help! so i took off my 16' tyres and put on vrx 17' enkei rims with 235 at the back and 225 at the front.
just drove to my gfs house, and steering wheel is wobbly as ****, way more than expected. when i brake it makes a scraping sound too at the back... whats wrong?? did i put them on wrong?

hey man. how tight did you do the wheel nuts up? first thing is check and make sure they are proper tight. i was you saying the others were too tight to get undone over in the WA subforum.

wont make much difference for wobbles and scrapes but id make sure that the tyres are rotating the correct way - the sidewall should have an arrow that should be pointing clockwise when rolling forward.

when you had the rims off you didnt touch anything else, like brakes etc as i know youve been talking about a spring upgrade, you didnt perhaps loosen any nuts there?


I dont remember what condition daves enkeis were in... are there any chunks out of the rim? that mmay mean a wheel is out of balance giving you the vibration?

they are super tight, in that i can get them off still but yeah... all i did was take off the 16s and put on the ralliarts =/
just took another drive then, seems like a knocking sound/feel.. scared to drive now =/ maybe i need my guards rolled? i drive a tw btw, i even put all the tyres to 33 psi. gna check the arrows now.. when i turn it seems to scrape or rub? would having the tyres on the wrong way make a difference to the scrape?

rims seem good condition... he had just taken them off his car when i got there..



EDIT:
front tyres actually have a thing that tells u which ways the right rotation so i know those ones are on the proper way..
cant seem to see any arrows or anything that tell u which way on the rear wheels.

Have those tyres been balanced since they were put on those rims?


Common problem with that is that the tyres aren't balanced, it's also possible that the wheels arent on evently.


Also note that the enkeis need wheel nuts that have a flat area on them, many standard wheels go on with a tapered nut - which may be part of a reason they aren't on straight/properly. Jack the car up and spin the wheel and see if it looks even, or try unbolt and make sure its sitting flat before retightening.



flat (enkeis):
http://evilempireperformance.co.uk/gto-3000gt-shop/images/Factroy%20Lug%20Nuts%20GTO.jpg

tapered (typically steel rims):
http://www.drivewire.com/images/shop/prodimage/thumbs/dorman/RB611141.jpg

Also not all tyres are directional, depends on the tread pattern, so some may have arrows some may not. even if a tyre is on backwards it wont wobble like that your wet weather grip may be compromised.

If you like, anytime after about 730am give me a call on 0415 924 736 you can pop over to my house in Dianella and I can help you check them. Although I wouldn't want to drive on them like that too far - could always swap back to your 16s and bring the enkeis with.

I recall some people have had issues with the factory 17x7" rims rubbing on the control arm. The VR-X and Ralliart had actually had slightly different control arms afaik to counter for the wider wheel. Also, 235 tyres are a tad wide for 7" wide rims. I'd swap the 225s and the 235s around on the car and see how you fare then.

You won't need your guards rolled - if a Ralliart Enkei is rubbing on the outside guard, you've got something seriously wrong with your suspension.

+1 for a wheel balance too.

I recall some people have had issues with the factory 17x7" rims rubbing on the control arm. The VR-X and Ralliart had actually had slightly different control arms afaik to counter for the wider wheel. Also, 235 tyres are a tad wide for 7" wide rims. I'd swap the 225s and the 235s around on the car and see how you fare then.

You won't need your guards rolled - if a Ralliart Enkei is rubbing on the outside guard, you've got something seriously wrong with your suspension.

+1 for a wheel balance too.

Agreed. Only timer you'll ever need guards rolled is if you decided to go 20's... but then again I never got them rolled... I just deal with that sweet sweet sound of rubber on my inner guards... sounds like... victory.

My suspension is stock though, pretty high up.. So u think I should try 35s at the front?

And Ive got the right nuts, he gave me the full set

Did you get a set of 5? it's possible the spare tyre isnt balanced or something. try put stock wheels back on the rear then put 2 on the front, try them out, and then try another 2.

sounds much like unbalanced wheels though unless they didnt bolt up evenly to the hub.

Wobbly steering at the front - at any speed?

Scraping at the rear only whilst braking?

What modifications have been done to the suspension/brakes & has it been in accident, that you know of?

I'd take all the wheels off & start again, making sure that the wheels are centred correctly & that you can hand tighten at least 2 nuts all the way in. You should then see the that the other 3 studs are centred.

Whilst you've got the rears off, have a look at the inside edge to check for signs of rubbing/wear. If your car's still on standard springs, you'll be able to crawl under it with them on (& the car on the ground), to see if the tyre is hitting on the rear control arm. (A couple of mm gap is fine).

Then fill tyres to at least 36, if not 38psi. See how that goes. If the wobbling is still there, I'd be looking at getting all wheels balanced. If the rear's not touching the control arm & it's still making that sound I'd be looking to get 4 wheel alignment done.

no mods have been done to my car other than a muffler change.. i bought it from john hughes secondhand, it was a very nice ride with the 16s, no problems at all..

i looked underneath and there doesnt seem to be a reason why the tyres would scrape against anything so i can only assume the brakes. i hear a scraping from the rear whilst driving as well everytime the wheel rotates.

NOTE: i had to pull over earlier today, and i tightened the nuts up more. seemed to be better, drives well other than the scraping at the rear..

How did you tighten them when you put on the new wheels?
Did you tighten them once the car was back on the ground in a cross motion? not just going around in a circle?
Maybe take them off and see if theres anything stopping it from sitting flat on the hub
I had a scraping noise before and was due to a loose wheel up the front, I'm guessing the noise was from the brake dics as they are a floating one so can move if the wheels not 100% against the hub
Oh and you should have 38psi in those tyres ;)

Come see one of us WA folk to help you make sure they're on OK, last thing you want is a wheel coming off!

Were there spacers from the old rims?
I had this happen when I put the spare on and left the spacer on the hub which caused the hub to float out and scrape on the calipers, put some nice guages in the rotor too.
cost me a fortune as it happened while interstate, I thought the scraping was worn pads and a dodgy mechanic replaced them (without finding the real problem)
It cost me another $400 when I got home to have all my rear studs replaced after he destroyed them with his rattle gun (both sides).

ok just dropped the car off to bob janes coz i cbf doing this in the sun.. im suspecting i need or dont need spacers lol

has anyone put on enkei vrx rims on a tw before?


thanks for ur input guys! if anyone has had any experiences, let me know so i can be confident in changing tyres in future.
and to the WA guys u are so helpful, its nice knowing people are out there willing to help me! =)

What was the outcome from BJ's? Did everything work out alright?

well the stuff i bought off david... was supposed to be 4 tyres 85% tread on vrx rims.

bob jane found that the brake arm was rubbing against the tyres, so i had to get the 16's and put it back on and wheel balanced/lined again. that cost me 100ish.
one of the rear rims has a nail in it that bob jane found, both front ones are bald, and the other rear tyre barely has enough tread to be legal.
so i pretty much paid 700 +100 bucks for 4 vrx rims... are they even worth that much?

so i pretty much paid 700 +100 bucks for 4 vrx rims... are they even worth that much?

That's a shame - well, I'm sure the enkei's would cost you more than that if you ordered them new from the dealer. Did you have a chance to check out the tyre condition before you handed over the $?

Do your rims look like this?

http://lathiat.net/files/TL_Magna.jpg

That's what the Ralliart enkeis look like.


If so then the value of those rims are about $400-$600 - ish, with good tread obviously worth a bit more, but if they are mostly bald/flat then the tyres aren't worth anything so yeah.


Who is David? Where they bought through the forums?

I just went through the sale yard look like he bought the rims off hlucin8. If your not happy with the rims and you think you got rip speak to a mod or Red Valdez (he the deal with complaints in the sale yard :))

Can we get pictures of the tyres?

Also note that it would likely fix the scrubbing issues if you got some good 215 and had them fitted.

Doesnt anyone else see the problem here!!!! Why is 17 inch rim rubbing on something at the back?????????????????? Surely 17s with 235 will fit just fine, i mean ive had same size forever (& i mean forever, ive changes wheels, tyre brands & never ever never had an issue, also man make sure they arent trying to rip you off, did you inspect the remaining tread, doubt anyone woud lie like that, sating that 85% left while it was 15% if not check it immediately. Bottom line nothing should be scraping with 17 235..... And pardon my ignorance but what the hell is a brake arm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they tried to call control arm a "brake arm" Dude take it away from there, dont pay them anything alse, & am i reading correct you just paid $100 for wheel balancing, going rate is about $7-9 per wheel man..................

yeah i bought them off the user mentioned in a post above.

im not very happy cz i know they would only be worth 600-700 bucks with GOOD tread. the rims themselves are fine, but what can the mods do? i mean he did falsely advertise them, but i went by his word instead of looking over them, because im stupid enough to think that there are "good" members here. trust noone i guess.
he could at least give me a bit of the money back for the tyres being so ****ing shit. he definitely ripped me off, no questions asked. i hope he didnt screw the buyer of his other rims over too.

paid 100 bucks for taking wheel balance, wheel alignment, brake arms flushed back, and putting on and off each tyre like 3 times.
tyre sizes he gave me for the back were too big. 235s do NOT fit on a tw magna i tell u that right now, unless u want rubbing and ****ed brake arms

and also i got those enkeis in the previous pic they still look ok just need new tyres now which is another 400 bucks or so.

david = hlucin8 or something

if what you are saying is true then im glad i went with my gut on those rims then

What do you mean by brake arm?

Can anyone with TL/TW confirm any space issues? Surely someone has 235s all around...

These tyres are supposed to have 225s fitted.

Mate if you have over I have here enkeis with 225s fitted, you can test fit and see if they rub. They do clear pretty close with 225s.

(225 is basically the widest you want, 235 fits but its not a good idea, and technically not legal/recommended.. which is annoyinga as 235/45 are cheap, 225/50 are not so cheap. [at least in good brands])

yeah the guy at bob janes said that 225 with 235 is a horrible combination and that he wouldnt do that to his car. he drives a tw vrx btw

he said that 225 is the factory, just as lathiat has said =)

btw to andrei, the calipers are all scratched on the outside. seems to me like that was the source of the scraping noise i heard. the 235s were on the back, and it was only the back ones that had troubles..

235's wont cause any rubbing, I am lowered 45mm on 17x7 VR-X rims with 235/45 rubber and there is no rubbing at all

The 235's should be fine, i'm lowered on coilovers with the rear sitting pretty low and have no rubbing at all
I am also have a TL
Saying that I WAS running 245's on the rear with lows on the back with NO problems what so ever
Can you actually see the tyre hiting the rear suspension arm? or you just assuming its rubbing?
If you take your tyre off you should see where its rubbing, if not than apply some easy to see coloured paint and go for a drive
This will tell you where its rubbing
Considering your running on stock springs and such its a slim chance its touching there as i had similar rims on my car and had plenty of gap before the tyre touched the arm
Explain this rubbing sound? have you tried the 225's on the rear to see if its the 235's causing the problem? Some tyre shops would say anything to you to get you to spend money there
Oh and the price you paid for those rims in pretty reasonable with the amount of tread left on the tyres, you should go out and see how much a 225/50 tyre with the correct load rating would set you back (cheapest i paid was 250 per tyre)

so u think its worth it with no tread on the tyres pretty much? if so then im happy, either way im thinking im jst gna leave it and put them on with new tyres when i get more cash.

i did swap them around, same issues. pretty much u could see the brake arm was stuck there, and the only way to put it back was to put the 16s back on the flush force it back.
sounded like something was scraping everytime the wheel turned.

btw guys, just so u know, bob janes cannington workshop guys (not the office guys that work there and try to sell u everything and bullshit)
they do a really great job for the price. they know exactly what they are talking about, and professionalism means a lot in the car industry. i have brought all my cars there in the past, including skylines fairlanes s15s etc.

Out of interest, did you actually check the tyres before you took the wheels off him to inspect tread levels? Just seems a little weird to me that you'd pick them up without realizing the tread is very different to advertised.

The difference in control arm for the scrubbing in the rear, I know a couple of people who had to change them to the VR-X ones when they changed wheels on standard 3rd gens, wouldn't surprise me if you have to do the same (albeit weird if you're sticking with factory wheels).

as explained before, it is kinda my fault as i shouldve checked them thoroughly, i just went by his word and the advertisement... at first glance when i was loading them in my car they didnt seem bad, but then realized afterwards..

btw to andrei, the calipers are all scratched on the outside. seems to me like that was the source of the scraping noise i heard. the 235s were on the back, and it was only the back ones that had troubles..

The calipers are scratched? I doubt that has anything to do with the tyre being too wide - what was catching/ scraping on the caliper?

Also, post up some pics of this 'zero' tread - I find it hard to believe that the tread could be that low & you didn't actually notice it.

also odd, because the night before, Dave brought his magna out to our thursday night social and they were on that and running fine, i even remember him remarking something along the lines of "have to be careful on the tyres, they're off to a new home tomorrow"
so there must be some difference between his car and yours, causing this issue.
not gonna comment on tread as i find it impossible to tell even when i have the tyre sitting physically infront of me :P

As i asked before, can we see pictures of the tyres that are meant to have '15%' or '85%' left on them?
Either Bob Jane or The Seller is lying. I'd like to make sure before we all go accusing one or the other.

And i've never heard of scrubbing issues just due to 235 wide tyres. It seems weird, because you should be able to easily run 18x8 with 245s on any Magna, not just Ralliarts and such. 17x7 is easy. IIRC, i had to run spacers on the front of my Ralliart in order to have the 245s clear, as they were only just fitting, but they were 4mm spacers which makes it a perfect fit.

Still, you should have no problems with 235.
As general advice, don't trust the word of tyre/mechanical shops without a second opinion if big money is to be spent. A fair amount of us are genuine and will prefer returning loyal customers, but a disturbing majority are dodgy pricks who will overcharge or make you spend money on nothing just for the quick buck, especially if the owner doesn't know a lot about cars. After seeing some of the cars that come in from other shops and how downright dangerous some of the things done can be, i will never let another person touch the tyres on my car unless i'm helping or observing.

ok just dropped the car off to bob janes coz i cbf doing this in the sun.. im suspecting i need or dont need spacers lol

has anyone put on enkei vrx rims on a tw before?


thanks for ur input guys! if anyone has had any experiences, let me know so i can be confident in changing tyres in future.
and to the WA guys u are so helpful, its nice knowing people are out there willing to help me! =)

TW rear end is no different to other Magna's with exception to the VRX series of course

The Enkei wheels are forged wheels, they are worth every bit of that given what they are and the fact that they can be repaired or modified. They are worth what someone is willing to pay for them however if you purcased a set with "good" tyres, then that is what I woudl expect to get.

Now this wheel that is rubbing on a brake arm, that is interesting as there are no brake arms as such under the car and if only rubbing on one side then you have an issue with your car. Also, did not you notice the condition of the tyres when you received them? IF you std rims do not hit calipers then there is no way in hell that the Enkei will hit calipers so I call either BS here or your car has serious issues

Also, at this point I am closing this thread, you are openly accusing a member of ripping you off, a member who you should have contacted directly in the first place and then if no resolution gained you needed to contact a mod or admin. You keep on going on about these so called bald tyres but where are the pics, have you contacted the seller? Did you have pics when you purchased the wheels and tyres etc etc.

Contact the seller, if you do not have a decent resolution then contact Red or similar. Meanwhile get your car properly checked as you do not have rear brake arms to start with and calipers sill not hit these rims as the VRX has the identical calipers on the rear and as the ES, LS, VR etc etc