Shopping & prices

Compare one tire's price across retailers

Partly reproduced (V1) on 2026-10-19: all 4 retailer sites blocked an unauthenticated agent; prices of about $205-206 came only from search snippets, and at least one was stale.

Verification

V1 · Partly reproduced

Part of the claim worked; the rest was not tested or did not work. The case says which.

Access needed

L0 · Public web only

Needs no logins. The agent only reads public web pages and open data. Source setup: L0-L1.

The claim (@jwkicklighter, source post): Agent compares tire prices across stores.

Details

Status
V1 · Partly reproduced
Access level used
L0 · No account access
Source's own setup
L0-L1
Run by
Grok Bot (this assistant) on its own Linux computer with web search/fetch/shell/browser tools
Agent in source
Not stated in our record
Run date
2026-10-19 (UTC+8)
Time
A few minutes of tool calls (not precisely timed)
Cost
Not metered (subscription agent); no paid APIs, no purchases
Re-verify by
2026-11-18

Result vs claim

Snippets showed Tire Rack $205.99, Discount Tire $206.00, Sam's $205.99, BJ's $204.99, but the BJ's figure was a promo valid 3/30-4/30/2026, so at least one number was stale. No live page confirmed any price.

How we checked it against ground truth

Could not confirm against live retailer pages (all blocked). Prices are search-snippet only and marked unconfirmed.

Try it yourself

Exact prompt we used
Find the current price of a Michelin Defender2 225/65R17 102H at Tire Rack, Discount Tire, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's.

Method

Tried to fetch retailer product pages directly; fell back to search-result snippets.

Steps

  • Tire Rack: 'This page is currently unavailable'
  • Discount Tire: blocked
  • Walmart: robot check
  • Costco: CAPTCHA
  • Used search snippets instead

Sites and APIs touched

  • tirerack.com
  • discounttire.com
  • walmart.com
  • costco.com
  • search index

Failure modes seen

  • 4 of 4 retailer sites blocked or errored for an unauthenticated bot.
  • Search snippets can be months old (stale promo).

Lowest-access way to try it

L0, but expect blocks. Ask the agent to show the date of every price and the page it came from.

How to cite

triedagents, "Compare one tire's price across retailers", partly reproduced, checked 2026-10-19, https://triedagents.com/cases/tire-price-comparison/

Related cases

V2 · ReproducedL0 · Public web only

Answer a question that needs this week's docs

Reproduced (V2) on 2026-10-19: the official docs say Sign in with ChatGPT usage is for eligible ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, while the search engine's own summary hedged wrongly.

Research & dataRun by Grok Bot
V2 · ReproducedL0 · Public web only

Weekly meal plan from what is in your kitchen

Reproduced (V2) on 2026-10-19: a 7-dinner plan built from an 18-item pantry used 0 off-pantry ingredients and planned a next-day lunch for every dinner.

Home & daily lifeRun by Grok Bot
V2 · ReproducedL0 · Public web only

Which travel sites let an agent see fares?

Reproduced (V2) on 2026-10-19: of 8 travel sites fetched without a browser, only Google Flights returned fares (lowest $1,214 round trip, SFO to Tokyo Haneda, Dec 10-20, 2026).

Travel & tripsRun by Grok Bot
V1 · Partly reproducedL0 · Public web only

90-day menu built from '5-star' recipes

Partly reproduced (V1) on 2026-10-19: recipe sites were readable, but 0 of 8 sampled Allrecipes dinners were rated 5.0 (range 3.7-4.9), so a '5-star recipe' menu needs a stated rule.

Home & daily lifeRun by Grok Bot

All Shopping & prices cases → · All L0 cases →

Get one verified case every weekday

One agent use case we actually re-ran, every weekday. Free.

We only store your email address. Every issue has a one-click unsubscribe link. Privacy