Found it!!! 17X7 in 4x130

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Sat May 07, 2005 7:39 am

Hi group,
really it was so hard to find, i though you would be happy to share this with me.
At last, we can find 17" wheels with the proper bolting pattern for our bugs (4x130, ET38). There is 3 models to chose from that look quite nice.

If you want more information, the contact is Alex at [email protected] and he is really helpfull.
That made my day. Just wanted to share this with you.
Cheers,

Louis

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Sat May 07, 2005 8:04 pm

That's cool, thanks! Where is this guy located? Any pictures anywhere?

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Sun May 08, 2005 1:28 am

He's in Kansas and can ship anywhere.
Ask him for pictures, I cannot figure how to post them here...

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Sun May 08, 2005 10:09 pm

No kidding! I only live about 25 mi. from the Kansas border! I'll email the guy.

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Mon May 09, 2005 3:27 am

Cool! Let us know if you have more details.

Gumby_Mac · Post by **Gumby_Mac** » Tue May 10, 2005 2:09 pm

Louis,

Can you email me the pictures he sent you? I'll post them so others can see what they look like. I still haven't gotten a reply from Alex yet.

[email protected]

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Wed May 11, 2005 1:31 am

OK done, check your mail.
I am surprised about Alex being slow on the email. This guy really impressed me with his reactivity. Maybe we flooded him with request!

Gumby_Mac · Post by **Gumby_Mac** » Wed May 11, 2005 5:58 am

Thanks for the pics Louis! Those are some pretty sweet wheels and I'm surprised he could drill these for our lug pattern. What does the "ET38" stand for?

Here are the pics:

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Wed May 11, 2005 9:02 am

Well, it is roughly the distance between the face of the wheel against the disk/drum and the centerline of the tire/wheel expressed in milimeter. I know of a good site that explain it but it is in French... Anbody has a link?

ET38 is normally what it takes to fit a 7" wheel onto a stock beetle with stock fenders. But "normally" is a big assumption here if you had changed a few things (beam, dropped spindle, disk kit, etc...).
Louis

Gumby_Mac · Post by **Gumby_Mac** » Wed May 11, 2005 10:43 am

Thanks. I figured that was some kind of offset figure or something. I'm still trying to make sense of all the sizes of tires/wheels and various offsets to see what would fit on my car. It's all so confusing...

Those wheels are pretty expensive though. I did finally get an email back from Alex and they are $387.99 each plus shipping.

I guess that's about what you'd expect to pay for custom fit wheels, but it's a little out of my price range.

martilo · Post by **martilo** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:28 am

It's not cheap indeed. I guess there is a price to pay to outfit our 30+ years insects...
Other option are not cheap too, like changing the wheel attachment (redrill or more radical) and is a reccurent story when you want to change the disks/drums.
Anyhow, we now have a few more option to run on serious 17" rubber...
http://www.old-droppers.com/index.php?a ... 3e13bf5da3

ubercrap · Post by **ubercrap** » Thu May 12, 2005 8:35 pm

ET stands for "Einpress Tiefe" in German - it means "press in depth"- which means the distance between the centerline of the wheel width and the mounting surface. Positive numbers are outside the center in respect to the car, negative is inside.

Gumby_Mac · Post by **Gumby_Mac** » Fri May 13, 2005 5:51 am

Interesting. I guess if I go looking for an aftermarket wheel to fit the new bolt patterns in my drums, I won't be asking for a certain ET. That sounds like it would be a overseas thing. I've only heard it referred to as offset in the 'States.