Is this cheating?

[Kev]

Stuck in traffic yesterday in the new (to me) X5 I decided that as the wheels needed to be refurbished I could go up the kerb for a sec. Then it struck me....

In the previous X, with staggered 20" Style 168 I would never have tried this (crunch crunch), but with the 19" Staggered Sport wheels it wasn't a problem. Even if the wheels had been mint, I think they'd have stayed that way. It was so nice to be able to take a kerb in my 4x4 (sounds stupid doesnt it!).

So, I was thinking, maybe I don't need to change them after all (I was having a hard job finding the Style 168s anyway). But I will definately fit the extended arches so I need to fill them somehow.

Spacers. Question is, 20/30mm or 15/25mm ? The wheels/tyres now are 255F/285R so to match the 275F/315R I should go with 20/30mm.

I have seen the H&R hubcentric spacers for great prices on ebay.de

Do you think it would be ok to go with the 20/30 instead of the 15/25 as fitted by other forum members here?

Thanks a lot.

Kev.

ps. If anyone has this setup, was there any degradation in handling etc. - secondly, what length bolts/lugs do I need? Thx again.

[TriX5]

Right now I have 132s with 15mm fr and 30mm rr, but I have not run it yet as I am doing some major repair/maint. This looks to be as much as it will bear w/o arch extensions.

The 30mm by definition is bolt-on using OE bolts. For the 20mm you can go with longer wheelbolts or a bolt-on version.

If you need longer bolts then buy 52mm bolts from powertech.de with the separate cones to match OE wheel bolts.

52 mm
141552KE/LK

Or maybe this rep can in the UK can help

StyledynamicsUnit 1b rear of P. James business
centre, Pumplane
GB - Middx UB33NB
[email protected]

0044 20856100012085618436

[arizonad54]

Nice.

Coincidentally, I will be selling my Style 168s within the next 3-4 weeks or so. I'm going after-market.

[Kev]

Thanks, for the info. I'm looking at the H&R DR series that need longer bolts. H&R Spurverbreiterung/Spurplatten BMW X5 E53 30mm bei eBay.de: Spurverbreiterung (endet 06.06.11 22:00:10 MESZ)

I guess you have something similar to the DRA or DRM H&R TRAK+® Wheel Spacers | Products || H&R Special Springs, LP, where the spacer bolts to the hub and the wheel bolt to the spacer.

Seems safer to stay with bolting the wheel to the hub - just in case the 'Genuine' H&R spacers are defective, if they should break/split etc. I guess the whole wheel will come off. At least with Longer bolts that ain't ever going to happen.

H&R even claim better handling - but this can't be true can it? The camber etc. for the E53 should be perfectly balanced for 9.5/10.5 combo. In my case the OEM Sport wheels carry 255F and 285R. I suppose these are probably 8.5/9.5? Adding 15mm and 30mm to the inside of the wheel will probably result in a different camber than the 9.5/10.5 combo.

Has anyone any experience of the before/after handling with this setup?

Thanks again. Kev.

[Nik]

Interasting

[TriX5]

I don't think there is a "bolt-thru" solution for 30mm. H&R spacers are TUV approved, I am not worried about them splitting. I have spacers in 30mm and a set of 45mm I used on 18x8.5 wheels. No sign of trouble there.

The width of your wheels depends on which style they are. 132s are 9" in front and 10" on the rear.

Can't say that I see a difference in camber with vs without spacers. Unless you are tearing through London at the limit of adhesion (which I doubt given the traffic) you should not have an appreciable difference in handling.

[Kev]

Great info. So the style 132 (which I have) are 9"/10". Good to know.

I'm now drawn toward the DRA (bolt on) option since this doesn't require longer bolts/lugs, I can use the existing lock nuts, and it looks like a really well made product :

H&R SPURVERBREITERUNG BMW X5 X53 DRA 50MM | eBay

I'll probably put the 50mm on the front and 60mm on the back. That should bring the wheels out to fill the arches with extensions.

Sounds like a plan?

[Nik]

Why so much?

[Kev]

Good point.

Rational is that at the rear, my setup of 285/45/19 is 30mm less than the style 168 20" that I had before which were 315/35/20. If I'm going to add the arch extensions I want the look similar to the 20" staggered (at least to fill the arches the same).

At the front I only need 20mm to get the 255/55/19 to the same fill as the 275/40/20 but to add 20mm spacers I need to go for bolt-thru and therefore different bolts and lock-nuts. For the sake of 5mm per side I can have the same Bolt-on setup as at the back.

Of course the 20" may have a different offset so not all of the 30mm difference is distributed on the outside but unless I can figure out how to measure this offset i'll go for the worst case scenario.

Unless someone out there already did the calculations?....