Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham, MA is the bomb for tire fitting and balancing
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 254
Likes: 0
E55
Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham, MA is the bomb for tire fitting and balancing
OMFG... For all you guys in the Boston area, if you buy new tires from Tirerack, have them drop shipped to Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham and have them fit and balance them - no ifs, ands or buts....
I just went there this morning to get my new PS2s fitted to replace those crap Contis.....
The place is a 33 year old garage with a ton of car afficionados, and the foreman (Lindy) personally did my tires. And let me tell you, this is one incredibly knowledgeable guy who paid incredible attention to the process. Where to start....
When I called Luke at Tirerack, he told me they had the same equipment that Tirerack uses inhouse for fitting and balancing, and when I got there, I saw what he meant. Firstly, the remove the old tire and then put the rim on the balancing machine without the tire to check for bent rims (a real problem in New England due to pot holes). Lo and behold, 3 of my rims were bent!! So Lindy set about fixing them (all were not too bad and could be fixed). He offerred for me NOT to watch the process, because this was the low tech piece of the whole process, but as it turns out, incredibly effective. As he spun the rims on the balancing machine, he used a piece of chalk to mark the bent section. He did this spinning the wheel backward and forward, and at the intersection of the chalk marks is the worst piece of the bend. So he puts the wheel face down on a piece of mattress foam covered in a blanket, stands on the backside of the wheel and takes a damn huge sledgehammer to the inside of the rim! He says most people freak out when they see it, but he's been doing it for so many years and has developed a good technique. I couldn't believe it when he put the wheels back on the machine and they spun almost perfectly round! He says this is even better than when people do it by using a wedge with a narrow head one side and a wide head the other side, as that still puts some pressure on the side of the rim that isn't bent.
The best was yet to come.... He then fits the tire and airs it, back onto the balancing machine which does a ton of test including a roller to put full road load on it, and it separately measures the low and high points of the rim and tire, and then it helps him mark with chalk the low point of the rim and high point off the tire. Back on the fitting machine, air out, then the fitting machine grabs the tire and rotates the rim inside the tire till the chalk marks line up and he releases the pedal. So this is setting it up to offset the high point of the tire with the low point of the rim. This is such a cool idea - to make the total package as round as possible even if both the rim and tire are a little out of round each. Air back in the tire then onto the balancing machine for the final balance.
So even though they charged $32 per tire for fitting and balancing, I found out why it is really important not to compare this with a $20 fitting and balancing charge and consider it expensive, because even leaving aside the rim straightening which I paid separately for, he's still doing nearly twice the work given it goes on and off the balancing machine and fitting machine several times. I paid another $5 per tire to cover the valve stem and disposal of my old tires.
For the rim straightening, I paid $75 a piece. And then finally he slung it on the alignment rig and took out a 1/16" toe in. He told me that a 1/8" toe in is the same as dragging the tire sidewards 50' over the course of driving a mile!! That sounds pretty rough from a scrubbing perspective, and I'm sure the math is right.
So all in all I paid $450, but I got three rims straightened, this high caliber fitting and balancing with valve stems and disposal and a wheel alignment.
He spent a full three hours on the process, although he was such a friendly guy and I hung with him pretty much the whole time as he explained all the intricacies of what he was doing and why, that without me there he probably would have done it in about 2.5 hours, but these guys are so passionate about what they do I could see this was his preferred way of working.
When you need tire fitting and balancing in the Boston area, go straight to Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham - do not pass GO and do not collect $200!
Maybe this whole process is not new to a lot of you, but if you've read my other post on tire selection earlier this week you'll know that over the last 5 years or so, I've basically managed to trade my cars over enough that I haven't had to have new tires fitted, so the last time I had this done they still did the basic fit and balance by some pimply apprentice.
I can't speak highly enough of these guys or of Luke at Tirerack for recommending them. BTW, given Tirerack uses the same equipment, I guess they use the same process when they prepare a rim/tire combo for a new buyer. Very cool.....
I just went there this morning to get my new PS2s fitted to replace those crap Contis.....
The place is a 33 year old garage with a ton of car afficionados, and the foreman (Lindy) personally did my tires. And let me tell you, this is one incredibly knowledgeable guy who paid incredible attention to the process. Where to start....
When I called Luke at Tirerack, he told me they had the same equipment that Tirerack uses inhouse for fitting and balancing, and when I got there, I saw what he meant. Firstly, the remove the old tire and then put the rim on the balancing machine without the tire to check for bent rims (a real problem in New England due to pot holes). Lo and behold, 3 of my rims were bent!! So Lindy set about fixing them (all were not too bad and could be fixed). He offerred for me NOT to watch the process, because this was the low tech piece of the whole process, but as it turns out, incredibly effective. As he spun the rims on the balancing machine, he used a piece of chalk to mark the bent section. He did this spinning the wheel backward and forward, and at the intersection of the chalk marks is the worst piece of the bend. So he puts the wheel face down on a piece of mattress foam covered in a blanket, stands on the backside of the wheel and takes a damn huge sledgehammer to the inside of the rim! He says most people freak out when they see it, but he's been doing it for so many years and has developed a good technique. I couldn't believe it when he put the wheels back on the machine and they spun almost perfectly round! He says this is even better than when people do it by using a wedge with a narrow head one side and a wide head the other side, as that still puts some pressure on the side of the rim that isn't bent.
The best was yet to come.... He then fits the tire and airs it, back onto the balancing machine which does a ton of test including a roller to put full road load on it, and it separately measures the low and high points of the rim and tire, and then it helps him mark with chalk the low point of the rim and high point off the tire. Back on the fitting machine, air out, then the fitting machine grabs the tire and rotates the rim inside the tire till the chalk marks line up and he releases the pedal. So this is setting it up to offset the high point of the tire with the low point of the rim. This is such a cool idea - to make the total package as round as possible even if both the rim and tire are a little out of round each. Air back in the tire then onto the balancing machine for the final balance.
So even though they charged $32 per tire for fitting and balancing, I found out why it is really important not to compare this with a $20 fitting and balancing charge and consider it expensive, because even leaving aside the rim straightening which I paid separately for, he's still doing nearly twice the work given it goes on and off the balancing machine and fitting machine several times. I paid another $5 per tire to cover the valve stem and disposal of my old tires.
For the rim straightening, I paid $75 a piece. And then finally he slung it on the alignment rig and took out a 1/16" toe in. He told me that a 1/8" toe in is the same as dragging the tire sidewards 50' over the course of driving a mile!! That sounds pretty rough from a scrubbing perspective, and I'm sure the math is right.
So all in all I paid $450, but I got three rims straightened, this high caliber fitting and balancing with valve stems and disposal and a wheel alignment.
He spent a full three hours on the process, although he was such a friendly guy and I hung with him pretty much the whole time as he explained all the intricacies of what he was doing and why, that without me there he probably would have done it in about 2.5 hours, but these guys are so passionate about what they do I could see this was his preferred way of working.
When you need tire fitting and balancing in the Boston area, go straight to Little Foreign Car Garage in Waltham - do not pass GO and do not collect $200!
Maybe this whole process is not new to a lot of you, but if you've read my other post on tire selection earlier this week you'll know that over the last 5 years or so, I've basically managed to trade my cars over enough that I haven't had to have new tires fitted, so the last time I had this done they still did the basic fit and balance by some pimply apprentice.
I can't speak highly enough of these guys or of Luke at Tirerack for recommending them. BTW, given Tirerack uses the same equipment, I guess they use the same process when they prepare a rim/tire combo for a new buyer. Very cool.....
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,006
Likes: 0
From: Long Island
'07 Porsche 997TT
I've been looking for a good tire shop in the NY area. I also buy from Luke but mostly what I have is Goodyear shops and the like. If anyone knows of a good shop in the NY area let me know. Or may be a good excuse for a road trip to Beantown!
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 254
Likes: 0
E55
Originally Posted by cte430
I've been looking for a good tire shop in the NY area. I also buy from Luke but mostly what I have is Goodyear shops and the like. If anyone knows of a good shop in the NY area let me know. Or may be a good excuse for a road trip to Beantown!
