I am taking delivery of my 2004 MINI Cooper S on the 29th of April. I am getting the JCW wheels and he wants $80.00 to install the retrofit kit, $160.00 for alignment, and $80.00 to mount the wheels to the car. So is this a reasonable price or am I being ripped off?

 

Hey davecsumini,

Can you comment on this question. I know the retrofit kit changes the wheel stop positions for the 18 inch wheels, but how much time does BMW quote for the labor?

cmilliet,
Are you sure the dealer is charging $80 to "mount" the wheels on the car, or is it to mount the tires on the wheels on then balance them? The latter sounds reasonable at $20 per wheel---pretty much standard.

What I don't understand is why the car has to be re-aligned? That part doesn't make sense. All you're doing is putting a larger tire on the car, unless it has to be aligned for making room for the tires to git under the fenders...and that doesn't make sense either.

Who is the Dealer?

 

what retrofit kit?

Alignment not needed when putting new wheels on.

What tires are you using, and who's doing the mount/balance?

 

The JCW wheels do call for a retrofit fit to install new wheel stops so the inside edges don't make contact with the fenderwells. Take a look at davecusmini's threat about his new JCW wheels in the Tuire & Wheel forum....and other releases at motoringfile.com talk about the retrofit kit. But, I agree an alignment is not necessary.

 

The MINI dealer is Brian Harris MINI. I ordered the JCW wheels from Classic MINI in Ohio and I am getting a set of Toyo 205/40/18 tires from onlinetires.com. I am having them mounted and balanced at NTB for $15.00 per tirewheel (because the dealer wanted $350.00 just to do this task). Then the dealership was going to install the steering angle stop retrofit kit for $80.00 (1 hour of labor), next they said the car had to be aligned after putting on the retrofit kit for $160.00 (2 hours of labor). Last but not least $80.00 to put the wheels on the car (1 hour of labor).

 

Almost sounds like the dealer is wanting their cut of a wheel sale. Have them do the retrofit and go elsewhere for the remainder of the work. An alignment should not be necessary unless the steer stops do some weird thing. Classic MINI may have the answer to that question.
Enjoy the wheels and do let us know how things work out.

 

>>I am getting the JCW wheels and he wants $80.00 to install the retrofit kit, $160.00 for alignment, and $80.00 to mount the wheels to the car. So is this a reasonable price or am I being ripped off?
>>...how much time does BMW quote for the labor?

That sounds like reasonable "Dealer" prices. As far as "official" labor hr, retrofit kit (1 hr), alignment (2 hr), mount and balace (1 hr). The dealers typically charge anywhere from $80-90/hr.

Here's my suggestion. Try the 18" without the retrofit kit first to see if there's rubbing issue. A point I want to stress:

YOU MIGHT NOT NEED RETROFIT KIT.

This will save you the cost of the kit, labor for installation, and alignment cost. I intalled the 18" w/o the kit and no rubbing issue after a week of driving. Even when doing high-speed donuts (forward, backward, left, and right) in an empty parking lots, no rubbing noted. In any case, the retrofit kit can always be installed later if neccessary.

As far as the prices goes, I manage to get everything under 2G ($1956.92 to be exact). That includes wheels, center caps, 205/40ZR18 Toyo Proxes 4, balance & mount, and shipping