Today at 7:29 am
If you’ve never done it before, swapping to aftermarket wheels looks like buying shoes: pick a size you like and hope for the best. But hope is a terrible method. There’s a short list of things that have to align, or the wheel either won’t fit, or it will fit incorrectly in a way that you will notice at sixty miles per hour. Once you know the list, the whole process becomes dull in the best possible way.
First, check the pattern, then the bore, then the offset, and finally, the seat your nuts need. If you ignore offset, like I did with my first set, you end up with wheels that are tucked in so far that they look like they belong to a smaller car. Fixing this issue requires different wheels or spacing them out. Neither option was in my budget. If the wheel is bigger than your hub, you can use a ring to sort out the bore. The seat type is the quiet one. Aftermarket wheels often require a different nut face than stock wheels do. The wrong nuts will never seat properly, no matter how hard you crank them.
The width and diameter are easy and obvious numbers that everyone gets right. The bore, offset, and seat type are the ones that cause problems because they’re less visible, and the listing rarely spells them out clearly. I keep a note with my car's figures and check every wheel against it before considering price or finish.
If you do this, the swap will be a Saturday afternoon project. Skip this step, and you'll end up posting photos and asking why the wheel won't sit. The answer was in the numbers the whole time.
First, check the pattern, then the bore, then the offset, and finally, the seat your nuts need. If you ignore offset, like I did with my first set, you end up with wheels that are tucked in so far that they look like they belong to a smaller car. Fixing this issue requires different wheels or spacing them out. Neither option was in my budget. If the wheel is bigger than your hub, you can use a ring to sort out the bore. The seat type is the quiet one. Aftermarket wheels often require a different nut face than stock wheels do. The wrong nuts will never seat properly, no matter how hard you crank them.
The width and diameter are easy and obvious numbers that everyone gets right. The bore, offset, and seat type are the ones that cause problems because they’re less visible, and the listing rarely spells them out clearly. I keep a note with my car's figures and check every wheel against it before considering price or finish.
If you do this, the swap will be a Saturday afternoon project. Skip this step, and you'll end up posting photos and asking why the wheel won't sit. The answer was in the numbers the whole time.
HOSS 3