That's a great question. When I first bought the car I went to a local wheel shop and picked this design of wheel. They had all the specs from the car and the factory wheels in front of them. Somehow the salesman goofed and ordered 7.5" wide wheels instead of 8.5". When they arrived, they didn't test fit the wheels for brake clearance and just mounted the tires. After finding out the front calipers required and additional .75" to clear he offered to get me wheel spacers for it at no extra cost. Me being an auto dummy at the time (yes, like everyone else here, owning and building a 3S has taught me a lot) I never questioned the wheel size or the fact that there was a wad of rubber sticking out beyond the wheel giving it a truck tire look. They mounted the 245/40/18's to a 7.5" wheel and it looked like shit.Quote:
Originally Posted by mb3000
He had the spacers custom made, at least that's what he told me, with the lugs built into them. The spacers bolt to the hubs and the wheels bolt to the spacers so no real extra stress on the studs. There may be a little extra on the actual hub bearings because the mounting point has now moved out 1" but it has been like that for going on 6 years now.
Back on track, they put the 245/40/18 wheel/tire combo on the car and while I didn't care for the way it looked I figured I would drive it home like that and see if it would grow on me. It didn't, and I went back complaining about the look. They worked with me because pretty much once I drove away I accepted the package. They basically sold me another set of tires at cost and put the "stock size" tires on the old stock wheels. They went through test fitting a couple tires before I was satisfied with the way they looked. That got me what I have today, 225/45/18's on 7.5" wide wheels.
I buy the highest traction rated tires that Kuhmo sells and they stick pretty well in the heat.
Jeff
