Sunday 26 February 2012

Wheels and tyres are on!

The long Winter-wait is at an end; the Helios are finally on.


Tyres were sourced from Camskill - great value for money on brand-name tyres, good stock availability and cheap, quick delivery makes these my first choice every time for buying tyres.

Money saved here has meant we can jump up a level, quality-wise; spec'ing a set of four Falken FK452 in 235/35/19 to perfectly match the 19x8.5 wheels without any impractical stretch of the previously fitted wheels. These also have little effect on the speedo being within 2% of the same rolling diameter as the stock 15" steels.

But who to fit them? Our local tyre-fitting shop don't seem to like us walking in with our tyres - there's no money to be made for them - so after some inquiries and a word-of-mouth recommendation, we got in touch with Stuart at Unique Tyres.

Stuart turned up in his kitted-out Merc Sprinter, fitted a brand new head to his fitting machine and had the four wheels built-up and balanced in no time. For the total sum of £60, a cup of tea and plenty of v-dub chat, the wheels were then checked and mounted in a matter of minutes.


Visually, the front needs to come back down a bit - maybe the back a touch too. It's also apparent that the rear wheels are pulling forwards in the arch; common for modern lowered Volkswagens with a beam rear-end. Hopefully a quick trip to see JC at JC Motors should rectify these.


I'm absolutely over-the-moon with the way the Helios wheels have transformed the look of the Caddy. They keep that whole 'factory' OEM look - and the rarity-factor of not seeing many sets about appeals in a world of endless BBS replicas and cheap Supermarket alloys.
In particular, I like the way the centre-cap matches the centre of the steering wheel - the way VW would have done it if they were building a Caddy without budget constraints:


So there we have it; just a few more lows and a tweak of the stance and we're almost there! Time to turn my focus back to the interior...

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