Someone Selling My Rims? WTH - My Mugen MR5 rims found for sale without my knowledge

One afternoon in September 2005 Dieter called and said to me "I don't know how to tell you this, but... I think your rims are for sale on Beyond". Beyond.ca is one of the largest automotive-related forums in Western Canada. Dieter was scanning the For Sale threads and found a set of Mugen MR5 rims for sale in a city called Lethbridge, about 300kms south of Calgary. I admit, they looked suspiciously like the set I purchased at auction in Japan.

Rims I Purchased In Japan (L) - Rims For Sale In Lethbridge (R)

Dieter promised to call his contact in Japan and see what he could find out. I called Allan because he lives in Lethbridge and it's a small city with a small community of enthusiasts so the odds were pretty good he knew the person selling them.

It turned out to be one of his good friends and business partners named Steve who was selling the rims. I sent him my pictures from the auction and he spoke to Lon and Steve and he called me back the next day to explain. A lot of the cars shipped over had parts placed in them by Lon in Japan so they could be sold here. The rims arrived in a Toyota Levin from Japan but there was no note saying they were a specific person, so it was assumed that they were to be sold. The good news was: because of my pictures, they properly identified them as mine and I would get them. The bad news was that they'd been in the country for most of the summer and Steve used them on his drag-car and there was no rubber left on the tires... Remember this car from the car show?

Turns out those actually WERE my MR5s I showed to my fiance that day!

Anyways,  I told him as long as the rims were in good condition, I didn't care about the tires. He told me that Lon wanted $100 shipping and handling for sending them from Japan. And I was fine with that, even with the whole mix-up... I was happy the rims were here and in good condition. All I wanted were the MR5s.

He offered to bring them to Calgary for me but I would have to wait a few weeks until he came up again or I could come to Lethbridge and pick them up. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say. We made arrangements for that coming weekend and Saturday morning, bright and early, I jumped in my car and headed south on Highway 2.

The day was... Interesting.

The rims were actually in two different locations. Steve had two of them and had "sold" them to another friend who could only afford two, so two were at the friend's house. Allan drove us all around Lethbridge the entire afternoon. First we picked up the first two rims from Steve, then to the friend's house. The guy wasn't home and the rims were already mounted on his Civic which was sitting outside. Allan spoke to the guy's parents, whom he knew, and they let him in their garage to see if there were any extra rims we could put on the Civic after we "repo'd" the two MR5s. There weren't. So back to Allan's to get some jack stands and a jack. We finally got the last two MR5s from the Civic and then Allan treated me for lunch at the Burger Baron.

Say what you will about everything we went thru  to get the rims, Allan did all of this and went to all this trouble and I wasn't even his customer.  I bought my CR-X from Dieter. I made the arrangements to ship the rims with Dieter and he had no obligation to be the go-between for myself and Steve. He didn't have to drive me all over Lethbridge to sort this out and then buy me lunch. As a matter of fact he didn't even keep the $100; he sent it back to Lon in Japan. We've kept in touch off and on over the years and is a really nice guy. If I was in the market for another Japanese import, he's the only person I'd call.

Funny how a lot of the really good people I've met thru acquiring parts for my CR-X I've become friends with after mix-ups. Richard who sold me the Personal Box ashtray that FedEx lost, Matt who sold me some replacement glass for my glasstop on Project 88 that kept arriving broken, and Allan and the MR5 situation. Just goes to show that just because a deal goes a little sideways, it doesn't mean it's going to end badly.

Allan wasn't kidding about the tires either. They were worn right down to the belts, but the rims - while in desperate need a good cleaning - were in excellent condition and had never been stripped or restored before. In the spring, I found a complete set of lug caps and a Mugen key on eBay to complete my set.

Mugen MR5s Finally Arrived! The tires didn't survive being used on a drag car though.

Mugen MR5s after cleaning, installation and some lug caps

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Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.