Help re Alloys

A

ahappychappie

Senior Member
T6 Guru
Hi,

Have a T6, T28 Highline - to be converted into a Camper.

Looking at upgrading current 16" alloys to 18" but getting a little confused - trying to learn quickly.

Alloys I've seen are BK Racing 808 Gloss Black. Wheelbasealloys.com are very close to me - standalone price is £519, with Kumho tyres it jumps to £1,049, assume these are suitable:
Wheelbase Alloy Wheels & Tyres

Tyres are 255/45 R18 103 Y XL - from researching this appears to be what I need?

Shopping around it seems the best way is to purchase separately, whereby I can get the alloys as low as £419 and tyres mail order for £400 - total of £819 - a massive difference of £230.

Am I right in thinking I then simply need a garage to fit the tyres to the alloys, balance, then fit the alloys - which I don't believe is that expensive a job? Erodes my £230 saving but no by that much I'm thinking...

Thanks in advance, Phil.
 
Might be worth calling round some local tyre fitters - asking them if you bring new wheels, can they supply, fit and balance the tyres and for what price.
 
Good shout above..... lot of fitters won't do it cos they get pissed that people get cheap tyres on line and then expect them to just fit them.
 
I think it's a massive piss take to buy online where the guy has no overheads as they come in from manufacture and straight out to customers then expect your local garage to fit them for next to nothing after having to pay his rent and rates and wages and buy a expensive tyre machine !!!
Support your local business they might even price match
 
YESBOY said:
I think it's a massive piss take to buy online where the guy has no overheads as they come in from manufacture and straight out to customers then expect your local garage to fit them for next to nothing after having to pay his rent and rates and wages and buy a expensive tyre machine !!!
Support your local business they might even price match
Click to expand...

If tyre shops don't want to only fit a tyre then they can turn the job away, easy.
Quite often the difference in price is not just down to 'overheads', a lot of the time it's down to the economy of scale. And i disagree, not all stocks go from manufacturer straight to a customer, if that were the case, we would never get a next day delivery for a pair or set of 4 tyres. The manufacturer would laugh at you.

here's my recent example:
I normally only buy tires from a local tyre place.
However, this time round I found tyres for nearly £200 cheaper online than they could offer . After speaking to them and understanding they couldn't compete I bought said tyres, then spent £50 with said local company getting them to fit them and all is well.(£150 saved).

I don't think it's a "piss take" as it's not just down to 'over-heads' that cause local shops to be more expensive. And if they were like £20 a corner more, I would of spent the extra money... but why should I pay £50 a corner more for each tyre just because the shop is local.
Normally the big reason why online tyre retailers can offer better prices is because they buy vast quantities of tyres at a time, which entails A) huge investments, B) they need huge warehouses to hold the stock C) they spend a lot of money on website analytics, programming, advertising etc to ensure they are found by potential customers. So they too have overheads. But don't forget... they also have rates to pay, staff to pay, insurances, drivers, offices, phones, storage etc.

In my case, and for a lot of people right now, online prices are significantly cheaper where large companies have stock of tyres purchased at prices before the recent price increase. Once these stocks go, the prices will even out again.
 
Zip code
I understand your points totally
I may of been a bit harsh first time round I always shop about there's no harm in that
We have a fairly large wheel and tyre shop near me and they always try there hardest to price match or be very close I've used them for 20 years
Sometimes they buy from abroad to get better rates if you can wait 48 hours just like most other online retailers
 
Thanks all. Always looking to support a local business, but in this case they can‘t get close to the price.

Yep, was quoted £10 a tyre and they were happy to do it.

99% certain the alloys and tyres above are correct but would appreciate a couple of confirmations!

Thanks.
 
Tyres are a good size and load rated high so suitable for any van including T32
Wheels are ET40 which fine for 8" width and is only a few mm off standard VW sizes only thing I don't see is load rating for the wheels, your van is only a T28 so it doesn't need to be really high but worth double checking
 
Offset et40 is ok and these will sit 10mm further out than your wheels fitted now I believe
Most people try and fit a 8.5 or 9j wheel so the wheel gets pushed out that bit more 8.5j16 mm 9j 22mm
Depends what look you are trying to achieve
 
Thanks all. I thought I understood what was what but slightly confused again!

Load rating says 860kg per Alloy, thus 3440kg in total. So by offset I presume simply deduct weight of van @ 2,800kg, thus I have enough to spare...

Re offset et40, didn‘t even know about that! I just assumed it was a like for replacement, sitting 10mm further out is fine as not really noticeable. Thinking about it you do see vans where the wheels seem very wide out so that explains it, but not really fussed about that!

Still learning it seems!
 
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