Fun with Falkens!

N

normski

Member
 North West
Had a right mare this Saturday.

Had the Zed booked in for new tyres to be fitted (sourced Falken 452s from Camskill - £350 delivered).

Had the tyres delivered to the garage during the week. Had agreed to use them as they would be doing a Hunter 4 wheel check (and any tweaks) while doing the tyres.

Dropped the car off... Get a call, 2 hours later - "Sorry, we can't get the Potenza RFTs off"

which is a piss take, as they assured me they fit/remove RFTs all the time. Muppets! they still did the alignment.

So frantically ringing round trying to find another garage who could. And from the 10 I rang, about 4 of them refused, and the others weren't sure that couldn't wreck the 108s in the process. Plus it was 1pm on a saturday, so everyone was shutting up.

Finally found a guy 20 miles+ away from the garage who says he could do it. phew.

I then realised i would have to get the tyres over there! Any way, i managed it:

tyre-balancing.jpg


One rear in the boot, 2 fronts side-by-side on the passenger seat. and the other rear resting on them, and hooked over the roll bar!

Just glad i didn't get stopped, as i had to jump on the motorway for a few junctions.

so finally got them fitted. I've never seen 2 guys work so hard. It took both of them (working together) about an hour to get the potenzas off!

Car drives much better, and now in a straight line! :driving:

just got a few more grey hairs! :thumbsdown:
 
Oh yeah, and can anyone with 452s recommend tyre pressures?

I'm guessing they are different from the standard BMW pressures - as they're for RFTs

cheers
 
Sounds like a nightmare :(
i'm really hoping I dont have this in a week when I get my new non-rfts...

Anyone know of a decent tyre place that can handle runflats in or around Nottingham?
 
Had the same problem with my original RFTs on 108's but some careful work by the ATS fitter got them off with no damage.
 
Wow what a chew on that sounded,just recently fitted 452's, and the garage had the RFT's removed and the 452's fitted all within 45 mins.
Regarding the pressures i've no problems running them at the same pressure as the RFT's.
 
I took four new CSLs and four new Vreds to be fitted at my local ATS and left them to it. An hour later they called me to tell me there was no way they could get the tyres to fit the wheels as they were wildly the wrong size. As I drove back feeling a complete pillock, I wondered firstly how I'd made such an error, and secondly what I could do to recuperate some of the cash I'd wasted...

Thankfully after I'd gently explained that the rear tyres were intended for the rear wheels, not the fronts, the job took them only 45 minutes :D
 
BMWZ4MC said:
I took four new CSLs and four new Vreds to be fitted at my local ATS and left them to it. An hour later they called me to tell me there was no way they could get the tyres to fit the wheels as they were wildly the wrong size. As I drove back feeling a complete pillock, I wondered firstly how I'd made such an error, and secondly what I could do to recuperate some of the cash I'd wasted...

Thankfully after I'd gently explained that the rear tyres were intended for the rear wheels, not the fronts, the job took them only 45 minutes :D
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HAHA! thats both brilliant and worrying
 
They said to me that most other tyre fitters would have forced them on the rims, but they didn't want to risk damaging the wheels since they were brand new! It rather implies they would have just cracked on with a larger tyre iron if they'd been second hand wheels.
It's a worrying reflection of my expectation of universal incompetence that I almost felt obliged to them for calling me!
 
BMWZ4MC said:
They said to me that most other tyre fitters would have forced them on the rims, but they didn't want to risk damaging the wheels since they were brand new! It rather implies they would have just cracked on with a larger tyre iron if they'd been second hand wheels.
It's a worrying reflection of my expectation of universal incompetence that I almost felt obliged to them for calling me!
Click to expand...


i think you're down right lucky that they DID call if that's their attitude....
But I'm glad you shared, as I shall be avoiding ATS now i think :)
 
The trouble is that all such places are entirely dependent on who you get on the day. When I was a poor student KwikFit left the bolts loose on both my front wheels, thankfully I stopped to investigate the awful noise before disaster struck!
 
BMWZ4MC said:
The trouble is that all such places are entirely dependent on who you get on the day. When I was a poor student KwikFit left the bolts loose on both my front wheels, thankfully I stopped to investigate the awful noise before disaster struck!
Click to expand...
...... cant I just buy some spray-on rubber to replace my tread? these posts are worrying me lol
 
I must've been lucky, but the bloke I used (and had used before) removed the RFTs from my 18s with no trouble at all - he's a mobile tyre fitter and did all this work in the back of his van too. But then he says he's got around 25 years experience of tyre fitting and mostly works on commercial vehicles (mainly HGVs) so I suppose he has to be good at what he does...

I've also only used Kwikfit once in about 10 years and they were great, job done quickly for a 20 quid in the back pocket :thumbsup:
 
Never heard of a garage that can't remove tyres :thumbsdown:

Pressure wise I'd go with 32 rear and 30 front and take it from there. There are some threads on it from various Falken runners and their experiences.
 
Should've added I started off with 30/32psi front/rear, tried 31/33 front/rear, but settled on 30.5/32.5 front/rear for the moment. ..
 
sk93 said:
BMWZ4MC said:
They said to me that most other tyre fitters would have forced them on the rims, but they didn't want to risk damaging the wheels since they were brand new! It rather implies they would have just cracked on with a larger tyre iron if they'd been second hand wheels.
It's a worrying reflection of my expectation of universal incompetence that I almost felt obliged to them for calling me!
Click to expand...


i think you're down right lucky that they DID call if that's their attitude....
But I'm glad you shared, as I shall be avoiding ATS now i think :)
Click to expand...

Don't be so silly - just because one fitter at one ATS garage causes a problem do you then condemn the whole network. On this Forum loads of issues have been identified with the Zed - broken springs, VANOS etc so on the basis of your decision about ATS I take it you will never be buying a BMW again.... :poke:
 
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