Been to a couple tire shops around the superhighway and seems to be very expensive. wondering if there are any car accessory centers around chiang mai that you can get stuff at a bargain. any ideas anyone? specifically interested in getting a set of 16inch alloy rims at a reasonable price. so far so success.

TB

no problem if 15 inch

But with 16 inch, they know they have got you. No deals that I have ever found.

What's an inch between friends, eh? I'll bet the ladies couldn't tell the difference

There's a plethora of shops in CNX that sell 16"++ wheels and tires, here's a few we found "useful" when we shopped for them:

* Michelin shop on the super hwy near Carrefour - has the standard gamut of Thai brands, pricing was keen but nothing there we particuarly liked. Attentive and helpful.

* Michelin shop on the super hwy just before the Mae Sa/Fang Road works (heading towards Doi Suthep) - has a lot of imported brands - many more than most others. Perhaps not the cheapest, but many unique designs on offer. We bought here. Service was fantastic. Traded in our stock wheels/tires for a fair price. Have fixed 2x punctures for free since, and rotate our wheels every few months for free.

* Yokohama shop on the Eastern side fof the moat, towards the the S-E corner - carries the major Thai wheel brands (Lenso et all) and a few imports. Does really good prices on package deals, probably would have bought here if we didn't have to wait 2 weeks for stock availability.

* Goodyear shop on DoiSaket Rd, about 300m out from the super highway - has a good selection of Thai and a few imported wheels. Has no problems fitting four different sets of wheels to our car so we could see how they looked before committing (free service of course). Prices were keen. Would have bought here had we not found nicer looking (albeit more expensive) wheels elsewhere.

That's the tip of the iceberg of course - we must have looked at more than 20 mag wheel shops, though most cater primarily for pickup fittings, and the rest all carry the same small range of product. We can recommend all of the above however, hope this helps.