Wheel Sizing

[Dannyburke]

I am looking to putting new wheels on my 1995 VW Golf GL.

Do we have anyone who knows what max size we have that can go on it.

I can probably get 225/45/17 pretty easily from a friend and I am thinking of doing that.

[rayray086]

It's a matter of personal taste but there have been Mk3s that use up to 18s with rubber band tyres. 17s can be pulled off with 205/40 tyres but 225/45 is getting too big and you'll have issues with your speedo not reading correctly and possible rubbing issues.

With the Mk3, it's not the bigger the better when it comes to wheel diameter in terms of looks (general consensus here is 16s hits the sweet spot) but again, it's personal preference. Check out the pics in the appreciation thread stickied up top!


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[Steveo_40]

Does anyone know what sort of offset is good on a 17x7 with 205/40 tyre, for mk3. et42?

cheers
steve

[jayjay]

once again, like ray said. it's a matter of personal opinion.

typically, the consensus will tell us that skinny wheels or high offset need to be tucked, whilst wide or low offset wheels will physically stick out from the guards and hence cant actually tuck. ( there's debate about stretch poke tuck too though )

Ultimately, your best bet is to have a look at the wheels spec thread on Vortex as there is a very large vdub population there who like telling everyone how big they are.

There's a thread on there that shows a variety of wheel sizes and offsets and calculations alongside photos which give a reasonably good indication of how they'll roll.

sorry, back on topic.

The bigger the overall diameter, the less times the wheels rotate/km --> slower speedo.

[rayray086]

et42?

Between ET40 and ET30 will ensure you have no rubbing issues. I think you can scrape by with ET42.

[Lorenz]

You may have to run spacers on an ET42 to clear the calipers due to the wheel face rubbing.
For a 7" wide wheel Id be looking at something around ET25-30 which will still keep inside the guards

[Ben J]

increasing the overall diametre too much will slow you down a bit too. Not that speeds a massive thing in the CL

[schoona]

17x7.5 ET32:









Think you can see the problem here. 225/45's are no go Just did it cheaply to see how they would look and am not stuffing around with another set of wheels just at this minute.

As the others have said, plenty of other info on the net (vortex, offset and tyre calculators etc) to have a look at what you like and make it work!

[jayjay]

mal - vr6 offset is different to 4cyl offset due to widetrack componentry.

[schoona]

Doh! didn't think of that. Therefore disregard whatever I said! lol