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.

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.

Tyres!!

Something we’ve talked about for sometime now is to be doing our own tyres onsite. Machines, stock, consumables, and training all happened last week…. The reasons we’ve held back has been space, equipment and set up. However recent changes have created more room in the workshop, as well as 2 new junior techs started with us have both come from tyre shops, and have tyre fitting and balancing experience. Being members of 2 of NZ’s largest co-ops also gives us great buying power for a large range of wheels and tyres.

So…… we have done it with our first retail sales done in oct 2021. Ahead of schedule as we wanted to be up and running for November. We do have many brands to choose from with more in the pipeline, however the market we are in we think of Pirelli is a great fit.

Our aim is to provide better turn around timeframes with our tyres, as relying on outwork in general can lead to disappointment. Local supply will mean same day delivery in most cases and in time we will build our onsite stock.

Te Rapa Auto Electrical

Our new business venture in Hamilton, take a look at some snippets from our first newsletter….

terapaautoelectrical.co.nz Note, the website is still to be updated, but you get the idea….)

Very exciting times for us here at Wellington European, taking on another business in another location, a great new challenge for us and we see both businesses will complement each other and add to the services offered in both locations.

Dash Cams / Mongoose

Some new tech on board. With the purchase of ‘TeRapa Auto Electrical’ we have opened up some avenues for other services and accessory’s.
To get things going we have got into stock the top spec Dash-cam system mongoose offers. Front and rear camera systems with multiple functions. Added peace of mind while driving, check out all the features here..

Check out the Mongoose Range here

British car day

Quick visit to the British and European car day today, prompted me to pull a few photos from a few years ago when I took my Cortina, which is currently locked up in the back corner of the shop needing some attention. Lack of time so the poor cars being neglected.

Ours is the blue one, wish i could claim the lotus!!!

Wow, has it been a year for WEEU

Wow I cannot believe it but we are coming up on a year on from re-branding. What a wild ride its been.

We’ve done everything we set out to do 12 months ago, We’ve added a hoist, bought more tools, changed up the loan cars and more…

BUT!!

There’s always more to do, improvements to make, and more cars to service and repair…

Watch out for the 12 month summary blog!! And whats up next…