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The Great Wheel and Tire Swap: Rinse and Repeat, Then Repeat Again
When I bought my salvage-titled 1988 BMW E30 325is last fall and found out that it was the rear two-thirds of one car and the front clip of another, and had the low-revving 121-hp fuel-efficient “Eta” motor to boot, one of the lowest-priority items on the punch list was tires. The “FrankenThirty” was sitting on cracked, dry-rotted 25-year-old rubber, but “sitting” was the operative term—I had sorting out to do before I drove it, and I wasn’t even sure that I was going to keep the car once I made it a runner.
But once I revived it and began driving it around the block, I warmed to it a lot more than I expected. Friends who said, “You might actually like the Eta engine” turned out to be absolutely right. It develops torque at a much lower rpm than the 168-hp 325i engine, and the combination of that and the shorter-geared differential of the model gives the car plenty of around-town scoot.
Still, I was hesitant to dump a dollar more into the car than was absolutely necessary. The cracked tires on the corroded “bottlecap” alloy wheels had to go, but what cost-effective option would take their place?
At this point, I must digress and tell you the story of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Gold Basketweaves.
The BMW 2002 sedan sold from 1968 through 1976 came with 13×5 steel wheels (well, the round taillight cars had 13×4.5s). When the E30 3-Series cars came out in 1984, they were equipped with 14×6 bottlecap alloys that, by coincidence, had an ET35 offset that fit a 2002 perfectly, and the 195/60R14 tire had nearly the same rolling diameter as the 2002’s original 165/80R13s. So if you got a set of used E30 bottlecaps with good rubber on them, you had yourself a nice “plus one” wheel and tire setup.
At some point, the E30’s tire size bumped up a step in height to 195/65R14, and the wheels changed from the bottlecap style to the prettier basketweaves. Although the 65-series tires are a bit too tall to fit properly on a 2002, the basketweave wheels became, and remain, a popular bit of 2002 customization, even if you can’t typically find E30 take-offs that already have 195/60R14 tires on them.
About 15 years ago, I saw an ad on Craigslist for something that I didn’t know existed—gold E30 basketweaves with silver lips. It turned out that they were available on BMW E30 convertibles for the last two years of production. I bought them, shod them with a set of 195/60R14 General Altimax tires, and put them on an Agave (green) round-tail-light ’73 2002 I’d just bought. I loved the way they looked against the car’s dark paint.
When I sold the Agave 2002, I held onto the wheels. They went onto a white 2002tii I owned for many years, on which they looked okay, but didn’t have the snap they had on the darker Agave car.
When I was ready to sell the white tii, I figured that the gold basketweaves were one of those question-of-taste things, whereas silver ‘weaves weren’t divisive. I found a set for a good price and sold the white tii with them on it. They’re shown on the car a few photos above.
The gold basketweaves then had a stint on another Agave 2002, this one a 2002tii (“Louie,” the Ran When Parked car) for a spell, but I eventually went back to the tii’s stock 13-inch steel wheels and hubcaps. Another 2002 I had (and still have)—“Bertha,” easily the rattiest car I own—had been sitting on silver E30 steel wheels, but I wound up needing to put those on another 2002 I was selling, so the gold ‘weaves went on Bertha. I’m not really a fan of the whole expensive-wheels-on-over-the-top-patina’d-car look, but it’s not like Bertha was slammed and bagged and wearing 19-inch monsters stuffed under the wheel wells. The gold wheels worked, almost in spite of themselves.
Fast-forward to last fall. Bertha had been sitting for a year in the warehouse where I rent space in Monson, Massachusetts, near the Connecticut border. It’s sort of become the neglected stepchild in my stable of 14 cars. I’d sold the car to my good friend Alex back in 1988, it fell into disrepair, I bought it back from him 30 years later in 2018, nursed it back to health, and drove it down to “The Vintage” BMW event in Asheville, North Carolina in May of 2019. That trip was a triumph of soul and rattyness, but Bertha hasn’t seen any road trips since, and not even much street time. I take it out of the warehouse a few times a year and run it the five miles down to the Connecticut border and back, but it may be time to move the car along to someone else.
But in the meantime, owning the red FrankenThirty, I began to covet Bertha’s gold basketweaves. The Altimax tires are now old but uncracked and still serviceable, and are a little too short to be correct for an ‘88 E30, but they were worlds better than the cracked and dry-rotted rubber that came on the FrankenThirty. Plus, the idea of the E30 gold basketweaves at last coming home to another E30—and a red E30 at that (I mean, can you get any more 1980s than a red German car with gold basketweaves?) was irresistible.
So last fall, I put the FrankenThirty up on my mid-rise lift, yanked off the worthless bottlecaps with the dangerously deteriorated tires, threw them and a small floor jack in the back of my BMW E39, shot out to Monson, swapped them onto Bertha just so she could sit on something, came home, and installed the gold basketweaves onto the FrankenThirty. I instantly loved the way they looked on the car. And even though the rolling diameter was a little short and the tires a bit old, it gave me the ability to drive the car around while sorting it out for zero cost.
I never intended this situation to go on forever, though, and it didn’t. Over the winter, I found a well-priced new set of properly-sized Petlas 195/65R14 tires on eBay. They’ve been sitting in my basement waiting for spring, when my intent was to pull the now 15-year-old Altimaxes off the gold basketweaves, throw them on yet another set of well-priced silver basketweaves I happened into, throw those wheels on still-warehouse-stored Bertha, install the new Petlas tires on the gold wheels, and leave them on the E30. When I went to swap my summer wheels and tires back onto my daily-driver E39, I found that one of the summer tires had a nail too close to the sidewall to be properly repaired. I found a matching used tire from United Tire on eBay.
For tire-swapping, I used to use a guy who had a hole-in-the-wall repair shop with a tire machine and a balancer and was cheaper than any real tire shop, but he closed up and moved to Florida, so I’ve recently been using a friend who has one of those mobile mount-and-balance-in-your-driveway vans. I have to tell you, once you’ve done this, it’s hard to go back to brick-and-mortar tire shops. This guy comes to my house, we chat, I jack up the cars and pull off the wheels, he does the dismount/mount/balance thing in the van, we chat some more, he quotes me a price, I pay it, and when the commerce is all done, I show him whatever I have in the garage that’s new. No dropping off. No waiting. No returning. It’s great. So I scheduled him for last Tuesday morning.
The day before the appointment, I opened up Facebook Marketplace and saw a set of four BMW E30 steel wheels with ancient tires on them, about an hour south of me, for 30 bucks. For all four. Damn, I thought, this is actually what Bertha had before the gold wheels went on. These are actually the right wheels for a ratty 2002. I can save those silver ‘weaves for a nicer car. The steelies were black rather than silver, and I have a thing against black wheels, but… 30 bucks?
So I contacted the seller saying that I want them, but I need them now because I have a tire van coming to my driveway first thing in the morning. Initially that was a problem because the wheels were at his father’s house, not his, but he lined it all up, and I shot down to his father’s place. The wheels were covered in dirt and leaves but they looked undented. I Venmo’d the guy the money and loaded up the wheels, boom, done.
When I got home, I unloaded the wheels, stood them up in the driveway, and washed off the detritus of disuse. After they dried, I looked at them, and the rust wasn’t nearly as bad as I first thought. “Hmm,” I thought, “I wonder…”
I stuck a wire wheel in my drill and had at them. In about half an hour, I’d done a credible pass at surface prep. Rain was predicted but was holding off. Again, I thought “Hmm, I wonder.” I went in the garage and found a couple of rattle-cans of silver wheel paint. With rain threatening but not landing the punch, I got two coats laid down. An hour later I rolled them into the garage to dry as the skies opened.
The next day, my friend with the tire van came, and did The Great Wheel and Tire Swap. The 15-year-old Altimaxes came off of the gold basketweaves and went on the now-presentable rattle-can-silver E30 steelies. The new Petlas tires went on the gold ‘weaves. The E39 wheel with the nail got a new used tire. And the ancient tires went to the Newton Recycle Center.
You can beat me up if you want to about having 15-year-old tires swapped from one set of wheels to another instead of buying a $240 set of Westlakes on Amazon, but the car that they’re going back on (Bertha) will be none the worse for the swapping (e.g., those were the same tires the car had been sitting on in the warehouse anyway). Besides, part of my mantra is none of the 14 cars ever gets everything it needs, and this wasn’t even something Bertha needed. For now, I just need it to be capable of short drives. If that changes and I need to road-trip the car, I’ll adjust accordingly. And the car that I will be driving (the FrankenThirty) got brand-spanking-new rubber on ’80s-correct wheels. Makes sense to me.
And now I can start looking for another E30 or 2002 to put those unused silver basketweaves on :^)
***
Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic™: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem, is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.
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List Bertha on Hagerty marketplace after doing a full disclosure (your style) sale article here.
A slightly smaller fleet would be good for your other goals.
And Bertha is a minor celebrity, so I think it would land a good home.
Wow! I’m worn out just reading this. Just did my only annual tire swap (07 ES350 came with winter tires on Camry wheels) and that’s enough! Love your tenacity Rob…
Great story again. I didn’t know about the mobile tire balancer services but I’m going to check into them. Thanks for the heads up.
Yeah, me too. I’ve been going to a shop owned by a childhood friend of my oldest son forever, but he sold out and retired last year, and I don’t know if I feel the same loyalty to the new owners. Plus, it’s quite a drive to the shop, which I didn’t mind when I knew it would entail great work and a desirable visit with a friend. Mobile van sounds pretty good to me!
I feel quite fortunate having a friend that owns a touchless tire changer. Just last week, he mounted a set of new Hankooks on the wheels of my ratty ’63 Caddy. He in turn gets his tires balanced from another friend. And I let my friend store 3 of his cars & misc stuff in my shop. It’s the ‘you scratch my back, I scratch your back’ work that, well, works out!
Whoa! Touchless tire changer?
A Coates 1010 is the only thing that I ever used!
Times have changed…
Thanks for this article, Rob; it came close to being a spreadsheet converted to narrative format.
I’m learning so much regarding endless (but valid) economic rationalizations enjoyed by most of us wire-brush-and-rattle-can-silver-paint readers.
Those were great scores on all those rims! Around where I live, I can hardly find a beat-up, oxidized OE alloy rim for my ’97 Expedition for less than $75.
It’s also good to know there’s other intelligent folks, that don’t have issues with “old tires”, as long as there’s no indication of any dry rot. It’s just something else to monitor on an old car, that’s all. Now, if I was going for an extended, high-speed, road trip across the country, among other things, I’d most likely get new tires and check alignment, but for around town errands, they’re just fine.
It seems to me that UV only really gets to a vehicle’s rubber (and paint) if it’s allowed to bake out in the sun for most of its life.
I don’t give a whit for BMW.
But, I sure enjoy Hack’s stories!
Also, EVERY time I see 2002, the year, not the car pops into my head.
Rob, great story documenting actions only our Rob would take. Just wondering in your pursuit of interesting writting material and trying to save a dime, do you every take into account the wear and tear on one’s self and figure that into the cost of the action you are taking? Just wondering!!!
The “wear and tear on one’s self” while working on your automotive projects is called “living a car person’s best life”, IMO. 😉
Seconded! Schlepping wheels and tires around in particular counts as exercise in my garage/yard/shed/crawlspace. Far more productive than paying a membership fee to throw a truck tire around a gym.
Yup. To each his or her own, I guess. My wife enjoys toiling in her gardens, which seems like work to me, but is enjoyable to her. I’d rather be foisting a lug wrench or changing an oil filter any day!
In my younger days, I was like Rob. Doing extra work for what I wanted was no problem. Now, at 71, and after a back surgery, I have to think about whether it’s worth it, just to jack up my Corvairs. Getting on a creeper is ok, but dismounting from it involves rolling onto the floor, and then getting up. So, yes, I did live my best life, but now I’m paying the price for that.
Which car is going to the Vintage this year?
You’ll like Hendersonville. It’s great small town America with really friendly people.
I’ll be driving the FrankenThirty.
Rob, follow up question/observation. According to the event map of your Vintage shindig. It is at an airport, in fact according to the map you are going to be sitting on an active runway (15L/33R) there are no large white Xes painted on the runway so it must be in use. Now maybe it is a fact that I don’t know a lot about the BMW Club but parking cars and having people on an active runway does not seem to be the best idea. Please enlighten your readers into your thought process in deciding this was a good idea. Also, are you not asking for trouble bringing the Frankin 30? Why don’t you bring the one with the slant nose that looks like a shark, it appears to be the nicest one you have?
Many small airports close for events like this. This can cause serious problems for unsuspecting pilots who plan on landing there.
Read your NOTAM’s…..
All perfectly logical. Sensible? Ach, not my call! But someone else needs to be driving Bertha if you don’t care to or need to. Spread the BMW love around a bit!
Love the story as usual but I’m so confused
I am with you ….. Don’t know how he kept up with the rims, tires & BMWs…..
Rob,
I have read your stuff for decades and never failed to enjoy your musings, technical savvy, ambitious acquisitions and kludges coupled with overall enthusiasm for wrenching on cars (on a budget). Thanks for many hours of reading enjoyment, but not quite as much as doing stuff in my own garage.
Thanks, man!
As my wife says when I’m involved in things like this,” What is wrong with you?”….
Like the mother of quintuplets, only she can identify her babies.
Those 14″ BBS Baskets also fit a Honda Acty rather nicely…..
I’d like to know the brand of lift your burgundy-colored car is raised on. Does it function well, and is it difficult to set up for your purposes? I haven’t bought one yet. My Chevelle is problematic when trying to drive it up on “low-profile ramps”. My car has an M-20 transmission, and I don’t like working the clutch, especially when it requires so much rpm to prevent stalling. It wouldn’t be an issue had I installed an automatic instead of keeping the 4-speed. I’m currently using a floor jack to raise the front end of the car far enough to slide these ramps under the front tires. I’m not the least bit lazy, however, I’m anxious to find a better way to do more frequent oil changes without the worry of going too fast up onto ‘shifting’ ramps.
Ken, it’s a BendPak MD-6XP. I wrote a piece on it for Hagerty about eight years ago (link below). All of this style of mid-rise lifts are basically the same. The huge advantages are small footprint, fairly easy to move around, and oh my good lord it’s SOOOOO much better than having nothing. I use mine constantly. The downside is that it’s not great if you need to pull transmissions, as the body of the lift is in the way. There are now split mid-rise lifts that basically have two synchronized halves and open space in the middle.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/owning-a-mid-rise-lift/
The wheels turned out pretty nice. Not bad for a quick home job.