Hi folks. I need to get this put down on here to see what other's opinions are regarding my 'problem' currently with Rochford Tyres and my wheels that I have returned to them.

At the end of April I bought a set of Wolfrace Urban Racer 18" wheels with Avon ZZ-3 tyres from Rochford Tyres (Rochford Tyres). Seemed like a professional outfit, had the kit in stock and shipped promptly. I had bought these to replace my tired Radius alloys.

Went over to Subaru4you to pick up the car (had just been in for a service, few bits, rear wheel bearing and flange kit) and Len fitted them on for me. While driving the car home I was getting vibrations through the steering wheel when building up to motorway speeeds at which point it became most annoying.

First thought was balancing/geometry so I booked myself in at Merityre for a full 4 wheels alignment and rebalance. Took her out and still got the vibrations.

At this point I assumed it to be something other than the wheels because they were apparantly quite round and did what wheels did I thought. Due to the car being used infrequently and Len being a fair way away from me I didn't do anything with it for a while. I had my local National Tyres have a look at the car a few times and they couldn't work it out either.

Eventually I got back over to Len (few weeks ago) after explaining to him that I really wasn't going crazy and that I wanted him to pick it apart to see what the cause was. He went out for a drive with me (he drove) and was surprised at how bad the drive was. You got steering wheel vibration building up to motorway speeds then above that the rear started up too (his words)! He took her in, checked everything over fully underneath then took the wheels to his own wheel/tyre specialist who said that the wheels were sufffering from quite a bit of run out. Len then put his OZ wheels/eagles off his P1 on to my car and it was as smooth as silk. Put my wheels on to his and surprise surprise the P1 vibrated all over the shop. I drove both too and experienced it as well. As bonkers as it sounded to me Len was spot on.

I contacted Rochford Tyres and explained the situation to them and got Mike the manager. Seemed very professional and arranged to have the wheels picked up to be tested. They got the wheels last Friday morning. Rang up to confirm that had recieved and left it at that. They worked all day Saturday but decided not to ring and see until Monday. I rang on Monday to see what the results were and was told that they were currently in testing and someone would get back to me later that day with the results. Noone called. I called on Tuesday and was told that the Manager had to check them now and would get back to me later that day, no info on what was found. Noone called. I called on Wednesday and spoke to Mike and was told that the MD would now have to check the wheels and was in yesterday afternoon and that they would get back to me or to try later. I rang lateish Wednesday afternoon and was told that the MD was nowhere to be seen and that I would be called back. No surprise, no call. Spoke to someone there yesterday morning who went off to check up on all of this, was placed on hold for about 5 mins then cut off. It isn't the first time that the phone had simply been put down on me either.

At this point I lost my rag at being treated pretty badly in my opinion and fired off an email telling them to stop fobbing me off.

I got this back this morning:

"Nick,

I have spoken to the MD about your wheels. The MD along with the warehouse manager have inspected these and have concluded that the wheels are 100% in perfect condition. The spigot rings are correct for the car. The wheels are in perfect shape and the tyres which are Avon (high performance tyre) are also in perfect condition.

Mike"


So, basically I have been told get stuffed despite all the evidence pointing to the wheels including sticking them on len's own perfect condition P1 and making it feel like a £50 banger!

Right now I feel like I want to drive up there and crack skulls. I had tried to be perfectly polite throughout all of this but AAAARGH....... I had said that I was perfectly happy to buy another set of wheels from them too at the end of all of this. I have had to take a day sick off work with my slipped disc due to the fact that the car I am currently a passenger in to work is so agonizing (sitting on a chair all day doesn't exactly help matters when at work ). Imagine sticking a 6'7" 22 stone gorilla in his other half's 106 and you get the idea!

Thought guys?

Cheers,

Nick

 

Trading standards!

 

I got a set from Rochford a few months ago, not that this helps much, but they seemed to be very helpful, even to the point of taking me out on the floor whilst fitting to point out a problem with one of threads before fixing it for free.

I'm surprised, I've heard nothing other than good feedback from them.

I'd stick to your guns mate, the suggestion of a letter to trading standards might gee them up a bit?

 

Yes they seemed nice and professional I thought until this last week. I didn't realise that not wanting to wait a week to just test 4 wheels was asking for so much. I am hoping that this can be sorted out nicely still and am still prepared to get wheels from them and will even buy more expensive ones if I decide to, I only got those ones at the time as I wasn't too flush cash-wise then.

I even scanned in some receipts showing that I had thrown money in to trying to sort the problem but had told them too that I wasn't asking for that back. The company that I work for, fitting in client networks, is the #1 legal software supplier to law firms in the UK. I have a few very good solicitors/friends at my disposal that all owe me favours and would gladly jump on this foc. I have no intention of doing that at this point but it wouldn't be a problem. had to do it to a crooked little lower tier ISP once and it is absolutely amazing what solicitors can come up with! .

Cheers guys, feel free to keep it coming .

 

i ordered a set of 18" innovite prodrive replicas from them.. was getting it on finance.. free for a year then pay for them.. told me they`d be about 6-8 weeks(low supply at innovite factory) thought ok then and ordered them.guy asks if i have big brembo brakes or anything like that..nope standard wrx. after clearing finance stuff.so i wait 8 weeks... (bearing in mind im not using my car cause Subaru said 2 of my wheels are buckled and dont want to knacker my new centre diff) phone them up and they say the wheels are due in next week.. next week comes ..phones them again, you`re wheels will be with you on the wednesday(this is monday..) on wednesday i get phonecall from them..(im hoping this is to confirm im in house cause wheels are on way..) guys says "the wheels you have ordered will not fit your car"... prodrive replicas wont fit on a 52 plate wrx..hmm.. and its taking them nearly three months to tell me this..apart from the fact ive seen many an impreza wearing said wheels...told him to email what wheels will fit mine and got a reply with wheels i think they were trying to get rid of. replied to e mail saying i didnt like any of them and can you cancel finance agreement..

upshot to all this... went to revolution, spoke to colin and got same finance deal and some 18" urltalites with parada spec2 tyres.. couldnt have been more helpful so the cars going there for its service as well, soon as i get some money.. might even get discount for the free plug


cheers for reading.. chris

 

Rochford tyres are down the road from me.... ive been in there a few times to ask about things and get wheels checked.

To be honest i think theyve bitten off more than they can chew, they always have loads of customers in there and they are expanding their market from just tyres and wheels to all car parts etc, but dont seem to have upped the number of staff...

I didnt bother buying my last set of wheels from them even though when i went in they were helpful, but they just couldnt match the price and they were going to take a few weeks to get in.

None of this really helps but just thought I d add my encounters with them.

 

Matt etc, any info/advice is useful so thanks for your posts

 

Sent this morning by me follwing on from being told that nothing was wrong with them and all is well with the world:

"Thanks for letting me know something. So why is it that on 2 classic Impreza the cars both exhibit exactly the same problems? I didn't believe it was the wheels until I tried them on 2 cars and both were exactly the same. 2 different tyre outfits have said that there is something not right and a Subaru specialist. I have bought £700 worth of wheeels that flat out do not work. I can drive my car up to you guys on my balding spare wheels which are borderline road legal at best (which work perfectly and don't shake the car to bits at all), then you can fit on those Wolfrace wheels and experience the shake, rattle and roll for yourselves. I will want reimbursing for the petrol used to travel there and back just to prove a point that others have made and experienced, not factoring in that I will have to waste a perfectly good day off to do so. The fact of the matter is that those wheels don't work on the car yet all others I try are as smooth as silk. I don't know why, I wish I did, it's not like I haven't gon to any trouble to rule out everything else.

Please let me know wyhere we go from here.

Nick."

I just came back to find this:

"Hi

You can come to our store if you wish but we can not be liable for any external costs. We can inspect the wheels and yoru car to see if there are any problems.

The wheels that you have sent us appear to be 100% in perfect condition. Therefore you should not have any problems on your car

Mike"

Erm, if one of the best Subaru outfits in the country finds nothing wrong, you stick 2 different sets of wheels on and everything runs just peachy and other specialists say that that something isn't right with the wheels what is it I am saying that they are not getting? I would rather die than have some random outfit start tinkering with bits under the car when I know nothing is wrong there. It's going to cost me about £50 in fuel just to get to them, guess I should add that on to the £200+ spent trying to get to the bottom of their wheels......

Grrrrrr.

 

Hi,

I dont know if you already know this but the finance company who backs roachford has gone bust and is at this present time is being "Reformed",
The reason why I know this is because I applied for finance to buy wheels and got told that I was accepted and my wheels would be delivered soon,
I week went by without any phone call so I called them, Thats when they told me the news but but partys were saying two differnt stories so I simply cancelled. How long have you had the wheels for? simply ask for you money back its your statis rights.

Alan.

 

yep, ask for a refund.

get a letter from the garage saying that under the test conditions there were dramatically different results from swapping the wheels.

they can resell the wheels and you can buy elsewhere.

shame about the aditional costs involved though - it happens to us all at some point.....

good luck

 

My mate is having all kinds of problems with this shower as well.He bought a set of Enzan Kato wheels from them for his Type R and within days the paint started coming off in big flakes.He sent them back nearly two months ago and has had nothing but hassle from them since - not returning calls and every other excuse in the book.

They are not disputing that the wheels are at fault and had removed them from their website for a while but will not replace them with another make as my mate does not want the same hassle again.They are insisting on replacing them with the same make even though he has offered to pay the difference or take a cheaper wheel and been waiting for weeks.

Avoid them and definitely dont buy Enzan Kato wheels.

 

blimey....

that only points to fact that they "rochford" might have bought wheels that are not warranted by their own manufacturers....

sounds dodgy as **** to me...

i've got alloys bought from Jet Tyres, which started blistering slightly after about 10 months on some of the spokes... couldn't be arsed to take them back, so still have them now. (as i got a good deal £500 with yoko parada II's)

will replace them once the tyres need doing, and then get them refurbed in black

 

The wheels were all in absolutely as new mint condition BAR 1 flaming nick on the rear left where I had to touch a corner kerbstone when trying to park and someone blocked me. The wheels were provided with absolutely NO rim protection by the tyres, I was soooo annoyed with myself as it happened at about 1mph if that but I had no choice. The damage was 1cm across, that's it. As new condition otherwise.

 

Just sent this, reckon it will get nowhere as they probably think I am bluffing.

"Mike, I have had the car inspected by 3 seperate places, 1 of which knows Impreza geometry inside out and have been assured by all of them that the car is fine. Len's showcar P1 runs a different geometry config to mine geared for better handling and we both have shake city on the cars. There flat out is no problem with the car and I can get a professional written documentation stating this if needed. You say 'should not have any problems on your car' yet I do and so do others when they fit my wheels to their Imprezas as has been proven. If you have found nothing wrong with them and have changed nothing on them then I won't have them back on the car as they will just continue to rattle the car to bits. I am still prepared to give you my business and buy another set that will be guaranteed to not do this, taking those ones in against them. If they are as perfect as you say they are you should have no problem selling them on in complete confidence.

Please consult with your MD before getting back to me as I a. Don't want to have to waste a day coming over to you guys at my expense to prove what I already know to be the case and still probably get nowhere, b. Get trading standards involved or c. Call in a favour from one of my solicitor friends that have represented me once or twice in the past with great success. I hear what you are saying that I know with 110% certainty that the wheels are faulty when fitted on an Impreza. I am not some little chav that has decided that they don't 'go' with the car, I am 30, on my third scoob and just want it to go in a straight line without it feeling like it is at warp factor 9.9 and is about to implode......"

 

I emailed this thread to my mate and his girlfriend (my sister) emailed back saying he was going to the Citizens Advice Bureau about Rochford Tyres this afternoon - will post what they said later when I speak to him.

 

Absolutely brilliant, thanks! I have emailed Len to ask him if he has a sec to put down in writing exactly what he, along with his wheel people found wrong with them.

 

as per normal with compaines. they want you to sign up for "x" amount of finance, but the after sales team is led by some retard with dicso eyes.

keep us posted footlong.

 

Sales of goods act...... wheels are not fit for purpose, refund due and they do not have a leg to stand on,dont let them fob you off with any crap about having to go back to the manufacture to sort it either,as your contract is with them at point of sale.

 

The only problem I see is that I purchased them at the end of April, but I didn't drive the car all that much during that time due to the problem while I tried everything to figure out what was wrong.

 

This is why Scoobynet is such a great place. I have been sent a PM by someone who lives a few minutes away with a classic and he has offered to go down there, stick them on his car and see what happens! How's that for a community!

 

This is what my mate emailed me with last night after having spoken to the CAB

Went to CAB. The guy says under some regulation act for buying goods, they have to match their description as advertised and the purpose they are made for. Depending on how I purchased them from the company you can apply for a refund or a replacement set of wheels but can only be the ones you originaly got.
He says that the guy mike at rochford was commiting himself to much before any contact has been made to the supplier which is the manufacturer who makes the wheels themselfs. By law the manufacturers are goin by the right procedures and giving me a new set of wheels, thats why they cant issue me with a credit or different wheels because its only kato wheels the manufacturer deal with.
All I can do is take the new wheels and see how I get on they are covered by a new warranty to if they go wrong, according to mike Im the only one who has had this prob with that wheels. Dont mind that wheels would look nice black.

 

What was the problem he was actually having wirth them? What car?

 

I don't think they will be able to repalce my wheels tbh. I sent a message to Wolfrace a while back asking about the paint colour/code for my wheels and got this:

"The Urban Racer Gold has been discontinued for several years, the wheel was painted outside of the UK so unfortunately we are unable to supply touch-up paint or a paint code."

I smell old stock .

 

The paint started chipping off in big flakes as soon as they had been fitted - were only on the car for a few weeks.He had to send them back at his own expense - I take it he will get this back now.Wheels were in an unbelievable mess and it has taken two months to get them to admit the wheels are at fault and decide what they are going to do about it.

 

Unlucky, long time to wait for such an obvious quality failure. I haven't got 2 months to wait, I need this sorted by the end of the month absolute latest. I have my wilwood 6/4 pot monster brake set to fit to the car and get all the geometry done by Len before Bob Rawle maps for the 20g and bits going on. If I ask my friend to intervene with an official Solicitor's letter I don't know if this will speed things up or slow it down. I actually want a set of Kei Pulse 18's from them once this is resolved so it's not like they are not going to still get money from me. I will drive up and have them fitted though and test them before paying........

I guess that I will have to decide based on what is found testing them 'on car' today.

 

UNBELIEVABLE! I have just had a call from the wonderful scoobynetter that has gone to so much time and trouble to play guinea pig for me (I haven't named him as he hasn't posted on here so not sure if he wants to be named but should do as he has my eternal gratitude).

He turned up at Rochford Tyres to find that the wheels were still sealed in the 4 boxes that I sent up to them! He had them fitted to his car and wait for it, vibration city at around 80. They have put the wheels on their spinny machine and 3 are balanced ok apparantly but the 4th tyre is deformed a bit. Nothing has been mentioned about the 'run out' described by the other places I had check.

Words cannot express just how mad I am now. Does anyone here think that I shouldn't demand a full refund due to the time, expense and potential damage to my car from vibrating it all over the place? I will still get the other wheels from them to make things as smooth as possible but I will not leave until I am happy.

 

Nick,

As discussed, sadly the deformed tyre didn't solve the problem....
they were going to do a little investigating after i left (the guy Paul who helped me was very helpful, however the management were very elusive as ever).

I hope you get it sorted and happy to help out. In my mind thats what scoobynet is and should be about!


Cheers

Mike

 

Bunch of clowns mate.

I took my e46 M3 there at the beginning of the year to have 4 new tyres fitted, All was fine until the young lad changing the wheels put a jack under the rear diff to lift the back of the car, At this point I asked him not to do that as the M diff has very thin heat sink all over it for heat dissipation, to which he replied "I know what I'm doing mate, i do this every day" in a tone that was basically calling me some clueless ****.

The rest of the job was carried out in a very lack-luster way, not the best way to impress new customers!!

 

id have told him while hes bent over down there, to open up and would have throat fcuked the cheeky spotty little chav ****

oh then slapped him a couple times and complained to his gaffer

 

Mike, you are a rare gem mate I hope the subscription donation goes down well as thanks as tbh you deserve so much more and thanks to you they just don't have a single leg to stand on now.

I have a day off on Monday and am driving up to them on these 4 bald tyres that I borrowed off a friend while the wheels were away. I am not going to be leaving without a new set of wheels as they probably won't make the trip back! My solicitor friend is available on the phone and is a hard hitter, plus I am probably bigger than all of them if things head south jk .

Going to make a day of it. Going to pop in to Mocom and try to pickup a revolution exhaust system, then swing by Hayward & Scott and see if they can squeeze me in later that day to chop my sports cat up and fit a 3" end, so things have worked out pretty well tbh, subject to not encountering trouble at Rochford.

Will bore you guys senseless with the results when I get back on Monday .

Cheers,

Nick .