Wheel buying newbie...

[sneijder]

I've never had the need to buy wheels before, but need a spare set of winter wheels. (Norway...)

I've always had a spare set when buying cars so I'm a bit new to all this.

It's the Mrs car and has 6,5J x 17 ET44 with a bolt pattern of 5 x 105 on now from factory.

Tyres on the car are 215 50 R17 if it helps.

I'm struggling to get exactly the same size wheel, so I'm just wondering what the tolerances would be ?

I guess it's just the offset and width that could be adjusted.

Would a 7 x 17 wheel with an offset of 40 be OK ? Wheels are well inside the arches as it is.

If I'm going lower than 44 with the offset am I headed towards the calipers ?

Thanks in advance if you can help !

[GreenV8S]

If your tyre measurements are on the same basis we use in the UK, that's quite a narrow tyre for that rim. The fitment is usually pretty flexible and those numbers are nowhere near being a concern, but it just strikes me as a little strange that the OEM tyres are that size - that makes me wonder whether your tyre measurements are taken differently from ours. In any case, half an inch either way on width is no problem with typical road tyres. In general, there's more scope for a narrower tyre on a wider rim than the other way round, and if the tyre is perfectly sensible on 6.5" rims then it's going to be reasonable on 7" too.

Obviously the bolt pattern and center bore need to be an exact match, the offset needs to be an approximate match (say within 5-10mm) and if you change the rolling diameter then that will throw the speedo out; if you change the diameter differently front/rear and have 4wd or traction control that might also introduce problems.

[sneijder]

Thanks for that, I should have mentioned it’s an Opel Ampera e (Electric car) they tend to fit slightly narrower tyres, not to the extreme of the pram wheels on the BMW i3 mind..

[sneijder]

Thanks for that, I should have mentioned it’s an Opel Ampera e (Electric car) they tend to fit slightly narrower tyres, not to the extreme of the pram wheels on the BMW i3 mind..

[Digitalize]

www.willtheyfit.com will help you compare potential wheels/tyres to your current ones. As offset is relative to width so not the easiest to compare purely by numbers.

[cdrick4]

For 215's, the usual wheel width ranges from 6.5" to 7.5". On my previous car, I have run 17x7 american racing wheels with 215/50 tires.

Edited by cdrick4 on Wednesday 17th October 21:19