Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

As many of you have discovered, getting decent 13 inch tires in the US is nearly impossible now days. These tires are available in other country's so I'm wondering why it's not possible to get container full of good ones say Yokahama's and a couple of other favorites. I'm currently in love with Falken's that I can no longer get in 13". Sprite's and Midgets plus some others can use them as well. Seems a small supply would move fairly rapidly but not rapidly enough to satisfy the current tire business model.

Kurt

since Lotus are the minority, perhaps reaching out to Moss Motors for all those MG's with 13" tires, find out who they recommend to get tires from as i'm sure their members must be buying tires in mass much more than Lotus folk.

I suspect the reason that there is a difference in tire availability is due to certification/regulation v market demand. To sell a tire in the US it has to meet and be certified to the US standards, the market here for various sizes fitted to Elan is very small and doesn't justify the hassle for the manufacturer to do this. One of the parts supplier can't just ship in tires not certified to US standards and sell them as they'd be violating quite a few laws I suspect.

You can probably buy them and get them in the country yourself but technically the tires woudln't be road legal, so come with some risk in use.

This much the same issue of why you can't buy interesting new cars here. Everyone wants automatic SUVs and the number of people who want something interesting, e.g. manual wagon, isn't large enough for the manufacturer to make a (much) profit supplying when you take the certification process into account.

Well, you two make some good points.

The legal aspect of importing and selling tires isn't something that I considered. At first thought a tire that works just fine in England would be just fine here. Especially if they were sold here a few years ago, but......

I'm tempted to give the import of decent tires a go myself. Right now I could use three set's so once that is satisfied I probably won't bother.

Kurt

I order tires from Europe all the time. The shipping cost is a killer, but you can get anything you want.

I'm not in the motor trade or transport business; but have shipped a chassis and a pile of parts from the US back to Europe.

My suggestion, for what it is worth, is to perhaps work out who would need a body / chassis / pile of other safely boxed up "unobtainium" and fill the rest of the container with sets of tyres.

Containers do not cost a fortune if they are "crowd funded".

Suggestion: organise it sooner rather than later as the respective political fruitcakes in GB and the USA are doing their level best to make life complicated for everyone other than the billionaires on this forum.

Glen, your point on shipping is the hitch and why I would think a container full might get that cost within reason.


Frog Elan....On government, I think we are in agreement!

Kurt