Dav530d

I started a thread a while ago when I also had a tire dilemma. Should be a good read.

Rim guide

atillathetom

I swapped the tires for the lower profile tires and the rub is completely gone. I went with 245/30 and 285/20. While the car rides a bit more "firm" it is really not much different. Here are some pictures. More to come when I get the car cleaned up.

Tom

Dav530d

Nice. Now lower it!

atillathetom

Thanks,

My wife is already fed up with all the wheel and tire nonsense so susp work is out of the question. I actually think that the OEM sport susp is pretty close to perfect with regards to ride height. I would only want to lower it .5in or so and would only consider coilovers which are not in my budget right now. Coils would be more than I think I want to do on a 5 year old car with 48K miles. I am going to drive it like this until I sell the car. I would like to get back into something that says M on the trunk.

Did you lower yours Dav530d?

DrLev99

That rubbing in front was not on outside...more likely rubbing liner due to wrong original tire size you used. 9" ET24 with a 245/30/20 could not possibly rub outer edge. Your inner clearance would be 12mm less than an oem 172 setup like on my car with 245/35/19...exact same outer clearance but 12mm less on inside...or 18mm less than a 166 wheel with 245/35/19. So going down to a 245/30/20 is a perfect fix. A 5mm spacer could also work.

As for the rears, a 285/25/20 should just about be perfect on those sized wheels...certainly could not go wider without rolling. 285/30/20 should work too. It's simple math, not guessing.

In the end it looks like you figured it out the hard way.

atillathetom

DrLev99,

Thanks for the input, but with all due respect, I think you missed the first few posts. The front right rubbed on the outside against the spot the fender and bumper meet with the 245/35. The fender was cutting the tire but just to be sure, I put blue painters tape all over the fender well to see if it rubbed anywhere else. I rolled the fenders and it still rubbed. I dropped down to 245/30 in the front and to keep the overall rolling circ the same I went to a 285/25 rear. While I wish I had the extra sidewall, the setup no longer rubs. There was/is no rubbing on the inside, forward or rear fender liner, or strut with either size...

While I would like to say that it is simple math, many members of this board seem to have different experiences with similar/same setups on different cars. There are several people on the board that I have spoken with that have/had zero rubbing issues with the same OEM wheels on a sport susp car with the 245/35 size. The only explanation I can come up with is variations in sidewall by brand and suspension age and or small variences in fender/bumper alignment. Things obviously settle/wear over time. I think I was within a couple mm of not having a rubbing issue.

Definitely a learning experience...there do not seem to be any universal truths in plus size wheel configs.

Tom