dashmer

Hi All,

Just received my new IS350 and was fitting the winter tires and wheels I had bought for it in advance. I went with 17" wheels square and 225/45 -17 Nokians. Wheels have a 40 offset.

I test fit the first one on a front hub and the wheel JUST clears the brake calliper. There might be 1MM or so at the closest point.

Question 1: Is this too close?
Question 2: Does the car have a floating calliper and will it move away from the wheel which brake pad wear?

Thanks..... This is kind of urgent as I have to get a different wheel if these should not go on.

Obscene14

Just buy some hubcentric 3mm spacers. You'll clear the calipers and with 3mm thick spacers you won't sacrifice safety by not getting enough turns on the lugnuts. Billet aluminum spacers are $25 a set on Ebay. Problem solved.

TheShaddix

Stock wheels are +45 or 50 offset, yours should fit without any spacer.

dashmer

Thanks for the replies so far. I took a measurement and I have about a 2MM clearance. By contrast, my stock wheels must have close to 10MM. Photos attached.

TheShaddix

If they clear now, then you're good. The caliper does not expand. There are pistons inside of it which press onto the pads. However, I would still run a 2-3 mm spacer and you don't need it to be hubcentric since your rim will stil sit on the original hub. Preferably you want the spacer to sit more or less centered though for balance.

HellaInc

iTrader: (5)

You are fine. My brake to caliper distance can hold a piece of paper in place. A credit card won't fit, if they clear then they clear. If it didn't your car won't roll, lol.

Obscene14

Incorrect and really poor advice. You don't run Pepboys generic spacers on a brand new IS350 f-sport.
He's not driving a beater. The car was manufactured to tight tolerances. Follow through with the same mentality when adding aftermarket parts.

You don't want spacers more or less centered, You want them perfectly centered. You can only achieve that with hucentric spacers. Introducing any vibration to the wheel assembly is a sure fire way to premature hub bearing wear/failure. How much does it cost to replace a hub on our cars that Lexus won't cover under warranty because of generic spacers?

TheShaddix

Ideally you don't want to run any spacer, ever, so the comment above mine made the most sense. If it clears as is, it will be fine. On my previous car I had 1mm clearance and never had any rubbing issues.

And to the comment about hub damage, it's a 2-3mm spacer, will not do any damage to hub or car as long as they are lug nut centered. I'm not talking about generic pep boys ones, I'm talking about ichiba/project kics clearance spacers made of quality materials and they are light as feather. They do not need to be hubcentric and they actually are not in order to fit a variety of cars. if they sit flush on the hub bolts and not just hang there to one side, you're fine. The wheel still sits on the original hub and is 100% centered, just 2-3mm spaced out. You're overly careful and I respect that. Better be safe. But in this case the spacers are too light/small to even worry about.

dashmer

Just an update on this situation. When I installed the wheel on the driver side, there was 0mm clearance...I could hear the spokes of the wheel glancing over the brake calliper. I had to use the 3mm spacers to make this work.

Note to others who are looking at using 17" aftermarket wheels for winter...my 7" wide 40 offset is not enough.

KodeRush

So the issue seems to be the spokes on the rim, not the rim size. If you chose 17s with less offset, say +35, and skinnier spokes, they probably could fit.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

metal will expand with heat, thats a bit too tight for comfort. I would get spacers