[Three_thirty_I]

Hi guys,

Okay, finally fitted! Cleaned them as best I could, but going to need a bit more of an intensive clean to remove the neglected brake dust and muck inside the wheels. Apart from the one that was refurbished they all seem to be in fair condition, just not well looked after in terms of being regularly cleaned, so some brake dust that has embedded itself into the finish. Just need to quickly check the tyre pressures and go for a drive! Will then be able to say how the tyres feel. But I think they'll need to be replaced fairly soon due to their wear and the fact that the left and right fronts are at different wear levels.

But here we go, 335i 17" narrow/wides - offset on the rear makes the car look a bit more agro. Still keen to eventually get the 18" Ellipsoids, but for the moment these are perfect, and in fact very hard to find! From the agents you get them new for only R23k!








Just as well I checked the tyre pressures! The left front which is the one that needed to be refurbished was pumped up to something like 4.5 bar!!! All the others were sitting around 2 bar, so adjusted them to the correct pressures and initialised the pressure monitor.

Absolutely pleasantly surprised with how the car feels with these used tyres! Was expecting a slight pull or vibration or noise, but instead it runs smooth and true, and better than those freaking horrible Continentals! Took the car along Wellington Road in Durbanville which is fairly rutted and as such my car would usually tramline - seemed to be immune to this with the Bridgestones! Then went down Durban Road also fine on a decently smooth piece of road, then onto the N1. Took it up to 140 km/h and perfectly smooth the whole time and absolutely stable! The Continentals weren't too bad on a good piece of freeway, but since they were balanced the last time and rotated, there has been a minor vibration and on harder acceleration at freeway speeds it almost felt like there was a slight shudder (ever so slight, but noticeable and of course disconcerting).

So I reckon for now these tyres are perfectly fine, just don't like the difference in wear that the front tyres have, also the left front which is the more worn of the two seems to have a slightly rounded contact patch, almost as if it was not pumped up to the correct pressure and a bit too soft. All the tyres have a fair degree of shoulder feathering, and I can see that the 335i that it came off of was DRIVEN, some of the rubber on the front tyres has some tell-tail signs of sharp high speed cornering!

I must say, now with this experience, it's those damn Continentals that's been the curse of my tramlining problems!