Our Tyre-Shop

Our tyre workshop introduces itself

In 1983 I came into contact with the business through a friend who had a small tyre shop. I always helped there and so I grew into this business. At that time we had started with used machines from Hofmann and little by little more and more came into the business. First there was only the tyre assembly, then there were also repairs from time to time, and then the more exotic trade with light alloy wheels, which were expensive at that time and could not be found on every vehicle. Today this is of course different, steel rims are the exception, most vehicles already come from the factory with light alloy wheels.

With increasing demands on the balancing technology and also the careful assembly of the wheels, new tools and equipment were added again and again, the market changed slowly at that time, here 15″ were the common diameters for sporty high-performance vehicles.

In 1992 the first own workshop was opened, after the original tyre trade had ended its business activities, because the owner at that time had taken new professional paths and sold his machines. So came the first own balancing machine, a used Hofmann Geodyna with digital displays and much easier handling than the old ER-2 with pointers and separately measured correction planes. Then a new Hofmann Monty was added, and the first basic equipment was there to get started. At that time I had chosen these machines so that they worked without any problems up to 18″, at that time this size could be installed here perhaps once a year, so this could definitely be considered a long-term investment and work well with it. Both machines had worked without any problems for more than 10 years, there was hardly anything you could not do with them. The market was still manageable and price wars like today were unimaginable at that time. With the upcoming internet age (mid 90s) the price wars started, customers could comfortably compare prices and the first wholesalers went online to catch customers. We as a dealer went this way, too, as there were undreamt-of possibilities for us to buy our tyres.

The development in the tyre sector then proceeded at an unimaginable speed, our first price lists still fitted on a single sheet of paper, so that we had more than 95% of everything that the customers needed. Then everything changed, there were more and more manufacturers from all over the world, the dimensions of the tyres became more and more varied, today a catalogue with about 300 pages would be necessary to offer everything the market has and the customers need, with the constantly fluctuating prices printed lists were no longer an option. On the side, our machinery then also became obsolete with remarkable speed, newer and newer challenges came up, which sometimes led to thinking about giving up the business.

The challenges of recent years:
Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems
Runflat tyres
Wide tyres, you really can call them so…
Diameter over 20″
Sensitive and very expensive rims
and much more besides

In order to be able to continue to be involved, a new machine was first brought in from Ravaglioli, the Italians now have a leading role as a supplier in the tyre business here, Hofmann had at that time given in to the appeal of globalisation and no longer had any interesting alternatives in the programme for us. In addition, it had become apparent that they no longer wanted to know anything about the old machines, which led to the sale of the Geodyna, which was actually supposed to run as a second machine, and to the switch to Ravaglioli. Where in the past one could start directly and be sure that no customer would leave the farm dissatisfied, today one has to think about further equipment to achieve these goals. The first thing to do was to optimize the clamping devices of the balancing machine, Haweka is still the first address when it comes to these issues, there is almost nothing that you cannot get on the machine with their clamping devices in an optimal way to achieve excellent results. A special centering system from Haweka provides the necessary precision here, which is necessary to get wheels running really smoothly. In the meantime, every tenth of a millimetre is important, which decides whether balancing is good or bad. The manufacturers of the machines sometimes dismiss this as reclamping tolerances, but this is not acceptable for good service. For example, if you take a wheel with a diameter of approx. 600 mm and a weight of 20 kg for the wheel, this results in 10 kg (=10000g) on each side of the central axis. If the wheel would now be only a tenth of a millimeter out of the middle, this results in 10000g/300mmx0,1mm = 3,3g! Clamping by means of a cone is rarely more successful than with 0.3mm offset from the center, because the wheel tends to press on the cone from above and thus no real centering takes place. This is the reason for the 10g, which are considered tolerable, but 10g unbalance at 100 Km/h seem like 2.5 kg, so actually not tolerable at all. We therefore avoid cone clamping as far as possible and prefer to use clamping flanges which expand with pressure on the front side and thus center the wheel before it is fixed to the machine’s mounting flange. In practice, we have a maximum of 3g reclamping tolerance here, which means less than a tenth of a millimetre of decentration and is negligible because the balancing weights are only graduated in 5g steps anyway. In order to clamp the wheel, we also avoid using a clamping pot as far as possible, but instead use a clamping flange which is placed in the bolt holes of the rim. This also eliminates the remaining uncertainties in clamping as far as possible and the wheel can be perfectly balanced. If there is still a problem here, we are able to determine the optimum position of the tyre in relation to the rim using the appropriate auxiliary programs and then achieve the optimum result. Of course, we have also purchased from Haweka for the motorcycle division, so that our customers are also pleased with perfect results.

This is better than conical fitting!
Also this equipment ensures better clamping!

Our tyre changer is also well equipped to cope with everything the market has to offer. Here we have attached great importance to being able to mount even runflat tyres with extremely low cross-sections safely and without damage.
Of course, we are also up to date with tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPM), here our partnership with Ateq and Tyresure has long proven itself, so that we are always at the cutting edge of technology. Beside Tyresure we also offer the original sensors, which are also used by the car manufacturer, so that also here the customer satisfaction is guaranteed. Even retrofits are possible, so that older vehicles can be upgraded for best security.

Speaking of motorcycles:
For us, even spoked wheels with tire tensioners are not exotic, we can also handle them well, they are becoming increasingly rare, but they still exist, and so do we, so bring them along, they are in the best hands with us.