Wanted: 16" OEM Audi Rim

[freerock]

Looking for one more 16" OEM Audi Rim as shown below.



With or without a tire. Needed for my spare (hopefully it will fit on the stock Vanagon carrier...)

[hisport]

Which Audi is this from?

I have a friend (out of state) with a bunch of early A8 16" alloy wheels, if these would match.

BTW, I was considering using the same (A8 16") wheel on my recent '85 2wd westfalia purchase. Believe it is a 7" wheel; not sure of the offset.

Any wheel mods required? Sliding door clear OK? Were you able to use the center caps? Use Audi donor for front lugbolts? Longer rear studs required? Vanagon lugnuts OK?
Clear the body and suspension OK? Tire size advice for 2WD accurate speedo?

many thanks,

john

[freerock]

John,

My wheels are from a mid to late 90's Audi A8, but these wheels also came on A4's and A6's during the same time. It's probably the most common Audi wheel of that era.

**Lots of mods needed to put these wheels on a Vanagon**

If my memory serves me correctly, they are 7" wide wheels with a 45mm offset.

1.) Spacers are needed on both the front and rear. Don't remember the exact thicknesses? (Big one on the rear, smaller one on the front)

2.) Longer wheel studs are needed in the rear. I used some Porsche wheel studs.

3.) Finding lug nuts with the correct 12mm ball seat and thread proved to be impossible? I ended up machining all the seats so I could use 14mm ball seat lug nuts from a Porsche. Also ended up using a set of Porsche locking lug nuts with the same seat for a bit of wheel theft security. Not that these wheels would be of much use to anyone else given all the customization I did, but they are worth quite a bit to me given the number of hours I spent machining them.

Sliding door clears fine.
Audi center caps fit on the front, but not on the rear.
I have more suspension clearance then the GoWesty 16"x7.5" wheels.

Syncro Vanagons don't use lug bolts on the front (nuts all the way around). Audi lugbolts would get the front solved on a 2WD Vanagon, but then you still have the same issues I had with the rear. And you probably don't want to machine only 2 of your wheels, since you would never be able to properly rotate them.

My tires are 225/60R16's. Speedo is about 5% slow.

I'm looking for a deal on just one of these wheels since it's going to be just a spare tire anyway. Drop me an email if you have a lead on something??

Thanks,
Kevin

[dgauthier]

What brand and model tires are you running and are you happy with them?

Have you had any rubbing issues?

Do the tires clear the sliding door when opened?

If you ever come across the thicknesses of the wheel spacers, please post them.

Thanks.

[freerock]

I had Bridgestone Blizzak Winter WS50 225/60R16's originally and I liked them a lot! The van handled great.

They eventually wore out and it was time for new tires. I didn't do my homework here and am now I'm paying for it... The tires I chose were 225/60R16 Michelin ICE-X Winter tires. I just assumed that name brand=best performance. The load rating was in the 1600lb+ region so I figured they would be fine. WELL, THEY SUCK! The side walls on these babies are nothing like the Blizzaks I had, and hence the handling on my van is not nearly as good.  Needless to say, it was a bit of a shocker for me to learn tires can effect handling performance this dramatically...

No rubbing issues at all, side door opens as it should. The closest tolerance is between the inside of the tire and the upper control arm in the front, and between the tire tread and lower swing arm in the rear. Both of these tolerances are only about a finger width in thickness, but they are greater then what you get with a set of GoWesty's 16" Merc knock off wheels and tires.

I think my spacers are either 5mm or 10mm in the front and 10mm or 15mm in the rear.

[Bryan]

I hear you.  I started with some BF Goodrich LongTrails because they had pretty good ratings and were cheap at Sam's Club.  Sidewalls were way too squishy.  I tried to live with them for about six months.  Even drove with the family on a road trip from Colorado to California, but I rarely would drive over 70 mph.  Sometimes I would hit pockets of wind and it would feel like I was gonna freakin loose it.

I have since upgraded the rear tires to Bridgestone Dueler Alenza tires.  I used the rating charts at TireRack.com to help make the choice.  They are much more solid and handle more pressure, so I run up around 40psi.  It handle totally differently sudden winds still blow my front around with the crappy LongTrails, but thats a lot easier to deal with than your back end suddenly kicking out at 75mph.  I should really change the fronts out too, but I hate to waste almost-new tires.