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Inexpensive Wheel Upgrade

The antidote for rich rims

Not long ago 16- and 17-inch tall wheels were found only on exotic cars. Today, minivans have 17s as standard equipment. Also, many spend thousands to replace perfectly good 16s and 17s with 18-, 19-, 20-inch and taller wheels. This expensive trend has spawned a cottage financial industry to loan money for wheel purchases: Maybe it's God's way of saying you can't afford to be that stylish.

Take-Offs

If your ride came on now-embarrassingly-small wheels, and you're moderately cash-strapped—or just fiscally responsible—what can you inexpensively do to improve your vehicle's looks? The answer is take-offs: Wheels discarded by those who view vehicles largely as fashion accessories. (The trendy types don't seem to understand that before they sell their vehicles, the soon-to-be-out-of-style wheels will have to be replaced with original equipment hardware.) It's possible to get a set of nearly new take-off wheels for as little as $200. The same set from a new-car dealer will cost upwards of $1600.

We did an automotive makeover on a 2000 Toyota 4Runner that came on decidedly non-stylish 15-inch steel wheels. For a vehicle that occasionally navigates unpaved logging trails, it was determined that 16-inch wheels were a better choice than 17s: Taller tire sidewalls will be less prone to pinch damage from stumps and rocks.

Shop Around

Then we went to eBay. After watching several online auctions, it was clear that 16-inch original equipment Toyota truck aluminum-alloy take-offs go for around $225. Prices for car wheels seem to be $75 to $100 higher, depending on make and model. Advice: Make sure the proper lug nuts and hub covers are included, and pay attention to shipping charges. After losing a few auctions, we scored a set of 16-inch aluminum alloy original equipment take-offs from a Tacoma. Cost, including lug nuts and hub covers, was $220. Shipping was another $60 or so. They're not Sprewell dubs, but they improve the vehicle's looks without overheating the Visa card.

While eBay has made such acquisitions easy, your local newspaper classifieds, shoppers' news, or flea market may have as good or better deals.

Proper Fit

Perhaps the biggest challenge when buying take-offs is to make sure the new wheels will fit your vehicle. The safest way is to look for original equipment wheels from your model and year. However, with a little research you might find that rims designed for a different marque will fit your vehicle. (For example, some Chrysler wheels fit some Nissan products.)

Beyond the basic description of the wheel (ie 16 x 7, which means a 16-inch diameter, 7-inch wide wheel), the critical specifications are bolt pattern, offset, and centerbore. (Be certain truck and SUV wheels match OE load-carrying capacity.) Often, these specs are cast into the inside face of aluminum alloy wheels.

Bolt pattern will be expressed "5 x 4.00" or "5 x 100": This translates as five lug holes spaced at 4 inches or 100 mm. You must match your vehicle's dimensions.

Offset

The offset of a wheel is the distance from its hub mounting surface to the centerline of the wheel. Some say positive offset is when the hub mounting surface is more toward the outer (curb) side of the wheel, while other say this is negative. A similar—and possibly less confusing—dimension is called "backspace": the distance from the inner flange to the hub mounting surface. You can't go wrong if you leave unchanged both the width and offset (or backspace). Changing offset more than half an inch could result in clearance problems with fenders or brake calipers, increased wear on many components, and handling and steering issues. If you choose a wider wheel, limit the increase to no more than an inch and change the offset so that half of the increase goes to the inside and half to the outside (or add half the increase to the backspace).

Centerbore

Centerbore is the size of the big hole in the center of the wheel. If your vehicle has hubcentric wheels, this hole is designed to mate precisely with a machined surface on the car's hub. If so, match the centerbore dimension exactly or be sure that forged centering rings are available.

Plus-Sizing

Now it's time to acquire tires. The goal is to maintain overall tire diameter while increasing wheel diameter (and, possibly, tire section width) by using "plus sizing" techniques. Changing overall tire diameter will throw off speedometer readings, might interfere with computer-based systems like stability control, and could create handling problems. In plus sizing, the aspect ratio is reduced while wheel diameter and/or section width is increased. With a 225/75R15 tire, the "225" is the section width—oversimplified as tread width—in millimeters. The "75" is the aspect ratio, which is tire sidewall height expressed as a percentage of the section width. For this tire, the sidewall height is 75 percent of 225 mm. A 225/70R16 (or a 245/65R16) has virtually the same overall diameter as the 225/75R15 original equipment rubber. For more on "plus" wheel sizing visit tirerack.com or discounttire.com.

For our makeover vehicle we knowingly violated the plus sizing rule by selecting a much taller 265/70R16. However, we exploited a loophole: The new size was standard on uplevel '00 4Runners. The new tires are about 2.5 inches taller than OE, which is good for off-road ground clearance, but makes the speedometer about five mph pessimistic. Otherwise, we've experienced no other problems.

Air/Load

Here are two VERY important—and related—things few consider when installing plus-size wheels and tires: Load-carrying capacity and air pressure. Be doubly certain that your new tires at least match the load index of your original and adjust air pressure for the new size. The load index will be expressed as a two- or three-digit number next to the tire size. In "265/70R16 111T," the "111" is the load index and "T" is the speed rating.

Since it's the air—not the tire—that carries the load, to avoid overloading your tires when increasing wheel diameter, you'll likely need to increase the pressure over that listed on your vehicle's tire placard. (The pressure figure on the tire sidewall is rarely—and only coincidentally—the proper setting for your vehicle.) To tune the handling of a performance car, you might have to increase the pressure even further. You'll be best served by getting a tire dealer to determine the proper pressure from his "tire load/inflation table.

With a set of takeoffs shod with new tires, you can affordably increase your vehicle's style quotient.