Time for an update.
I was let down getting the spare set of wheels I needed, but a BMWLand member (who ironically worked in the next street!) offered to lend me a set of MV2 BMW Replicas. They were 225/40/18 8J wide all around so not the same as the staggered setup I ran but anyway, still would be helpful.
I collected the wheels, drove to my friends garage and he swapped the wheels over.
Old MV2 wheels fitted:
We went for a drive and unfortunetly it was wet and the tyres (which were virtually brand new) on the replica MV2 just would not grip at all. They just couldn't handle the torque of the car and even at 30mph a gentle prod of the accelerator and they would spin up!
After taking the Stigs "brave pills" we hit the motorway and gently increased speed - we had no confidence in the car and were scared to go past 70mph, but we pushed it to 70mph+ and the car was even worse then before!
When we got back to the garage we actaully parked outside and my friend/mechanic decided to see if he could see anything obvious with the car. As soon as he got out he noticed something and then asked me to see if I noticed it too.
I did!! :o :o
The top of the passenger side rear wheel looked alot more "in" compared to the drivers side - like it had alot more camber! We got a few people to check and all agreed. One wheel was angled more "in" then the other!!
After a measure, the gaps between the tyre sidewall and the inside of the wheel arch at each side were:
Drivers - 45mm
Passeger - 49mm !!!
I have tried to explain what I mean with pictures but its not that easy to do. The difference is much more blatent in reality.
The fact that I had wide 9" rims with 255 tyres with a big rim protector on the car before made this extremely hard to spot before because they virtually filled the arches! The thin 8" wheels with a virtually non existant rim protector made it much easier to spot this difference!
Now obviously the report report looked OK so I will be going back to the Geometry Centre and having a word! Something has seriously gone wrong! :o
I will be on the phone on Monday to get the car back in. Now if the car goes back on the Hunter Geometry machine and it says the rear wheels are correct then I'm sorry but I think the machine needs calibrating or something???
So glad to have the Goodyears back on, the tyres on the MV2 rims were "fullrun"?? and scary in the wet!