New shoes for my car ~

Just a sudden cut in line on the mods I've done to my car ~ This wasn't planned, but thankfully it turned out pretty well :p

Anyways, a week or so back, I was heading to Sunway Pyramid to meet up with a friend when it happened.... I experienced what most people would go through at one point of their driving life (especially in KL because of our "oh so good" road conditions.. ); I had a flat.... ARGGHHH!!!

Lucky for me, it was just metres away from a petrol station, just opposite Taman Bukit Jalil. I thought shouldn't do any harm driving a view metres to the petrol station ~ at least safer than stopping on the roadside of the very busy Puchong bypass.... =.=

Checked my tyre, found it wasn't really because of a nail (although there was one in it), rather, the sidewall erupted.. Which, unfortunately, is irrepairable... So , I changed to the spare tyre drove my car to my friend's place, then we went out for drinks (tea, not alcohol...).

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Nxt day, I took my car to a tyre shop in USJ, called QuickSave.

The tyre shop

The staff were rather friendly and approachable ~ told them I had a flat, they went on to check my retarded tyre. They found the sidewall crack, and told me no repair could be done... so, since my tyres were already getting bald, I decided to get a full set of new ones. I initially selected the "Falken Ziex XE-912s", as my friend gave quite good comments on it. I wanted to go for the "Goodyear Eagle F1" tyres, because I heard rather good comments on it (thus, a bit pricey...). It's good especially on wet road surfaces, which is important, especially driving in heavy rains. But, unfortunately, it didn't come in the form of 14 inches, which my rims were sized at...

My car on the "operation table"

So, I opted for the Falken's. Then, while removing the tyres, they found the rim was damaged... they said they could repair, so fine... then while removing the others, they also found it damaged!! 3 out of 4 of the rims were damaged!! NOOOO !!!! So, they gave me a choice, to either repair all 3 rims, or change to a new set.. seeing the price of the repair was already quite hefty, they convinced me to get a new set. I wouldn't actually say the set I opted for were new... they were actually taken from another car, i.e. stock rims from another car; it was from a Suzuki Swift. I do not know which batch of the Swift it came from, but nevertheless, I was quite reluctant initially, because I had the initial plan of changing the rims by end of this year... unfortunately, this had to happen now... sigh.....

Out with the old, in with the new

But thanks to some convincing, I finally decided to go for it.. (budget didn't allow for brand new ones....) And thus, got my car a new set of rims, and a new set of tyres.

My car with the new shoes

Since I was getting a new set of tyres and rims, thought of getting a set of new lug nuts, and a safety nut as well, to keep my tyres from ever being stolen. So, all in all, it cost a bomb... but I'm very satisfied with the new tyres and size :p

Ohhh, and the new rims are actually bigger than my previous; it's now running on 15inches, hehehe :D So I could opt for the Goodyear tyres, yay !! =D

Alignment being done

After driving it for a couple of days, I found that the larger rims do actually affect the performance of the car... it became rather sluggish... Don't know whether it's because of the weight of the rims, or because of the larger sized rims and tyres, or effectively... both =.=" But with the sacrifice of performance, I'm happy with the comfort level with the new tyres! My car's now drives really smooth~ me likey!! But I have to put up with terrible lack of power once again when it comes to ascending hilly roads.... sigh......

My car and the new shoes, the final product

Lastly, I would like to complain on something though. When I drove out of the shop, they actually over-inflated my new tyres... it was suppose to be at 30psi, when they filled it up to 40psi!! They blamed the measuring gauge, but as a tyre shop, specifically experts on tyres, I don't see how they could make a mistake like this! Anyways, had to drive all the way back to the shop at the end of the day to find that out... sigh.... I hope my car's suspensions were not damaged thanks to that mistake of theirs...

Hopefully, my tyres would last for a long time ~ since I'm not really a hard-driven driver anyways :p But so far, I have to say, it really brings more confidence, since the threads are new, and when driving along during a rainy day once so far, it felt like no difference between wet and dry condition, which was really cool ! :p

So that's how my car got a new set of shoes =D Hopefully, the next thing would be a new breathing apparatus for my car ~ heh heh heh ~

P/S: A good friend has suggested me to actually change the Suzuki emblem to something more appropriate for a Wira. I think it would be a good idea as well, but, due to some personal feelings, I decided to stick with the Suzuki emblem ~ Anyways, it's "super" to see it there, ehehehehe :p (get it? "S" super ? haha, lame joke...)