Tyre Stretch - Impact On Performance?

[n1k_ns]

if you got called barry for your tints, my mini must have been barryoffagus:

You can see my front windows were about as dark as the roof! .....oh to be 20 again

[Matt_330CI]

Window tinting is fine and in some cases is factory any way.

What is barry is tinting the front windows so dark you cant see out of them and are breaking the law.

[simonlpearce]

Commenting doesn't mean I want to get involved in a debate, and I fully standby my statement of knowledgable members being few and far between.

99% of replies are 'Go to indy, get codes read, blah blah blah' - whilst I know this is what is best to do in most cases, unless they are the common faults, not many people can offer indepth advice, although those who can are very very good at it.

I use Simon as 1 example, asking about a diff, how many replies did that get?

Another example is what Nutz posted the other week about the Diff ratios for a 330cd.

I know where E46fanatics is, and I use that forum for any technical help I need.

I don't see this site as much of a place for help, more as the community. Think you took what I said as saying the site was .

I deleted the last part of your post as i kind of agree with that, in fact my car is modded and i have stretched tyres and larger than stock alloys etc etc.

The example you gave of myself is null and void as that was a question about a diff on an E34/36 so i didnt generally expect to get much response it was more of a shot in the dark. I asked this over on Forum.5 and e36coupe and got little to no response there either...

I didnt take it as though you were saying the forum is , but i would be interested in knowing exactly which "forum'sss" are banding around that we are uptight and un-knowledgable, or was the latter part of this sentence your own opinion? If so then that's completely your entitlement...

My assumption is that these so called other forum members are E46zone rejects that have perhaps not had such a great time on here for one reason or another.

[n1k_ns]

What is barry is tinting the front windows so dark you cant see out of them and are breaking the law.

Everyone says that but you could see perfectly fine from the inside of the mini. It also passed 3 MOTs while I owned it and numerous police gauges, and were apparently fitted by Mini in Manchester when the car was new (it was their demonstrator in 2001)

I got pulled about 5 times in that car and the police couldn't do anything because it passed their tests and I had MOTs in the car. Which is strange because my friends had tints that were as dark as mine and they had to remove theirs on the spot. Even once when a copper tried to peel back a bit of the tint film with his nail, he couldn't get it to budge, it looked like they had been heat bonded on or something.

[Gaz]

One last point, there is a medium between OEM and "barry" as everyone seems to call it. I wouldn't say my car is very OEM, but I wouldn't say its Barry either. Just because you want to modify a car past black grills and cs splitters does not mean you are going to run to the nearest Halfords and buy everything in stock.

I deleted the last part of your post as i kind of agree with that, in fact my car is modded and i have stretched tyres and larger than stock alloys etc etc.

When I think of non OEM styling, I think of bodykits and the like. I would say different rims and a drop are still very OEM styling. It's when you start bolting different spoilers on and getting a different bumper etc... that it becomes non OEM in my mind.

[Matt_330CI]

I think it's more a case that people ask a question and get an answer they dont want to hear so get the hump.

Also people give advice based on opinion and dont like that people dont do what they say.

This is however pretty par for the course on car forums I have found. Some are worse than others though.

I do find it a little frustrating being given advice from people who have absolutely no hands on experience with what they are advising. Or just repeating something they heard 5 people down the line. It's all well and good for example advising some one to go and see an Indie to get your remote key settings configured. But it would be nice if some one could actually say where there is a good indie and roughly how much it would cost.

I appreciate people try to be helpful, but in some cases it's counter productive.

However with over stretched tyres people refusing to believe the dangers are being nothing short of moronic. People are giving advice on safety issues. If they told you what you'd done to your brakes weren't safe would you flippantly ignore them?

I bet painted discs would look cool init. Lets ask da forum what dey fink about it.

So you fink I would die if I do it? Yeah but it looks cool anyway init, so I is gonna just do it.

[Matt_330CI]

Everyone says that but you could see perfectly fine from the inside of the mini. It also passed 3 MOTs while I owned it and numerous police gauges, and were apparently fitted by Mini in Manchester when the car was new.

I got pulled about 5 times in that car and the police couldn't do anything because it passed their tests and I had MOTs in the car. Which is strange because my friends had tints that were as dark as mine and they had to remove theirs on the spot. Even once when a copper tried to peel back a bit of the tint film with his nail, he couldn't get it to budge, it looked like they had been heat bonded on or something.

There is a legal limit of how much light must pass through the glass. While some tints may look similar they dont all let the same amount of light through. The more light they let through the more you can see out of them. Some people put limo black all round which is almost as bad as just painting your glass. This is just stupid as vision out of the car is almost completely impaired making it a serious safetly issue. A friend of mine had an Astra GTE at the tail end of the 90's. I remember going out in it quite a lot and he had limo black all round. He thought it looked good for a little while but then resorted to winding the front windows down most of the time as he just couldnt see properly.

The danger you have with going as close as possible to the legal limit up front is that the law then changes.

[mit]

The law changes, so HIDs and tints get clamped down on. Probably stretched tyres next I would imagine... Then it'll be suspension mods, then upgraded brakes will need to be certified. They already want to clamp down on aftermarket stereos with navigation and stuff (they want to stop OEM navigation systems too as they are a distraction).

Eventually after all the regulation you might as well take the bus!

[n1k_ns]

IIRC in Germany you arent allowed any mods that arent TUV approved:

Background

TUV is the testing body responsible for safety testing (for a whole range of products, not just cars & bikes). There are two aspects of interest to us. First, German vehicles must pass a TUV test (like the British MOT, but much tougher). Second, parts sold to be fitted to German cars must themselves be tested and get a TUV certificate.

German cars

For German cars, nothing changes other than better enforcement. It is already the case that you your car's TUV papers must show that all modifications were made with TUV-approved parts and that the safety of the installation has been approved by a TUV inspector.

What will be happening in 2008 is that TUV inspectors and police will be making regular checks. You will be required to produce a TUV certificate which lists all the modifications made to the car. If you have unapproved modifications, you will not be allowed access and the police may prosecute.

If you have unapproved parts on a German car, and do not have the correct papers, you should arrange for a TUV inspector to carry out a Einzelabnahme inspection which (if it passes) will then certify that the parts and fitting are safe. If you have parts with ABE (Allgemeine Betriebs Erlaubnis) or Teile Gutachten papers, then the inspector can do a simplified inspection looking purely at the installation.

Foreign cars

Foreign cars will not have to produce TUV papers. However, the inspectors will have the right to satisfy themselves that the car is safe. You may thus need to be in a position to demonstrate that modifications use quality approved parts.

Your best bet is to carry the paperwork that came with things like rollcages, aftermarket suspension, brakes, etc, to show that they have some kind of approval: TUV, FIA, EC markings, etc. The ideal paperwork to satisfy German authorities is TUV, ABE (Allgemeine Betriebs Erlaubnis) or Teile Gutachten, but the more paperwork you can produce, the better.

If you have a heavily-modified car and want to be completely safe, you can arrange to have a Vollabnahme - this is equivalent to the UK's SVA (Single Vehicle Approval). It is a very tough TUV inspection (it takes about four hours), but the advantage is they can do it on the chassis number, so you can get a Vollabnahme for a foreign car. (This is the first step in German-registering a foreign car.) Only a limited number of TUV inspectors are licenced to carry out Vollabnahme tests

I guess you need a safe car if your going to be nailing down the Autobahn...

[Rob-]

Cool thread

[Gaz]

What will be happening in 2008 is that TUV inspectors and police will be making regular checks. You will be required to produce a TUV certificate which lists all the modifications made to the car. If you have unapproved modifications, you will not be allowed access and the police may prosecute.

Not allowed access to what??

[mit]

Not allowed access to what??

To your car, I guess.

[Gaygle]

*sigh* another E46 destroyed by someone who should have bought a Mk3 Golf.

[n1k_ns]

Not allowed access to what??

'The Ring' I believe Gaz,

I took it from a Nurburgring advice website, although the rules above are for general car driving.

[Daz 330 Cs]

+1!

I got tints and was called barry

You got a little stick as the tints were way too dark , The ones on the TT were a little Chavvy & Drug dealerish

Window tinting is fine and in some cases is factory any way.

What is barry is tinting the front windows so dark you cant see out of them and are breaking the law.

Exactly right

[Gaz]

'The Ring' I believe Gaz,

I took it from a Nurburgring advice website, although the rules above are for general car driving.

Ah that makes sense. I wasn't sure if it was a car show or something. At least you know if you go on the ring then the other cars on there should be safe!

[El Turko]

Us OE people have as much right to express that opinion as any barry boasting about Halfords side skirts and blue washer jets quite frankly.

I think thats the issue really. Yes you have the right, but then so does everyone else. You cant say that but then shoot someone down when they mention a bit of stretch.

This is definitely the worst forum for arguements I've been on over stretch/non stretch. Just agree to disagree, chillax and let others get on with it.

[n1k_ns]

edit - I forgot the point of this thread.

[Gaz]

I think the point of this thread was lost on page 3

[n1k_ns]

I think the point of this thread was lost on page 3

I can still see 'noclue' lurking there at the bottom....

[Daz 330 Cs]

Generally there is a good vibe on here which i think 99% of members will agree!

[noclue]

This has kind of escalated further then I wanted or expected.

Let me introduce myself properly and tell you how I acquired the car, with the "gangsta" rims.

I had a 200sx s14a, but because I got a new job I needed a car which was better on fuel, I was spending £15 per day on fuel, so needed on sharpish. I purchased the s14 because I have always wanted one, but it was a better car in my head then real life, sadly I could not get on with it. Also being the first jap car I owned I started the search for a German replacement. Looking on various forums I can across this car, which I was content with because it drove really well, and the guy had a very good reputation. I also have a facelift e46 330ci M-sport(which is totally standard!) and a project e30 with an m30 in it, so I know a little about BMW's. The guy also agreed to a straight swap and I didn't have time to look around so I went for it.

Fast forward a few weeks. After having and driving the car for a few weeks, I began thinking whether the rims were legal or not. So I thought the best ask on a forum, i.e. here.

Once I asked the question I got various responses, some taking the so I thought I would play along. But I never expected it to get this far. I thought after page 4 it was dead, but it started again for whatever reason. I am not a troll, I just thought I was having some friendly banter.

After listening to the advise and looking at the pics of the tyre ripped from the wheel, im going to give it some serious thought about changing the wheels. Then again the car is only a daily driver, which never goes around a roundabout more then 20ish. As for chucking it into corner, come on it a 318!!!! how fast can it really go?!? (sorry to other 318 owners)

I not sure about this forum being easy to wind up as suggested, I have never heard of anything of the sort and I am on a few car forums.

Also don't worry I will never make my car look like the one in the link, I would rather surrender my license then do that to a car.

I apologise for any distress caused, as I said I never intended it to get to this stage.

[n1k_ns]

I apologise for any distress caused, as I said I never intended it to get to this stage.

We're only messing mate, a bit of forum banter helps the day go faster!

Don't worry

[nick87]

As a new member to the German scene, an outsiders opinion may help to resolve some of the points which have been raised.

'Barry' and 'OEM' styling. and a little about the community here

Not so long ago it was seen as pretty awsome to have your car painted a bright colour, lambo doors, neon lights, huge wheels, slamming, flaming exhausts and rather large body kits. As with all trends, they tend to fade out. I'm a member of another forum, of which they linked to a post which was made back in 2004, it was basically a member who had bought a car and asked 'what mods should I do?' The responses were standard - mesh grille, slam, tints, neons, sub, body kit,

They then linked to a thread which someone has very recently created who has done similar to the above, and they got absolutely ripped for it. This is from the SAME group of people who 6 years earlier would have seen the car as hot.

I'm not a subscriber and in fact don't even read the magazines, though you can see from a number of the 'modification type magazines' (Max power / Fast car) that they cottoned on to the change in 'scene' and now support the OEM route too. They'll inevitably publish a crazy build, though it's usually done to a very high standard.

I think a lot of reasons why the E46 isn't seen as a car for modifying (body work wise) is due to the nature of the owners. Certainly on this forum, from what I can gather having only been a member for a few months, the members come across as a bit more mature than you'd expect on a forum such as 'bmwcruzin.net' (I don't know if that actually exists). The forum appears as more of a community, which when based around a social community as opposed to a 'mod my car' community, you'll attract other forms of members.

I'll back up my theory with the below example, which funnily enough is my old car (which I hugely regret selling). The external modifications were simply a fresh set of 205 GTi speedlines, lowered 35mm, good tread and a pug sport exhaust.

Alternatively, you could go for the bodywork, wheels, strips, headlights, bonnet etcetc which in my opinion (although biased) looks rather shoddy.

The benefit I find of OEM is that people DO notice it, but they don't know what to think. It's usually - "That's a nice sporty car", when it could just be a 1.6. When you start about with bodykits, the general public will quite quickly realise this and think you're trying to make it something it isn't, even if it was a CSL with thousands spent under the bonnet, it'll still look .

Stretch tyres

I'm fortunate enough to live a few doors up from the UK Director of a rather large tyre manufacturer. I had a chat to him about the car he had at the time and we got onto stretch tyres. Simply think about it, why would tyre manufacturers spend time and money researching into whether or not it was safe for the general public to use them in use other than the general standard? My opinion is that a small stretch is fine, but there are obscene examples (there always will be) which labels the entire 'scene' as being unsafe. As with anything, it comes down to common sense, which sadly, a number of people tend to lack these days.

It's ill educated, such as those who believe that slamming a car will actually make it "handle like it's on rails" - no it won't. The reason you see WRC cars slammed is because of the money which has been pumped into the components to allow it to run that low, it's not just a case of some springs and shocks.

One further note, I've been on a number of forums where questions have been asked and received a number of responses, all of which are wrong. I'd rather have no response than a complete guess which could end up costing me a fortune in replacing parts which may have not been required. I've also had responses on every question I've asked!

Cheers

[Gaz]

You're going to fit in well here mate. Level headed, and you make some valid points.

I really like your white Rallye.