I am thinking of buying winter tyres for her indrawers 2011 Twinair lounge. It is shod with 185/55R15's. A punter on ebay is selling a set of winter tyres at 195/65/15 on Fiat steel rims 4 stud. They came off a Mulitipla.
Does anyone know if they will fit - it could save me a packet.
Thanks

10 years old and not stored on a rim tree, i'd avoid them

Graham54 said:

I am thinking of buying winter tyres for her indrawers 2011 Twinair lounge. It is shod with 185/55R15's. A punter on ebay is selling a set of winter tyres at 195/65/15 on Fiat steel rims 4 stud. They came off a Mulitipla.
Does anyone know if they will fit - it could save me a packet.
Thanks

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Wrong size. Don't be cheap, buy the right size tyres and buy new or nearly new.....

Graham54 said:

...it could save me a packet.

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...it could cost you your life.

306maxi said:

Don't be cheap, buy the right size tyres and buy new or nearly new.....

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I've just bought a set of 4 winter tyres off eBay for £42 with 8mm of tread on all of them but I got very lucky taking a chance, they were used for only a few months last winter taken off early because of the mild winter then they sold the car they were from.

Be very dubious of 10 year old tyres they someone else is selling you don't know how they have been looked after and what state they are really in

It might seem strange to see this thread re-emerging as if from hibernation, but there's a good reason.

I have just had the winter tyres taken off the 500 and two new ones put on the front and two ones I had put on the rear.

There is a charge of £15 plus Vat- ie £18 per tyre if there is a straight swap, so I paid for two new tyres plus £36 for swapping the rears.

Is this a fair charge?

TwinAir Newbie said:

I have just had the winter tyres taken off the 500 and two new ones put on the front and two ones I had put on the rear.

There is a charge of £15 plus Vat- ie £18 per tyre if there is a straight swap, so I paid for two new tyres plus £36 for swapping the rears.

Is this a fair charge?

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Forgive me, not sure if I'm reading this entirely correctly....does this mean you are still wearing winter tyres all round? Or have you got summers on now?

Personally, I wouldn't be running winters right now if that is what you are doing, especially living in the South of England. The conditions down there don't favour it often enough in my opinion and that believe me is from someone who was born and grew up in the South West and South of England (I lived in Portsmouth for nearly 20 years). I know if I were still living down there, I personally wouldn't bother, but that's just my opinion! Oh and for the record, yes, I do know that very occasionally, you get snow down there and it can get down to freezing lol! Trust me, you get nothing like what we get every winter where I live now!

So you are asking if the swap for your rears was fair? Well, all depends on what you class as fair. Did you spend 10 minutes on the 'phone calling round a few tyre shops to find out how much it would cost to swap? Living in the New Forest as you do (and I have no idea where in the New Forest obviously!), well I guess Southampton isn't far and neither is Ringwood, so you would have to take a trip out depending on where in the New Forest you are. The tyre shops near where I live, charge around £10 to £12 per tyre to swap over onto different rims. I just recently had to do that when I bought some replacement alloy wheels which I had professionally refurbished and then my winter tyres remounted from the steels they were originally on, to the alloys.

Tyre shops clearly have you over a bit of a barrel. You can't realistically do tyre changes yourself. It's a dangerous job without the right equipment. The tyres need mounting correctly and balancing etc.

Personally, I think you've overpaid. £18 per wheel on a tyre swap is too much imo, I certainly wouldn't have paid that amount of money. But I guess you have to weigh up how far you would have had to travel to somewhere with plenty of choice against convenience factor. If I lived somewhere remote for instance, I'd plan that sort of job in with a trip out to the city.

Sorry- I didn't explain that well.

All the winter tyres are now off the car.

They have been replaced with two new all season tyres, bought from them, at the front and the rear have two all seasons that I already had stored away.

That is why I was charged for swapping round those two rear tyres.

I think that £15 excluding VAT is steep.

TwinAir Newbie said:

I think that £15 excluding VAT is steep.

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I agree, £15 excluding VAT is too much, I was charged £12 all in for each tyre swapped, but that was swapping tyres from steels to alloys and they use stick on weights for the alloys which I think they charge a bit more for.

I see you mentioned all season tyres. Personally, that's what I'd use all year round where you live, not dedicated winter tyres. Buy hey, it's just my opinion and they'll be people out there that don't agree with it!

2 sets of wheels or did they have to fit tyres to rims on the used ones?

One set of wheels.

then the price is average for a national chain, smaller set ups or independants will be cheaper, i use europit they only have 12 places and charge £10 all in per wheel

I'd save on future charges by getting a dedicated rims for winter wheels (can be bought fairly cheaply) That way, come the change time, it will cost you nothing to swap wheels - so they should pay for themselves after couple of years...

I'm missing something. Why have some of you concluded that, because these winter boots came off a Multipla they must be ten years old? Or is this info buried somewhere that I haven't accessed?