my tires online at discounttiredirect.com (the online version of Discount Tire, a national chain). They seemed to have the best prices with free shipping. I ordered the Maxxis 225/75 - 15" ST "E" range tire ($121. each, I ordered 3 to include my spare). Got a call next morning from a nice service manager (who said he was in Phoenix) explaining they did not have that tire in stock, trying to get me to order "D" rated they had in stock, but offering to call (either Maxxis or his supplier, I'm not sure which) to see how long it would take to get the "E". This I hope he did, before he emailed me the next day that they weren't currently available and that there was no information about when they would be again; did I want to backorder "E" tires or get the "D" tires now. I had been waffling on whether to order the "D" or "E" range anyway (see previous discussions), so I just ordered the "D" instead (these were also cheaper at $108. each, delivered by UPS). Anxious to get them on the TM and move on...
FYI, the tires are not boxed/bagged or anything, just 1 loose tire and the other 2 tied together with plastic straps, shipping labels stuck on them. (UPS man baffled why I only ordered 3 tires for my NTM 2005 Toyota 4Runner. I pointed to TM.) The tires look good, each one has a date code of 5109, which I decipher to mean they were made in the 51st week (late December) of 2009, so about 15 months old. I had asked the service mgr. about the issue of "old tires"--he stated that Discount Tire has so much sales turnover on tires, they never ship anything older than 18 months from manufacture, and to return the tires if I was unhappy for any reason. I'm OK with tires of this age, they sure look "fresh" for over a year old.
So now I'll take off my old TM tires/rims, go down to the local service station and get them changed to the new tires adding the steel valve stems, put on the ebay tire pressure monitors I just bought (Secutire wireless tire pressure monitors, 4 for about $25.),
http://tinyurl.com/4dvwnw5 , get the tires balanced, put them on the TM, and go for a test drive (once that last snow drift between the TM and the road melts down). Hope I don't drive over a nail in the first mile.