Photo Essay - Driving 948Km Just To Buy Some Wheel

[PhilMeUp]

The Stats:

Initial phone call: 6:35pm

Filled up with petrol near home: 7:15pm

Arrived at seller's house: 11:41pm

Distance driven so far: 483km

Time spent at seller's house: 13 minutes

Time arrived home: 5:53am

Total distance driven: 948km

I've been trying to find Brembo-compatible wheels for about two months now. They have to be 18" (instead of the more common 19”). Why?

- to keep it legal - wheels can't be more than 2 inches bigger than the original ones (16”).

- I want as much tyre profile as possible for sharp bumps.

- costs - 18" tyres are cheaper than 19" tyres.

They also had to be a simple, five spoke design to make it easy to keep them clean. This made it tricky because the trend in wheel design at the moment is away from five spokes and toward more complex (and hard to clean) designs.

After heaps of internet research I had eventually figured out that BA XR8 18" rims were the way to go. But trying to find some in undamaged condition was impossible. I even bought a couple of sets that were badly scratched for use as spares.

I finally realised that I wasn't going to find undamaged XR8 rims so explored getting some scratched ones repaired. I even spent a day and a bit taking the wheels to each of the wheel repair places in Perth. All said that they weren't really fixable and I would have to settle for painting them instead. Nup, didn't want painted. I wanted a glossy, shiny look.

I even got one repaired at a cost of $150 to see if it would look how I wanted. Nup, failed once again. It didn't look too bad, but still wasn't what I was seeking.

Bloody hell. Surely it can't be that hard just to find a set of wheels that fits over Brembo callipers and is easy to clean?

It got to the point where I was checking Gumtree and eBay every day. Sometimes several times a day. Obsessive doesn't even begin to cover it. My taxi was due for new tyres, wet weather was on the way and I had spent over $3,000 on brake parts that I couldn't use yet. Massive levels of frustration.

I did see an advert on Gumtree that stuck in my mind. It was a simple advert, with just one photo of a wheel and text that said, "Set of 4 Low Profile Bridgestone Potenza Race tyres on ROH rims. Suitable for FPV GT with 6 Pot brakes." Not a whole lot of detail to go on but enough to make me not forget it.

Finally, after a couple of emails and finally getting more than one photo of the wheels, I made the phone call. These wheels were in Geraldton, which is over 400km away, so it wasn't just a matter of dropping by for a quick look.

The seller, Steele, answered the phone and I got straight to haggling. He was possibly coming to Perth in a couple of weeks but was reluctant to bring the wheels because it would mean towing a trailer and paying extra fuel costs. I made a blunt cash offer, including picking them up that night. He accepted, and agreed to wait up past his usual 9pm bedtime for me.

Damn. I had just dug myself into quite a hole. It turned out that he lives a bit past Geraldton, about 450km away. A rather long drive to just spontaneously do.

But, I needed wheels desperately. After some initial indecision about whether to drive the taxi (ie cheaper on LPG but had to be back by 6am) or my girlfriend's ute (currently not insured), I decided to use the ute After some stuffing around and frantic thinking about what to take I got moving.

I drove straight there. I made one stop along the way, which consisted of running into a service station and getting an energy drink and hamburger. Not overwhelmingly healthy stuff but it would keep me going. I was back in the ute in about one minute. This was racing pit-stop stuff.

Not far from Geraldton there was a detour, which added 17km to the trip. I later found out that there had been a fatal crash on the highway earlier in the day and that section of road was closed until it was all cleaned up.

My TomTom GPS led me to exactly the right house. By now my bladder had been quite the attention seeker for the last hour or two but I wanted to get these wheels.

Steele came out the front and showed me the wheels, which were now on his back lawn. Cash was passed over and wheels were loaded into the back of the ute. It was that simple. I got a receipt and it was clear that Steele was way past bedtime so I headed off. I was there for an entire 13 minutes.

I took it easy on the way home. The pressure was off now. I had the wheels and there was no-one waiting up for me. I had a look around the Geraldton townsite and headed back toward home.

The drive home was at a much more relaxed pace and took me considerably longer than the trip there. I didn't have to take the detour past the scene of the fatal crash and got to see where it happened. It's one thing to read about fatal crashes but it's a much more surreal feeling to drive past the exact location where someone died hours earlier. The skid marks and painted markings on the road made it clear that someone died rather suddenly.

I finally got home and parked in my front yard at 5:53am. Ten hours and 38 minutes after I initially started.

There was no stopping yet. I didn't even have time to have a good look at the wheels in Geraldton so now it was time to unload and start cleaning them. By now I was extremely keen to see how they would look so got very busy with wheel cleaner, degreaser and cleaning brushes. One wheel has a gouge on one of the spokes that I didn't know about earlier but I can live with that.

They cleaned up reasonably well but the chrome will need a proper polishing. Darn, I was hoping to get tyres fitted and have the whole lot running on the taxi by afternoon. Oh well, at least it's starting to come together.

Surprisingly, the whole trip wasn't all that hard. I've done heaps of country driving over the years but I've found it extremely hard to maintain concentration for the last couple of years because I've become so used to city driving, where there are always things to analyse and be aware of. But this drive was a breeze. It's now exactly two hours after I got back and I'm still very much awake. Going to have to focus on winding down and getting to sleep soon.

The sun is up now and I need to go to bed. Today is a good day. I have wheels.

The hunter returns with his prey:

Cleaning time:

Dammit, too wet to put in my bedroom. It was tempting to dry them with the petrol powered weed blower but I figured that 6:30am might be a tad early for that:

They'll be going on this ASAP:

BA XR8 18" rims all over the place. It's like an orphanage for XR8 rims around here:

Front porch. Yeah, the rims came with near-new street legal racing slicks. I won't be using the slicks on the taxi:

Back tyre on the taxi. Needs replacing ASAP, hence the urgency:

Bridgestone Potenza RE55S street legal racing slicks. They'll be removed and re-sold:

They look like forklift tyres:

Just when it's time to wind down and go to bed for the day, builders turn up for the house that's being built across the road. Lots of noise. Lovely:

[FPV6T]

fark me your keen!!! all for a taxi!! I thought you were talking about an xr6t rather than a "real" taxi..lol. btw the wheels look pretty good. Edited 23/06/11 06:09 AM by fpv6t

[Ralph Wiggum]

Phil where abouts in Perth are you?

[Panda Eyes]

thought they were new camaro wheels in the first picture......

[PhilMeUp]

fark me your keen!!! all for a taxi!! I thought you were talking about an xr6t rather than a "real" taxi..lol. btw the wheels look pretty good.

Yep, full Brembo system, on a taxi. I'm gonna be peeling passengers off the windscreen with a paint scraper. You know how those WWII jeeps had the windscreen that folds down forward? I need that for my taxi now - if I want to eject someone from the taxi then all I would have to do is jump on the brakes and watch the offending passenger fly right past me.

Phil where abouts in Perth are you?

South Perth. If you're interested in some racing slicks or XR8 rims them gimme a call on 0418 922 500.

[Tocchi]

Phil please check SMS's or would you prefer a call?

Edited 23/06/11 08:27 AM by Tocchi

[RowdyBurns]

Correct me if I missed something, but out of curiosity why are you fitting Brembo's to a taxi?

[PhilMeUp]

Correct me if I missed something, but out of curiosity why are you fitting Brembo's to a taxi?

- in a normal week, the car does around 4,000km, 2,500km of which is done by me. I spend a lot of hours each week driving that thing.

- I do a lot of stop/start/stop/start stuff and the brakes and fluid get very hot. I've cooked them very well several times. Brembo stuff will handle the heat much better and will require less brake fluid flushes (ie less heat corruption of the fluid).

- the Brembo stuff is a long term investment. I'll most likely be driving BF MkII Falcons for another five to six years, and the kit will get transferred from car to car. Additionally, if I switch to Late model camira some day (ie no more Falcon wagons) then hopefully I'll be able to get mounting brackets and keep using the Brembo calipers. It's possible that I'll be using the calipers in 20 years time, on the umpteenth car (that's what I'm hoping for).

- safety for myself (crash injury prevention). I regularly have to brake suddenly for foxes/rabbits/cats/dogs/drunk dickheads. If I hit one it's gonna cost me a lot of money.

- crashing a taxi is incredibly expensive. The excess on the insurance policy is $2,000. Plus loss of income for both myself and my day driver. I've done a heap of homework to decide on what braking system and tyres will give me the best braking ability to avoid crashes.

- I want the best possible performance from the vehicle. It's not about engine power (ie I need low running costs and good reliability), but I want/need good suspension, steering, ergonomics (ie Recaro seats going in soon), brakes, etc. These things make the car better to drive and less fatiguing.

- coz I felt like it. I was gonna go with a 322mm XR6 Turbo front setup and 328mm Territory rear setup, but the Brembo is the ultimate. My taxi will have the best braking system of any taxi in Australia.

My car for personal use is a 2000 Alfa Romeo 156. I bought the thing in August, 10 months ago. I've driven it 2,000km that time - it's not worth throwing cash at a vehicle that only gets occasional use. I'm better off investing in something that I'm going to use on a daily basis.

[XF Falcon]

awesome man, might have to start calling you when I need a taxi instead of calling the usual swan taxi :D

[PhilMeUp]

Photos:

Will get a better photo over the next few days. Will figure what centre caps to use next week.

On another note... 12:14pm. I'm finally winding down and getting sleepy. Good, need to get to sleep. Then tree loppers turned up to remove a tree that was meant to be taken about two months ago. Lovely. Just lovely. You couldn't even make this stuff up.

Got to sleep about 1:30pm. Woke up at 4:00pm, calling the alarm clock a lovely array of names. Got to tyre shop at about 4:30pm and collected wheels and tyres. Had a go at polishing up the rims and put them on the car at 7:00pm, pretty much exactly 24 hours after I started this lovely little adventure.

Taxi is now 100% legal and will handle superbly in the wet with the tyres I've chosen. HUGE amounts of relief.