[quote=“the wobbly steering Norseman”]And, do you know a good, reliable garage in the Hsintien (Xindian) area, that will not take you to the cleaners?
[/quote]
What about the Chrysler dealership on Bei-shing Rd. and (I think) Jung-cheng Rd.? They have a large workshop in the back. Just drive south on Bei-shing Rd. until you come to the park on your right that has a rock climbing wall. The Chrysler place is on your left. Its between the Chichang and Hsintien City Hall MRT stations.
[quote=“sandman”][quote=“the wobbly steering Norseman”]And, do you know a good, reliable garage in the Hsintien (Xindian) (Xindian) area, that will not take you to the cleaners?
[/quote]
What about the Chrysler dealership on Bei-shing Rd. and (I think) Jung-cheng Rd.? They have a large workshop in the back. Just drive south on Bei-shing Rd. until you come to the park on your right that has a rock climbing wall. The Chrysler place is on your left. Its between the Chichang (Qizhang) and Hsintien (Xindian) City Hall MRT stations.[/quote]
That’s excactly the place that want to screw me around. They can’t even give a good explaination for why all tires have to be changed - I would guess it is something wrong with the steering mechanism, balance of the front wheels or similar - not all four tires…
[quote=“X3M”][quote=“sandman”][quote=“the wobbly steering Norseman”]And, do you know a good, reliable garage in the Hsintien (Xindian) (Xindian) (Xindian) area, that will not take you to the cleaners?
[/quote]
What about the Chrysler dealership on Bei-shing Rd. and (I think) Jung-cheng Rd.? They have a large workshop in the back. Just drive south on Bei-shing Rd. until you come to the park on your right that has a rock climbing wall. The Chrysler place is on your left. Its between the Chichang (Qizhang) (Qizhang) and Hsintien (Xindian) (Xindian) City Hall MRT stations.[/quote]
That’s excactly the place that want to screw me around. They can’t even give a good explaination for why all tires have to be changed - I would guess it is something wrong with the steering mechanism, balance of the front wheels or similar - not all four tires…[/quote]
How good’s you Chinese? Don’t mean to be rude, but are you sure that when they say “change” the tyres they don’t mean “rotate” the tyres? Tread wears unevenly on tyres, so you need to periodically swap them around from front to back and from one side to the other in order to make sure they wear evenly. Failure to do this can certainly lead to the car pulling, as can failure to ensure the wheels are properly balanced. It can also, I believe, make the steering feel a bit wobbly, although I haven’t experienced that myself. However, both those procedures should be fairly inexpensive. Have you tried one of those tyre places? There’s one further along Bei-shing Rd. on your left as you travel south.
And BTW, with just 26,000km on the tyres, there should be totally no need for replacements yet, unless you have the habit of doing donuts and spinning the wheels excessively. Anyway, its easy enough to check that for yourself – just take a look at the treads. Sounds like they either don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re trying to rip you off. I’d try the tyre place further along the road.
ummm… I believe the quote was $25,000 NT. I think that a simple tyre rotation wouldn’t cost anywhere near that.
So, if it was rotating the tyres for $25K then I am sure that someone is trying to screw someone.
Sandman and Bassman, thank you both for your replies, and no, I don’t speak or understand any Chinese.
After retrieving the car from the Chrysler garage, my wife got a call from a mechanics that could explain to her in a way she understood (and could translate to me). 
The tyres (General Amercia or something like that), were too poor quality and not supposed to be on such a heavy car. :shock: Both front tyres were worn on the edges, but not in the middle, causing the wobbling (according to that guy). -Get this: These are the tyres that was delivered with the car when I bought it from them (brand new) a couple of years back. 
They would not suggest to change only the front tyres to a better brand - not good to mix different brands, so four new tyres it had to be. 
So, now I am $17K poorer (they gave me some discount), and have Goodyear Eagle on the wheels. The wobbling has stopped. 
Yeah baby!
X3M, it sounds like you really got ripped off!
17,000 NT for four tires comes to 4250 NT per tire! I recently bought Michelin “X-One” tires for 2500 NT each, and they are considered to be very high quality tires. In fact, they were rated by Consumer Reports magazine as the world’s best tires for wet weather. (Read about it here.) And if I wanted to save money, I could have bought Taiwanese tires (brands like “Federal” or “National”) for only 1200 NT each!
Well, the 17,000 NT that you paid might have included a “labor” charge, but the labor shouldn’t have been more than 1000 NT because it’s pretty simple to change tires. (If it wasn’t simple, then there wouldn’t be jacks and wrenches in the boot of every car.)
So even if you had to pay 1000 NT for labor, then that means you still paid 4000 NT per tire, which is way too much.
What brand of tires did you get?
Yeah, I am a sucker, and I know it… 
I also do not like to push my wife in front of me, engaging her in a war of words and concepts she does understand little or nothing about.
Anyway, the tyres are: Goodyear Eagle GA Plus, 225/60R16. 
They also fixed the headlight switch, which had loose/unreliable connection (the headlisghts only came on now and then), and did standard maintainence incl. change of oil.
Anyway, we have been regular customers there for a couple of years already. Every time we go there, we feel we get ripped off, and it got even worse now that they have changed management.
With my lack of Chinese communication ability and my wife’s lack of interest/knowledge in car mechanics/vocabulary, we are easy prey, and we know that. 
So, what would it be in Chinese:
Rotate the tyres:
Balance the wheels:
Check the tyre treads:
Chinese terms for car mecahnics was origin of this topic anyway, wasn’t it?
[quote=“Mark Nagel”]X3M, it sounds like you really got ripped off!
17,000 NT for four tires comes to 4250 NT per tire! I recently bought Michelin “X-One” tires for 2500 NT each, and they are considered to be very high quality tires. [/quote]
Street price on the Eagle GA will depend on whether it’s S(180kph), T(189kph), or V(239kph) rated. I’m going to assume that they sold you the V-rated ones, because there’s more money to be made. Out the door price in the USA for your size is about NT$3800 each. Once you factor in the the cost to have them shipped here, and the tax on all imported auto parts (as far as I know, they don’t produce Eagle GAs in Taiwan), NT$4250 doesn’t sound so bad.
You might have saved some $$ by going to an independent wheel and tire shop, but unless you are longtime customers, know the owner, or were introduced to that shop by someone you know and trust, it’s a gamble, as I’ve heard those small shops will often intentionally break something on your car, then tell you it was already broken and needs to be fixed.
The size of the tire also will greatly influence cost.
As for buying Michelin X-One for NT$2500, those have roughly similar street prices to the Eagle GA in the same sizes. For that price, it sounds like your car probably has 14" wheels, which will definitely be cheaper to buy tires for when compared to X3M’s 16" wheels. If you have larger wheels, then you got a screaming deal!
As for automotive terms in Chinese, I don’t know the exact terms, but I usually explain it to them in layman terms until they get what I’m talking about. For example, for rotating tires, I’d tell them that I want them to take the tires off the front and move them to the back, etc, then they’ll say “Oh! you want us to rotate the tires!” 
Another thing is when they change the oil, make sure they change the filter too. I found that at the dealer network for my car, it’s standard practice to only change the filter every other oil change. There’s really no point in changing the oil, but not the filter, because the new oil is going to catch a lot of the dirty stuff from the dirty filter. The price of the filter is negligible, so insist that they change it each time.
balance wheels: lun2tai1ding4wei4. I think it costs a few hundred NT
Ben, thanks a lot, you make me feel a little bit better with your price comparison.
I will check the rating on the tyres next time I use the car.
So, maybe they ripped me off a little bit, but not a major rip-off on the cost of the tyres.
I still have a bad feeling about having to buy new ones, intstead of try rotating first.
But hell, I got new, nice tyres, not the shitty America brand that actually have exploded on the freeway once already.
I find it hard to believe that Chrysler would put sub-standard tires from the factory, as that’s a safety issue, and a lawsuit waiting to happen. Even more so, for a US automaker, as the US is such a lawsuit happy place. I think they told you that to get you to buy more expensive tires. 
The most common cause of worn on the edges, but not in the middle is underinflation. You should check the tire pressures regularly to avoid this. If the tires are overinflated, then they will wear in the middle but not on the edges.
You can get away with changing only the front tires. Of course, it’s better to change all 4, but changing only 2 is no problem, as long as the tires on each axle are the same brand/model/size. The only place where it might be dangerous to mix front and rear is on a high performance car that will be driven aggressively, as different levels of road adhesion between front and back may upset the handling balance of the car near the limits. This isn’t a problem with your average Chrysler. But, of course, they are going to tell you to change all 4, as that’s in their best interest. But, if all 4 need to be changed based on their wear patterns, by all means, you should. If you rotate your tires regularly, then usually the 4 tires should wear evenly and need to be changed at the same time, unless you have alignment problems.
That particular Chrysler Voyager is delivered standard with steel wheels, but I asked them to throw in Aluminium Wheels for free, as they had that as cost options in the catalogue.
I remarked the General America brand when they delivered the car, but they claimed they could not find the right size Goodyear to fit the aluminium wheels. Well, gullible as I am, I accepted that.
As for the inflation of the tyres, I have had a hell of a time to get the correct air-pressure information from them. They do not want to understand what I need this information for. It is not on the sticker on the door frame as described in the manual - maybe because I “upgraded” the wheels…
The inflation information should be on the side of the tire. The information in the car’s owner manual or stickers on the car itself only apply to the OEM tires. If you are using tires other than the same brand/model/size as what the car came with, then those numbers don’t apply.
Yeah, dealers tend to want to tell you as little as possible. As far as cars go, Taiwan is not a DIY type of society. I had a hell of a time trying to get the dealer to tell me what the factory recommended motor oil weight was. I never got a straight answer out of them. They would only tell me what they recommended, which was whatever they happened to sell. Turns out it was quite different then the factory recommendation, which I got out of the owner’s manual.
Right, my car has 14" wheels. The tyres I bought are 185/70R14. I’m glad I don’t have an SUV! I didn’t know larger tyres were so expensive!
[quote]So, what would it be in Chinese:
Rotate the tyres
Balance the tyres
Check the tyre treads [/quote]
“Rotate the tyres”: “ba3 lun2 tai1 duei4 diao4”
If you want the front and rear tyres switched, then say “ba3 lun2 tai1 qian2 hou4 duei4 diao4”.
“Balance the tyres”: “ba3 lun2 tai1 nong4 ping2 heng2”
“Check the tyre treads”: I don’t know how to say “treads”, but you can just say “Check the quality of the tyres”: “jian3 cha2 lun2 tai1 de0 pin3 zhi2”.
This is turning into a thread with lots of good stuff. Keep it comin’
This almost belongs in the Knowledge base.
The price for the 16" Goodyear Eagle GA tires isn’t even that bad, as they are touring tires. You’d probably have a heart attack if you priced out 17" or 18" tires, especially the imported brands in high performance and/or OEM models that people shopping for these sizes usually buy. Often times up to NT$6000+ for each tire. :shock: I don’t look forward to replacing the 17" tires on my car when the time comes. 
On the flip side, in 13" and 14" sizes, you can probably find Taiwanese made tires for under NT$1000 each.
The width and profile of the tires will also have an effect on the price. The general rule is the wider the tire, and the lower the profile, the higher the price.
For those not-automotively inclined, in Mark’s example:
185 is the width (in mm, higher is more expensive)
70 is the profile (the height of the sidewall as a percentage of the width, lower is more expensive)
14 is the diameter (in inches, higher is more expensive)
R means that it’s a radial tire (pretty much most modern tires produced today)
How’s about a 315/30R18 Michelin for NT$12000+ for one tire? :shock: 
Ben, if you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of performance for durability, I’ve found the Dunlop LM 702 17" very reliable and economical at about NT$5000 each. Another tire in the same price range is the Toyo Trampio Guwn; decent overall performance, though quite noisy.
Ben,
You seem to really be an expert about tyres! So I would like to know your opinion about what brand of tyres you think are the best. Also I would like to know how you rate these brands from best to worst: Michelin, Bridgestone, Firestone, Goodyear, Dunlop, and Toyo.
Well, anyone can answer this question, not just Ben.
Mark
DTC has a pretty informative website about tires and what all the thingies mean:
discounttiredirect.com/direct/home.jsp
I saved a moderate amount on my last tires by avoiding the dealership’s recommendations, since my car can’t even get up to half the speed their suggested tire was rated for.
As far as “best”, best for what? Soggy cold Seattle winters where the road surface varies from being damp to being covered with water? Scorching hot Arizona summers where the pavement might hit 140F degrees? (I know, you mean Taiwan, where neither is the case – but these are the extreme examples that I know from experience.) Outrunning the cops in a Porsche, driving a bimbo box around with the kids in back, or your typical frustrated urbanite’s mix of both?