• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR6 What are Original TR6 wheels with Michelin Red Lines worth?

Share this page

D

Deleted member 17586

Guest
Guest
Offline
I have 4 original wheels in excellent condition with center caps, trim rings and Michelin Red Line tires with 75% tread on my 75 TR6 and an thinking about selling them and putting on a set of 16" Konigs. What do you think? Originals with Red Lines or new Konigs with performance radials?
if Konigs, what are the originals worth?
Jim
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    57.2 KB · Views: 160
If your car looks as good as the wheels, you might want to keep them ( in case of selling or showing ) and get the Konigs for street.
 
Check the date on the tires, they do have a use by. As suggested, set them a side for show, if you have room.

Wayne
 
here's how to determine a tire's manufacture date:

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11

if they are old - say 7 years or more - they are suitable for tire swings, not driving.

the rims may be easier to sell [and certainly cheaper to ship] w/o the tires.

ps - i'll add, those wheels look so great it seems a shame to separate them from the car. if you just feel like a change perhaps put them asde for a few years and bring them back when you tire of konigs look. I run an assortment of wheels - steel, wires & vintage alloy just to have some variety.
 
Those look like the original brushed aluminum trim rings. If they don't have any curb rash on them they would be worth as much or more than the rims. I bet you could get $300.00 or more on ebay just for the trim rings.
 
When I bought my 75 TR6 in 2005 it had the original tires and wheels. We drove it back from Seattle with no problems. I did replace the wheels and tires with a set of Minilite replicas and 215/65/15 tires. When I had the car appraised the appraiser was scheptical about those being the original tires. He lookd for a data code and couldn't find it. I think he said date codes became manditory in 1980. Based on that he agreed the tires were original. The car has 14166 miles when I bought it. We added around 3300 on the drive back to Alabama.
I have the originals in the garage. I figure they will stay with the car if I decide to sell it.
I like the look of the big tires on the TR6. My replicas are 6" wide with the 215/65/15 tires they fit without any interferrence, look great and handle well. If your car is lowered or sags I'm not sure you can go as wide as I did.

BOBH
 
bobh said:
When I bought my 75 TR6 in 2005 it had the original tires and wheels. We drove it back from Seattle with no problems...
Click to expand...

You were fortunate. Our local club does a lot of driving and I have seen many tire failures that I would attribute to the age of the rubber. It is a lot more than just an embarrassing delay - one member nearly totaled his Healey - it is still being restored from the tread separation he had in 1998. That's one bad tire.

One day at breakfast that Healey owner (he's now a convert) and I chastised an MGA driver about the age of his tires. I do not know if he believed us then but he had two flats on the way home and after the second one he was certainly ready to concede the point.

BTW - I didn't mean to suggest that 7 years is a drop-dead limit, I was just imagining that few people would bother to buy and mount a 7 year old tire as they will be needing to replace before too long. I do not think there is a firm consensus on how old is too old -- though personally I would not drive on a 10 year-old tire.
 
Thanks for all the input. The manufacture date on 2 tires is X048 and 2 are X507. That makes the December 2007 And January 2008. They ride fine and no sidewall cracks. The rims, trim ring and centers are original. Maybe I should wrap them up and put them in the shed and hold them. The car has 40K original miles but has a few body dings and needs a repaint.
 
I have never seen a date code with an X [or any other alpha character] -- all the 21st century ones I have seen are 4 digits 'WWYY' usually wrapped in a cartouche separate from other codes. Still, it matters not for now if you plan to stash them.
 
The 07 in the date code means the tires were made in 1997 making them almost 17 years old. To me they would have no value unless you have a spare set of tires and rims and plan on using them for shows only.
 
Back
Top