Friday 23 April 2010

New wheels have arrived

One of the joys of the VX220 is the bizarre wheel/tyre fitment at the front. Vauxhall, in their infinite wisdom, decided to fit 175/55 tyres on a 17" rim. This is a unique tyre size and therefore only Bridgestone RE040 tyres are available (at the princely sum of around £140 +fitting). To make matters worse, the hubs are a Vauxhall 5-bolt fitment meaning that Lotus wheels cannot be utilised.

Even other Vauxhall wheels are no use due to the clearance needed for the AP Racing caliper. So, in summary, there are no cheap ways to get decent tyres on a VX220.

The only viable option is to buy a set of bespoke wheels and fortunately, there are a few available - Compomotive did a short run, Speedline produced a small number for the VXR220 and Team Dynamics produce a set of their Pro Race 1.2 in a specially developed fitment.

I opted for the Team Dynamics from Thorney Motorsport at the reasonable price of £499 inc delivery. Thumbs up to Thorney, they were ordered on Sunday night and arrived on Tuesday morning in my first choice colour of gloss black.

They come in a 16" x 7" size for the front and 17" x 7.5" at the rear and are much lighter than the turbo alloys I've currently got fitted.

For tyres, I'm still undecided. I'm either going to splash out on Kuhmo V70a in 205/40 16 front and 235/40 17 rear or go with much cheaper Hankook RS2s in 205/40 16 front and 225/45 17 rear.

I won't have them in time for Ingliston next weekend but I should be good to go for Kames at the end of May.

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