a new set of shoes
February 21st, 2005 by boon
I’ve been wanting a set of rims since last year, and thanks to some really great relatives and friends, I was able to get me a set last weekend from the angpows I got from the wedding.
A car-crazy friend of mine was generous enough to spend his afternoon with me in Klang, where I sourced my rims from. He took me to a shop called Jooi Seng, and judging from first looks, I knew that this place was hot. All sorts of cars and people were going in and out of that shop. Well, mostly malays, for some reason.
There were about eight or nine 14 inch rims for sale, but none really stood out. There were 3 Taiwan KR rims for sale, which was good because I knew these were dependable sets, known for its lightness and durability. My friend has a pair and I know he doesn’t just play make-up on his car. It didn’t take long to find out that these were the rims I needed, after doing a weight-test. These were exceptionally light and attractive, too!
I sort of wanted to get mid-range street performance tyres to fit the rims. My friend recommended I get a Bridgestone Potenza instead of the Falken Azenis tyres, insisting that the Azenis wore out too fast to warrant performance over value. But the supervisor who was giving the sales pitch quoted us RM130 for Falken Ziex tyres, which does well under normal circumstances. And since these are 512 performance tyres (instead of 502 regular-grade), they’d do well to add pleasure to my ride.
It’s the 3rd day now since I got my new set of wheels, and it’s hard to tell at first, but high-speed corners isn’t such a scary thing anymore. Traction is great, and I’ve yet to see how the car holds up on wet roads. I don’t feel any performance degradation (which does occur if you replace with bigger and heavier rims) whatsoever, and the ride has been smooth… even despite the lower profile tyres (165/55/14). Definitely an improvement over my old ones (they were bald, too).
What’s left in store? Maybe a set of sports springs and absorbers. But that’ll have to wait for the next round of healthy cash injection.
More photos here.