European wheel options

Hi,

interesting to read about the FTO wheels, as well as the 17" Evo wheels suggestion. Sadly though, the FTO wasn't even officially imported here and Evos are rare. So I did  a bit of research on alternatives. Haven't tried any of them yet though.

First off: There are some 6x15 steel wheels with the correct PCD and centre hole and and offset of only 29mm. I think they are meant to go on a rather old Toyota 2WD Hilux or Hi-ace. Never seen 'em on Ebay but I can get them new as OEM replacement from Alcar, type 9280, and maybe some other brands. Has anyone ever tried to get those on?

I tried a L400 Space Gear steel wheel the other day, 6x15 Offset 40, just to confirm it went over the brakes, but it collided with the inside of the calliper. I couldn't even tighten the nuts.

The thing is, I am not a big fan of wheel spacers, PCD adapters and things like that. I am a fan of low unsprung masses though, so I'd like to keep the rims as narrow as possible. Then again, I want to try 17'' wheels for good road driving stability and good offroading. Aaaand all of this is still a bit theoretical since I have no idea if, for instance, a certain tire size will give a nicer ride on a wider rim or what have you.

After studying all of the Alcar online catalogue (http://www.alcar-stahlrad.com/38227_DE.htm?webnam=Mitsubishi&offset38428=19), the type 7840 wheels seemed the best alternative, 6.5x17 with 39mm offset, which are meant for cars like the Dodge Caliber, Jeep Compass and Patriot. They will go on.

There are also some nice MOPAR alloys in these dimensions for these cars.

I have not tried these yet.

However, both will (nominally) only give a single millimetre more clearance on the inside than the standard wheels, which is not much since I want to try 235/65 R17 tires. These are nominally 20mm wider than the 215/65 R16 standard ones, according to the ETRTO data.

So the next alternative are 3rd gen Kia Sportage alloys:

These are 6.5x17 with 35mm offset, and while maybe not too pretty, they are available on the cheap occasionally, so that's what I'm gonna try next. The only 6.5x17 alternative with even less offset I could come up with is a type of 3rd party alloys named 'Monstr' by a brand named 'Alutec', in silver or black, with 33mm offset. They would not break the bank, but they would be more than twice as much as the Sportage wheels, which would make me cringe every time I went offroading. And they look a little like OZ rally wheels, which I don't think is ugly but I'm not sure I like it on the Pinin.

One other thing I have been thinking about lately is 205/80 R16 tires. They would give almost as much lift as the 225/75 T16 and 235/65 R17. There's a wide selection of A/T treads available, Goodyear - Wrangler AT/S for instance, which is a 60/40 road/offroad tread supposed to give you superior wet braking performance and fuel milage. Also there are chunky retreaded M/Ts. They would nominally be 9mm narrower than standard and you could run them on 5½x16 rims (not that I've found any of those with the right PCD...)

What do you think?