ktlocklear

What offset should I be looking for for my 550?

I'm looking at a set of 19's:
front; 19x8.5 et 20
rear; 19x9.5 et 20

Is 20 the ideal offset front and back, or should they have a staggered offset? Also, will I need spacers with an offset of 20? I'm looking to be flush or close to it.

Is the offset the same front and back on the 124's? Anyone know the offset on the 124's? I currently have a 15mm spacer on my rear 124's, which looks good to me

Thanks

Anzafin

124's are:
8 x 18 Front ET 20
9 x 18 Rear ET 32

I think the ideal offsets to get a flushed look would be:
- for a 8.5" wide front wheel: ET12
- for a 9.5" wide rear wheel: ET17

- Antti -

tooltec

Staggered offsets for the 19" M172 rims are 18mm front,32mm rear.

Your 20mm front and rear should be ok with 245/35R19 fronts and 275/39R19 rears (i.e.OEM fitment).

18" staggered 124's have offsets 20mm front and 32mm rear.

With your current spacer,your effective rear offset is 17mm.

ktlocklear

So with the 124 fronts having a 20et and the wheels i'm looking at have a 20et that means the front 19's will sit about the same as the 124 fronts....maybe slightly more flush since they are a 1/2" wider than the 124's?

The rears will be slightly more sunk in than my current set up(17et with spacers)......or will the 1/2" difference in wheel width make up the difference there...or will I still need a spacer to put the rears out some?

Anzafin

This calculator is quite handy: http://www.1010tires.com/WheelOffsetCalculator.asp

I hope it helps!

- Antti -

tooltec

Assuming that your 124 tyres are 245 front and 275 rear then your front 19" TYRE outer wall will be 2mm further inwards towards the brakes but the rim edge will be 6.25mm further outwards compared to the 124 set-up.
For the rears your 19" TYRE outer wall will be 3mm further inwards and your rim edge will be 6.25mm further outwards.With the same tyre WIDTHS on rims which are 1/2" wider,the tyres are more "stretched",i.e.the side walls are more vertical.

ktlocklear

Sweet thanks...yeah that does help

I put in the numbers......

Looks like on the front I gain 6mm on the inside, and 6mm on the outside. I think this may be pretty good as I've see a lot of people add a 5mm spacer to their front 124's.

For the rears including the 15mm spacer on the 124's, looks like I would gain 9mm on the inside and 3mm on the outside, which I think also would be pretty good, as I've always though a 18mm spacer on the rear 124's would look a little better than a 15mm spacer.

My only concern would be the gain on the insides....is there that much room for the clearance?

Any opinions are greatly appreciated

bavarianXsales

A staggered offset is not always required. Depending on the wheel manufacturer, such in this case, they probably made the wheel with these offsets so that they can be used on the E39 5 series as well. Your car with a 19x8.5 wheel on the front can use any offset from ET15 - ET20. And on the rear with a 19x9.5, offsets will typically range from ET18 - ET22. These are commonly used offsets for your 5 series and will not give you any issues when installing them. To give you a better idea of how much room there really is on the 5 series, the front can be fitted with a 9 inch wide wheel safely without any issues with a ET20, and as wide as a 10 inch on the rear can be fitted without any issue with a ET25.

Wheel manufacturers will always use a safe offset when manufacturing their wheels because they know that a tire will also need to be mounted on the wheel which can affect fender clearance because no 2 tires are the same exact "real world" dimensions even though they are same "specified size". So to simply answer your question, Yes, there is that much room in the wheel wells of a 5 series. I would say that there is a "range of offsets" and not "ideal offsets" for your car as wheel width must be taken into account as well. The E60 body has been available since 04, so we hope that by now we know what fits, what probably won't or doesn't, and what needs to be done to get something out of the ordinary to fit.

PraiseTheLowered

you can go 9.5+1 and 11+10 for widths and offsets

ktlocklear

how would fitment be on these sizes?

19x8.5 et18 front

19x10.5 et27 rear

Front I think is fine....what about the rear? Any fitment issues?