Luis’s Corner of (non) Wisdom

Ever since I saw the BMW Style 128 wheels, I fell in love with them. Unfortunately BMW makes them only for 5-series and X3s in 19″ (and 7-Series and X5s in 21″), but not for my E46 3-Series. The problem with the 5-Series wheels is the offset, which basically says how inside or outside the wheel fits. If too much offset, the wheel will rub on the inside; if too little offset, it will rub the fender.

For a couple of months I researched all over the internet but found nothing about fitting them on a 3-Series. One time I even bid for a set of 18″ replicas in eBay, but I didn’t win at the last minute.

Once I perfectly understood the offset concept, I developed a little offset calculator in Excel. Taking my 17″ stock wheel specs, I found out that the X3 19″ wheel offsets could fit my car. I was not sure, because in the front the wider X3 wheel extended about 17 mm towards the strut. I looked at my car from below and decided that there was indeed enough space for it.

So, I started looking for the X3 version of those wheels. I found replicas in Finishline Wheels and I sent three emails asking if they knew something about fitting them on an E46 3-Series. I never got any response. I even went ahead and ordered from them (at almost $1,100 + S/H to El Paso, TX). I got an email the next day saying they were out of stock. I replied asking a few questions, and never got an answer. About three weeks later I even ordered again. Again they were out of stock and didn’t reply to my emails. I ended up very disappointed with Finishline Wheels’s customer service.

I also contacted Lakeshore Wheel and Tire but they didn’t have the wheels in stock either.

One late Saturday night a friend of mine asked me if I had contacted my local BMW dealership. I said I hadn’t because I thought they would be way too expensive. He showed me a brochure, and to my surprise, they were discounted (at around $1,500, tax included and here in Chihuhua). On Monday morning I was placing the order.

Now, the tires. I was between 225/35R19 for front and 255/30R19 for back, or 235/35R19 and 265/30R19. I wanted the latter, but I was not sure if 265 would fit. I looked all around Chihuahua and no one had them in stock (in any brand). If I ordered them, the ETA would be from one to two months.

Enter TireRack. I decided to take the risk on the 235/265 tires and placed an order on a Wendesday night. Early Thursday morning I got an email from Damon, a sales representative warning me about 265 being too wide and probably requiring fender rolling. I called and could not reach him, but he called back within the hour. He told me that they didn’t recommend more than 245. I told them my back wheel had 51 mm of offset, and he said their wheels had in the 40 to 45 mm range, so the tires might actually fit. I told him to go ahead and place the order. Great customer service this time!

One week later I had my Goodyear Eagle F1 tires here in Chihuahua, and I went to a tire dealer to fit them on my car. When he saw the wheels, he told me immediately they wouldn’t fit. I told him that I had made my research and they should fit, so we decided to try them on. To his surprise (but not mine, although I must say I was a bit scared), they fit perfectly (but barely, a few millimeters from everywhere). They haven’t rubbed anywhere in around two weeks, so I think I can say it was a complete success!

Since I didn’t find any information on the web about fitting those wheels on an E46 3-Series, I decided to write this post to show that it can be done, in case anybody would like those wheels for his car.

I know somebody might want to see a photo, so here it is:

Finally, the specs:

• Front stock: 17″ x 7.5″, 41 mm offset, 225/45R17 tire
• Front modified: 19″ x 8.5″, 46 mm offset, 235/35R19 tire
• Back stock: 17″ x 8.5″, 50 mm offset, 245/40R17 tire
• Back modified: 19″ x 9″, 51 mm offset, 265/30R19 tire

Yesterday, a coworker of mine was working on improving the performance of a report for one of our customers.

If a big enough period of time was selected, the report could take over a minute, which was totally unacceptable. In its previous form, the report was a big SQL query that returned the data almost ready to display it on screen. The query was taking a long time, and I asked him to take a look and see if he could improve the performance.

He started tweaking the SQL and gained important improvements, but it was still taking too long. So I suggested an idea where he could make a couple of much simpler queries, and join them on the client side. He didn’t seem to understand how those simple queries could get to the same result, so I asked if he understood what the report was supposed to show. He said that he had not taken a look at it yet, and was trying to improve on specific parts of the big SQL query.

I explained to him the expected results from the report. A couple of hours later, he had the report taking less than a second.

What’s the moral here? Always know about what you are ultimately trying to achieve. You may be able to fix a part of the current process (the big SQL query), but sometimes a totally new process is a better alternative (simpler queries with client-side processing). If you don’t know where you want to get in the end, you won’t be able to find alternate solutions.

A couple of months ago I read The Way of the Shark by Greg Norman, the Australian pro golfer. It is an autobiography that talks about various aspects of his life, including golf and business. Overall I think it is a good book, and I enjoyed it during the three days it took me to read it cover to cover.

I admire Greg Norman because he is one of few famous sportsmen that have been able to transcend the world of sports and build a business empire around him. Greg Norman is involved in businesses from very different industries: golf course design, clothing, wines, real-estate development, and golf club retailing come to mind (see his web site).

One think I took from his book and that has helped me the last few days is DIN and DIP. It stands for Do It Now and Do It Proper. Sometimes, when I arrive to the office in the morning or when I finish a long task, I don’t feel like starting a new task. DIN basically reminds me that, either now or later during the day, I still have to do my tasks, so it’s better to get them done sooner. DIP means that once you decide to do something (right now, according to DIN), you have to do the best you can, so you don’t have to redo it later.

I have a little post-it note with this acronym on my monitor, to continuously remind me to just do things, now and right. And I think it has worked quite well!