Wheel size discussion

Here's my contribuition:

My 93 Fox has a 4X100 pattern w/ a 45mm offset. OEM rims are 5JX13 and stock tires are 175/70SR13 :-)

BTW, have you tried forums.vwvortex.com? They have a wheel/tire forum in their Technical category.

Any 4x100 VW can take any same-size or larger 4x100 VW wheel; however, you often can't go the other way. They're all 57.1mm hub bores, BTW.

E.g. a Corrado 4x100 wheel will work on any A1, A2, or 4-cyl A3, but you can't put a 13" or 14" A1, A2, or A3 wheel on a Corrado (won't clear the front brakes). A Jetta GLI with 10.1" front brakes needs 14" or bigger wheels and can't take 13" wheels, but it will take Corrado 4x100 wheels without a problem.

Tire sizes might vary, of course; I'm pretty sure that a Corrado takes bigger tires than an A2 on the same wheels, but I could be wrong.

A1s all came with 4x100, 13" or 14" wheels. A2s came with 4x100, 13", 14", or 15" wheels (15s on later-model Jetta GLIs, Wolfies, and some GTIs, I believe). Corrados came with 15" (and possibly 16"??) wheels.

4-cylinder A3s come almost universally with 14" wheels, although there were a few to sport 15", 4x100 wheels.

I don't know all the offsets offhand, but I think the standard A2 offset is ET38.

This is probably a decent forum for discussing VW wheels, as is the wheel and tire forum on VWVortex

I'm pretty up on it, what exactly do you want to know? And what do you mean by "older VWs"?

There were two offset values used on the 4-lug cars. The offset for any 14x6 alloy for the 75-92 MkI & MKII Golf/Jetta was ET38, but the 93-99 MkIII cars had a different suspension geometry dictating that the 14x6 wheels be ET45 like on the older Audis.

Wheels from the 93-99 cars arent' interchangeable with those from 75-92 cars, and visa-versa.

Randy

01 Jetta WE 85 Golf GTi 89 BMW 325is

Older to me means MkII apparently.

My car's stock wheel is 4x100, with ET41 in 15x7. I'm told that 14" OEM steel wheels are ET46.

One of my main problems is caliper clearance, I tried on 14" generic steel wheels from an Asuna Sunfire and they were solid to the caplipers. I've been told that MkII wheels will bolt up though, so that's where I'm thinking of looking for some cheap steels for winter. I need to be able to tell the breakers what particular car I'm looking for. Sounds like pre-93 Golf and Jetta is the answer. Apparently my fenders will tolerate a little bit less offset as long as the wheel design doesn't crowd the calipers. It's a hard thing to figure out -- nobody lists my exact car so I have to fake it by asking after other cars, and there is inherent risk in that trick.

Were Corrados any different in terms of wheels? They were 15" right? Were some of the late MkII Jettas 15" also?

Are older Audi wheels compatible with the MKII cars or are they 5 bolt?

-Russ.

Hmm, based on your wheels size it sounds like your car is an E30 BMW

325iX, because no VW i know of came with a 15x7 wheel much less ET41. The 325iX however did. If this is what your so far unidentified car is then most aftermarket wheels intended for the MkIII cars will be a direct fit. I've had many iX try VW wheels and they reported back that they fit perfectly. The 4-lug E30 cars have the exact same hubcentric centerbore as the 4-lug Volkswagens. Most aftermarket wheels in the early 80's were made to fit both the VW and E30, like my 20 year old 14x6 Ronal V2 and my current 4 sets of ACT-LS which have "Fits BMW E30 325/Golf Jetta MkII/Seat" on the box.

There were a number of 15x6.5" BBS wheels used on various later MkII cars like the Jetta 16v Wolfsburg and Corrado G60 and 2.0L 16v GTi. Some if not all of em were ET33. If i knew what kind of car you had and what you're trying to accomplish i could probably be of more help.

I'm not sure when the Audis went to 5-bolt, but the older FWD

4000 series were 4x100, while the Quatros were 4x108. The 4x100 wheels have the deeper offset like the MkIII cars and aren't really compatible with the MkII cars (too much offset).

Randy

89 325is 85 GTi

--

Fine, you win Alan. It's an iX. Well done.

I've gotten in the habit of not mentioning the car name in wheel discussions because in many places (parts dealers and wreckers included) it confuses the issue as they have no relavent fitment information, instead trying to treat it like the RWD E30. I haven't been to a place yet that truly knows and understands the difference. (Except some internet vendors)

I've heard horror stories of guys buying aftermarket wheels intended for RWD E30 and ending up with "caliper weld". Sometimes not until they changed brake pads. ;-(

In the paragraph above it says MkIII car aftermarket wheels will fit -- forgive my VW ignorance, which cars are those? I was sticking to MkII cars in the dicussions to date as I thought they went to 5 bolt after that.

BTW, 4 sets of ACT wheels? Do you swap them out for autox/driving school/summer/winter or something? All I've got are the stock basketweaves, which I really like, but they need refinishing and I hoped to do that this winter while the snows are on. Can't afford a set of new aftermarket alloys. Would be nice to have that many options. Storage must be a pain for you though.

More out of curiosity the 15" question as I'd rather go 14" for my winter wheels.

So I've seen you in the E30 lists then, the name looked familiar. If you want to take the disucssion to email so we don't bore the VW folks here, my email address is r u s s @ r u s s d o u c e t . c o m

Thanks for the info, Randy.

-Russ.