Wellington European Tyres – YOKOHAMA now available.

Some time ago we added tyres to our growing list of services on offer. We have a large range available, Continental, Maxxis, Goodyear, Pirelli, Nankang and Hankook to name a few. Recently we managed to get YOKOHAMA on board. We had a request for some road legal track style tyres for the car pictured. Great outcome as we have now added Yokohama to our available tyre brands.

And this is why we service and WOF cars

Here’s is a great pic and a great example as to why cars get inspected like they do. On older cars with brake drums and shoes, the car had a way of telling you there was a problem. the brake pedal travel would get longer as the shoes wore out. The handbrake might not hold like it used too. The pedal may go soft or spongy.

In a modern car with disc brakes all around you can virtually have no brake linings left, but still have brakes that perform well, as was the case with the car in the picture below. By design the brakes are continuously adjusting as the pads wear. So they don’t go out of adjustment like an older car might. These brakes pictured well and truly passed the WOF brake test on our electronic gauge, however on the visual inspection they are about as low as you would dare to go and in fact were failed a WOF.

Other factors here too are this is only 1 of 4 pads in the front, and the pads don’t always wear evenly so often the one we cant see easily is worse off.

Timing Chain fun on an Audi Q7. Intense.

Here we have the rear of an Audi Q7 engine. This section requires the removal of the gearbox for access. So ultimately the complete subframe and powertrain needs to be removed. and then there is room to split off the gearbox and all of the associated intake and exhaust plumbing. If you look closely you can see some of the timing tool locking pins are fitted. This job started out as chasing oil leaks and ended in timing chain replacement as some ‘routine maintenance’.

More brakes, This time BMW M5

Check out these massive stoppers! These things are absolutely huge. Huge power under the bonnet requires matching huge stopping power to match. Nice Genuine fitment here, we also have some nice aftermarket options out there for these.

Oil Burning BMW for repair

BMW in for heavy oil consumption. The car was performing fine however the oil usage was high. Tests came back with using about 1Litre of oil per 1000km’s. Thankfully this owner had a mechanical breakdown insurance who came to the rescue and paid for a large portion of the repairs. As it turned out we did 2 of these jobs in August.

Both with policy’s through different providers. This one required ‘exhaust’ valve guides and valve stem seals. A reasonably common issue. The work involved removing the cylinder head for inspection and repairs as required. The owner in this case opted to renew the timing chain ‘kit’. The timing tool in ‘blue’ is fitted here as we ‘time’ the engine and torque up the crank and cam pulleys.

BMW’s twinning

Our car TOY006 was in for brakes and then its twin arrives for the same job. Snap, hit repeat in the shop.

AC Cobra

Great seeing these arrive at WEEU. We are also looking after a few at the Hamilton shop, Terapa Auto Electrical. This particular one is a Graham Berry built replica. My 2 and 4 year year old boys were lucky enough to get special treatment with this car when we ran into the owner at a car show….

RS Audi BIG brakes!!!

This is only a little car, but these brakes are huge!!

Our new neighbours

So after a long couple of years dealing with noise and construction, trucks, trucks, and more trucks, we now have a shiny new building to look at from our entrance. I took this pic early morning, after the builders were done and before the tenants started moving. If you’ve not been to us for a while or at all then this landmark will let you know you’ve arrived at Wellington European….

More Tyres

So if you didn’t already know, we kicked off doing tyres at the end of 2021., and its been a huge success for us as we were already outsourcing this work, now we have taken out the middle man and have far more control over the timings of our jobs. Helps that both our apprentices have come to us from tyre shops too so they know their way around the equipment.

Some of the brands we have easy access to include, Continental, Maxxis, Pirelli, Hankook, Nankang and more