Lotus-Friendly Tyre Place?

[MattyB]

Odd question, possibly, but my front wheels need rebalancing (serious 70mph+ wobbles) and I'd rather take it to a garage who is experienced with Elise/Exiges, as my local places tend to struggle to get their jacks underneath it....

 

Just wondered if anyone could recommend a place near West Brom/Walsall (or within reasonable travelling distance)???

 

I would normally take them off myself and take them to the local place, but being on a gravel driveway makes things difficult...!

[AnthT]

chemix?

[MattyB]

Never heard of them - have you used them before? Seems the one over Wolvo is slightly closer than their Halsowen branch....

[kayj_prod]

I can't recommend anyone near to you, but I just took mine to a local independent. (After seeing some shocking things at a well known chain, no-way was I using them...)

The garage had about five guys on the job (well I changed all four tyres), and all I had to point out was that they do one side at a time as they couldn't put it on a four point lift without removing undertrays, and that they put some rubber between the jack and the jacking point.

 

Everything else, they took a lot of care over. They didn't even use pneumatic tools and torqued the nuts properly.

[MilesH]

JS Racing are in Dudley, is that close enough?

 

 

[MattyB]

JS Racing are in Dudley, is that close enough?

 

 

 

Do they do it themselves or take it to a local place (as most specialists do...?)

 

Actually, scrub that, I guess I could just call and ask

[G]

make sure whoever you use know how to remove the tyre, as a standard machine without care will tear around your rims like a can opener.

I had a pair of rear OZ rims chipped all around the edge at a main street tyre company.

 

Specialist machines have plastic adaptors to break the tyre away from the rim and feed the new tyre on, worth asking the question.

[daves2111s]

Speedy at Stratstones in Lye

Did a great job on my new AD07'sp

[chris_h]

Are you still on A048's at a guess with 70mph wheel wobbles. I kept getting this until i switched to toyo 888's. Lots of others have had the same issue.

[MattyB]

It just need rebalancing, so they wont be removing the tyre.

 

Yeah its A048's, I'm aware they're pretty difficult to balance but its pretty bad at the moment, hoping to improve it, if not totally remove it...

[G]

They might be turning it around the rim. I had the same problem as you with a048's and 4th time lucky it balanced correctly.

[chris_h]

I found that i would get them balanced and they would be fine but then over about 1000 miles they would slowly go out of balance again.

 

What i did find was that sometimes the tyres were slipping on the rims. I wouldn't have been able to tell apart from my local tyre place lines up the yellow circle/dot to the valve to help lower the amount of balancing needed. After a while i noticed that the yellow circle was about an inch or two further around the tyre !!

 

Not had the same problem with 888's

[Eric]

I found that i would get them balanced and they would be fine but then over about 1000 miles they would slowly go out of balance again.

 

What i did find was that sometimes the tyres were slipping on the rims. I wouldn't have been able to tell apart from my local tyre place lines up the yellow circle/dot to the valve to help lower the amount of balancing needed. After a while i noticed that the yellow circle was about an inch or two further around the tyre !!

 

Not had the same problem with 888's

 

Wow, that is really good info and probably an inevitable result of having so much grip available from the A048s under braking. And it explains why the problem gets progressively worse over time as the tyres slip a little more.

 

Think I'll take note of the exact position of the tyre on each rim now and watch out for any changes.

 

Cheers,

Eric

[Mark H]

Automated moderation message:

 

Topic moved to the technical section

[dale]

i use top gear in wolverhampton.

im not 100% he fits tyres but he's a lotus specialist