Im getting new tires on my car and my friend who has a S2000 with low profile tires just got his done and i noticed like a ton of scratches on his rims. When i asked what happened he said that its hard to install low profile tires and thats when they scratched them but the company (just tires) isnt goig to replace them. Is this true? Does scratching normally occur with low profile tires and what can i do to avoid this? thanks ania

Opps sorry should have written in the sub category ..

 

My friend has very low profile tires on his Celica GTS and several places around here wouldn't even touch them saying they would damage his rims... From what I recall, the mounting wasn't the problem. It was the balancing... Good luck. If you find a good place let us know.

 

Go here (http://209.176.154.132/index.cfm) which is the Hunter Road Force web site. Their site has a locater page, which will help find the closest shop that has one. Any shop who has one of these machines can balance low profile tires (it won't be cheep.) I just had mine done (removed the OEM Michelin's and put on Pirelli Nero Zero's. Paid $140 for mounting and balancing. My 05 TL rides nice and smooth, and the wheels have no scratches. Very happy with the job.

 

I did the search and it came up with the just tires that scratched my friends tires

 

I would call around to various tire shops in the area. I did that when I got rims/tires, and several places told me that they did not want to take the responsibility of possibly damaging the tires. I finally found a place that has a special mounting machine of some sort that is able to mount the tires without anything coming in contact with the face of the rim. It takes places a little longer to do this, and some are just to lazy to invest the time/$$.

 

The local Firestone did my rims without a problem in April 2004. I took it to another Firestone a few months ago and they were able to work on my tires too. It's harder to do, but you can definitely do it without damaging the rims, especially if the mechanic uses the proper precautions (covers the tire iron with a cloth as he pries, etc).

 

If you do a search (on road force's web site) and only go to car dealer's or shops that sell high or work on high end cars like Vette's, BMW, ect. I can't believe you won't find a good place near you, that will do the tires with out damaging them. They do them all the time for customers that buy new cars, but don't like the tires and wheels that come standard with their new car. If not go back to an Acura dealer, I would assume your new car is an Acura? What ever you do I don't think it will be cheap. I would guess a mount and balance at a good shop (no scratches, chips or dents that run smooth) will run $25 to $40 a tire, low profile tires and wheels are hard to do. When I brought my new tires and wheels in I talked to the guy that was going to do the work and showed him that the wheels and tires were new and that would expect that he could do the job with out chiping or scratching them. He said not to worry, there would not be a mark on them when the job was done and that I would be very happy with the work. He was right.