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What is the widest tire that will fit on stock type wheels and are there other types of wheels that allow wider tires than stock wheels ?

I was looking in the archives for info on tires and wheels and noticed a lot of talk about different offset measurements of wheels that allow for clearing bigger tires. What exactly is offset in a wheel and how do you measure it ?

Apollo, this is a topic that we have discussed on MANY threads, here is one that I was activly involved in and may give you a wealth of info on the topic.

http://shoptalkforums.com/bbs/NonCGI/Fo ... 00046.html

in a short answer to your question, wheel offset is a measurement of where the hub of the wheel is in relation to the middle of the rim. A positive offset (which is what you must have) means that the hub is closer to the outside of the car, a negative means that you would have a "deeper dish" and the hub is in toward the inside of the car.

You can easily upgrade to one of the 4 or 5 relatively common wheels available (chromies, riveras, 8 spokes, centerlines, etc..) those being 5.5" and you can put either 165 metric tires or 195/60's or 195/50's tires on them w/ little or no rubbing on a stock height car.

Again, refer to that thread above, we went into deep discussion about this and there is more in-depth info on custom rims also.

Travis

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The Story of a Ghia

The mainstream of thought about tires for stock wheels seems to favor the Michellin 165/60 I believe. These are not "fat" tires, but they seem to offer the best handling, wear, etc for the car. Also, I understand you can get them at Costco for a pretty good price.