Wide wheels, bmw 316i 1995 model

[husks2]

Replaced my 14' standard wheels with 15' wide wheels. The problem is, the wheel at the rear is touching the chassis when i have a heavy load(2-3persons for example). How can I find a way to remedy this problem? Is there some sort of stopper or spacer or something? Thanks for anyone who will answer this.. Appreciate it.

[basrite]

husks,

Hitting the bump stomp on wider wheels.. seems wrong. What size tyres do you have?

If they are within specs, it sounds more likely that your springs have sagged a bit. From memory the baby bm runs more conventional setup on the rear (unlike the Z-link on other models) so you may have an issue with something else.

As I said.. reply back with wheel width and tyre choice.

J.

[husks2]

Sad to say , they are not within specs. They're a bit wider than it should be. Exact specs, dunno. car is not with me now... Is there a way to increase the ht of the chassis? Thanks in advance.

[basrite]

Hmm... being an aussie I misread the 14" and 15" as in diameter of inside of wheel.

You have 15" WIDE tyres? thats a 350Rx/yy size tyre? Sheesh that is wide. Here I was thinking my 235's on a 320i looked big enough! hehe

If you want to run tyres that wide you really only have one option and it wont be cheap.

For starters you may need to change the wheel offset with spacers to make sure you clear everything on the inside of the tyre. IE: body work, suspension parts etc.

The second and costly aspect is to flare the guards out to clear the outside of the tyre. I read in a recent Total BMW that it can be done without cracking paint and get an extra inch or so in clearance.

If you try and limit the up and down movement of the suspension, you'll degrade the handling of the car. Doing so will also make every grain of sand on the road feel like a bolder (know from experience with a MkII escort).

The main thing is to make sure you have plenty of clearance on the arch. I have 235R17's on my car and i've managed to rip the front guard lip out big time and gauge out a huge chunk of rubber around 1/3 of the tread... and that was just driving into a carpark with a slight lip from the bitumen!

If you want to go all the way, I also saw a feature car where they put in a huge camber kit on the rear so the top of the wheel was over an inch further in than the rubber at the bottom.

Good luck with it.. sounds like you're having fun making a unique ride!

J.