What's up with car manufacturers and their wheel bolt patterns ????????

Okay, I bought some Mezzano MZ3 custom wheels. I'm trying to EXACTLY determine the wheel lug patterns on these. They are dual-pattern wheels. My problem is one of the sizes is either 5x115mm or 5x114.3mm. How car manufacturers in their infinite wisdom could design two patterns so close together is beyond me. Now if you own a say, Chevy Impala, it has a metric bolt pattern of 5x115mm. If you buy a say, Nissan Ultima, it has an INCH size bolt pattern !!! Yes, the Ultima and many others has a 5x114.3mm bolt pattern, which is actually 5x4.5". So, you could put 115mm wheels on 114.3mm lug pattern and vice-versa because there's only a .028" difference in wheel bolt pattern diameter. That's just .014" out of position on the wrong pattern. Many people have done this, like putting Ford Mustang wheels on a Monte Carlo, which would be 114.3mm wheels on a 115mm wheel hub. Did the manufacturers ever think of the problems this can cause ? Did a Google search and there's thousands of examples where people say it's okay to mix and match patterns, while others say doing so could lead to imminent death !!! Anyone here dealt with this problem ? Shoo

Anyone here dealt with this problem

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Yes, and the only safe answer I found is to use exactly what is specified for the vehicle. I have put custom wheels on muscle cars as old as 1967. Cheap? no. Troublefree? Yes.

And no, Nissan does not give a flip about the standard bolt patterns used by Ford and Chevy. They want you to buy everything from them.

Just this week I saw an example of a young fellow who saved a lot of money buying used an "almost fits" set of wheels for his Tahoe except he now has a mess and my friend who sells new custom wheels can only confirm those wheels don't fit a Tahoe. SOL.

Non-specific fit wheels can change handling and alignment. Contrary to what the aftermarket would have us believe, manufacturers only want original equipment widths and offsets installed on their vehicles. Car dealers in the midwest will not take trade-ins with aftermarket wheels.

sar4937 said:

Non-specific fit wheels can change handling and alignment. Contrary to what the aftermarket would have us believe, manufacturers only want original equipment widths and offsets installed on their vehicles. Car dealers in the midwest will not take trade-ins with aftermarket wheels.

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Not only that but changing the diameter of the tire can have a DRASTIC effect on braking. Take a mid 80's chevy Caprice and mount 24 or 26 inch rims and you've succeeded in "building" a ride that is incapable of a panic stop at 70 or 80 mph, the brakes will overheat and stop working before you get it stopped.

scooter123 said:

Not only that but changing the diameter of the tire can have a DRASTIC effect on braking. Take a mid 80's chevy Caprice and mount 24 or 26 inch rims and you've succeeded in "building" a ride that is incapable of a panic stop at 70 or 80 mph, the brakes will overheat and stop working before you get it stopped.

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Why would JUST adding bigger diameter wheels make the factory brakes unable to stop a vehicle?

That doesn't seem to follow the laws of physics....

As many here know, I am in courts and on the streets constantly reconstructing crime and accident scenes.

Changing anything from original engineering design is dangerous and can lead to vehicle failure.

Changing tire size changes the pounds per sq inch on the tire surface, that changes handling such as braking, road friction and more. Changing tire height changes the center of gravity which can lead to roll over.

Now for the good part. Changing rims is just plain deadly. Factory rims are designed for so much stress in terms of pressure that the average driver will not reach in a lifetime. Beaty rims are generally weaker, carry less weight, have more points subject to stress fracture and are usually more prone to breaking apart during highway speed. I worked a case last year where a Chevy Cobalt had after market rims with larger tires. A rim broke in a curve, the vehicle went into the on coming lane, hit a car and two were killed. The vehicle owner was charged with altering a vehicle without having it approved by the State. He was also sued in court and I am not sure of the outcome from that as it may not have gone to court as yet or else I would have testified in the case.

Currently I am working a case where an after market set of rims were placed on a 3500 dually. They were weaker than the factory rims and failure caused the truck to leave the roadway, hit a tree and a man is paralyzed from the neck down for life.

Changing rims is common but also a violation of the law. Any vehicle modification requires being signed off by a State officer so qualified. There are many laws that are possibly broken by doing this as well as a person opens themselves up for lawsuits.

The rims may look nice but they are not worth it. Many years ago, we changed hubcabs and that did not chage weight distribution or handling. After market part makers are not going to stand behind their products since they will testify they did not tell you to make the change. They will also testify that you misused the product. I have been there, done that and wore both the hat and t-shirt.

I have not even addressed premature front end compoent failure, brake fade, tire failure or added stess on the transmission.

goldenlight said:

Why would JUST adding bigger diameter wheels make the factory brakes unable to stop a vehicle?

That doesn't seem to follow the laws of physics....

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Say a vehicle weighs 3,000 pounds. The factory specs will have tires with X number of inches of tire surface on the pavement. This creates friction between the road and vehicle. There will be so many pounds of pressure per sg inch of tire surface touching the ground.

Any change in that number would possibly be unsafe. If you have more inches of tire surface on the ground, you have less pounds per sq inch and less traction/friction and less control of the vehicle due to less grip on the road. If you have less sq inches of tire surface, you have more pressure per sq inch and that gives more grip which can lead to too much traction in turns and that can cause premature tire failure, more yaw in curves which puts added pressure on the sidewalls and subjects the tires to greater potential for blowouts and in a curve at highway speed, that is ungood.

Millions of dollars are spent studying these things before cars are approved. After market makers do not care about your safety and are not under the same laws as auto makers.

See the other posting I wrote and it adds more to this one.

Changing wheel diameter to the outrageous sizes I'm seeing makes no sense to me. On top of that they're chrome. The combination looks so stupid I can't believe people do it. Do these people think that those wheels look cool? The tires are so skinny that if you hit a chuck hole it's gotta blow the tire and bend the rim. If those gigantic monstrosity wheels are steel, I can see why it would wear out brakes. I see a lot of young guys in trucks that mount aftermarket wheels with the wrong offset. I hope they like changing wheel bearings.

scooter123 said:

Not only that but changing the diameter of the tire can have a DRASTIC effect on braking. Take a mid 80's chevy Caprice and mount 24 or 26 inch rims and you've succeeded in "building" a ride that is incapable of a panic stop at 70 or 80 mph, the brakes will overheat and stop working before you get it stopped.

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I STILL don't understand this statement.

At all.

I'm thinking the extreme low profile tires on a 24-26" rim means a lot less tire "footprint" on the road. So less braking surface. Also even if wheels are alloy they must weigh more than standard steel. Engine braking that normally comes into play when stopping may also be adversely effected. I had a 65' Corvette that had 6 or 6.5" X 15" wheels from the factory. I put 70' Corvette 8"X15" wheels on it with L60's on the back and G60's on the front. I had to cut out all four wheel wells to fit them. Looked good. Was a bear to stop at highway speeds. In winter in snow it was undriveable due to aforementioned additional tire footprint adversely effecting (oldman45) weight to stoppabllity under icy conditions. I went thru 4 sets of rear wheel bearings on that car. Also '65 had first 4 wheel disc brakes. Brake calipers were two piece. Actually two halves. Each half had two pistons. each half had 2 bleeders. Total 16 pistons and 16 bleeders. What a nightmare.

Maybe I'm just dense-but I have never put any wheels on my cars that weren't there when I bought them. Although I thought about some spinners

CAJUNLAWYER said:

Maybe I'm just dense-but I have never put any wheels on my cars that weren't there when I bought them. Although I thought about some spinners

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On the old muscle cars, the original wheels are often dangerously coroded and bent, so you needs new wheels in a restoration.
Rather than buy chrome "buggy wheels" or some such, the safer thing to do is buy a wheel that meets OEM spec but is still available. For example I managed to obtain an American made aluminum wheel that had the general appearance of the magnesium wheels original to the MOPARs in the 60s (the magnesium wheels were NOT safe) but met OEM specs for ride height, offset, and strength. Such wheels are no bargains but let the car keep the original geometry, ride height and handling. Of course, some of the metal in the vehicle is still 40 years old, so you can still spit parts if you try hard enough.

Having done restorations, I admit muscle car restorers are a little nuts, and if I had good sense I would just buy a new Challenger or Camaro.

goldenlight said:

I STILL don't understand this statement.

At all.

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its called vapor lock.
what happens is the extra mass of the wheel assembly takes more effort to get its rotation to stop. that effort translates directly to friction of the pads which generates more heat. If this amount of heat is greater than the boiling point of brake fluid, you then have a vapor lock condition where the system is wasting most of its energy compressing the vapor instead of grabbing the disk.
at this point ultimately you do stop .. but only after you stop pushing what you hit

I put more stress on my aftermarket wheels in a half hour than most people put on theirs in a lifetime. I have yet to have a wheel failure.

Having said that, making blanket statements that all wheel swaps will cause the earth to stop rotating and are unsafe is just foolish. You might as well say that you have to use the exact same make, model, size, and rubber compound tire as the OEM because we all know that different rubber compounds have different coefficients of friction and will screw up your braking and turning abilities as well.

There is some truth to what you say, but it is hard to quantify. But it's similar to someone that hotrods his engine, swears it runs better, and then finds out at the strip it is actually slower. As far as what feels better goes, it may be more dangerous at the limits. Manufacturers test lots of tire wheel combinations. When I was a Ford technician there were Crown Victorias that could only be fixed with a certain brand of tire. It seemed crazy at the time, but there was a shimmy and that particular tire was designed to minimize it. Changing the offset on a wheel usually affects the scrub radius, by moving the centerline of the tread away from the pivot point of the steering as defined by the front end geometry. Wheel speed sensors give false numbers back to the computer, sometimes it feels normal until an emergency stop.

And there in lies my point. A properly considered swap with a quality DOT approved wheel and tire combination is at least as safe and can improve braking/traction/steering performance over stock. The problem being most people go for looks, ignoring good engineering practices.

jdh said:

I put more stress on my aftermarket wheels in a half hour than most people put on theirs in a lifetime. I have yet to have a wheel failure.

Having said that, making blanket statements that all wheel swaps will cause the earth to stop rotating and are unsafe is just foolish. You might as well say that you have to use the exact same make, model, size, and rubber compound tire as the OEM because we all know that different rubber compounds have different coefficients of friction and will screw up your braking and turning abilities as well.

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It only takes once to have an accident and you will change your mind while considering yourself fortunate to have skated so long.

If you have access to any of the legal search engines, you should search the after market makers to see how many times they are sued for problems.

Just as with anything, if you change the item from original, you have destroyed the value, compromised the structural integrity and most likely interrupted your right to recover damages in the event something happens.

I am sure most people would never consider changing their gun barrel with a weaker after market barrel. Yet people do this all the time and they get injured, killed or such. Changing out things on a car does not meet safety standards set by the engineers that designed the vehicle.

Handling of a vehicle is changed once tire size is changed. Safety is compromised and in many instances, it is illegal.

So can I use non-OEM tires or not?

I said if done right. There are some of us out there that do research. NO handling of the vehicle is not compromised just be cause the tire size is changed. Handling is more compromised by substituting a lower quality tire of the original size than a properly spec'ed replacement of a different size.

Let me ask it a different way. Is the manufacturer committing a fraud or compromising the buyers safety when they offer the same model vehicle with several optional OEM tire/wheel size combinations? Same vehicle with a different size tire. Or is the dealership which offers non-OEM tire/wheel upgrades in house at the time of sale?

How about the custom van up-fitters who take a stock van from the factory, do their work, then return the van to the manufacturer for sale through the dealerships? Non-OEM tires and wheels sold on a new vehicle through a dealership. (BTW the OEM tires/wheel are returned to the manufacturer to be installed on another "NEW" vehicle.)

Yes, people do stupid things to their vehicles. I agree. However, I do not agree that every change is unsafe or illegal. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Next, I don't care how many time a manufacturer has been sued. People today sued their own mothers for giving birth to them. what percentage of the suits result in an award of damages?

oldman45 said:

Just as with anything, if you change the item from original, you have destroyed the value, compromised the structural integrity and most likely interrupted your right to recover damages in the event something happens.

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Now that I find paticularly foolish. So now I can't change oil, replace brake pads/belts/hoses/filters so on and so forth without destroying the value of the vehicle or compromising the structural integrity. I suppose I would send the Earth out of orbit if I used a different brand replacement windshield to get rid of the cracked one.

Part of the problem with this country is the over abundance of lawyers and the lack of common sense. Investigators who allow their personal agenda to influence their "interpretation" of the facts and evidence rate right up there with ambulance chasing lawyers.

Boy, I'm glad I didn't know all this back in the 60s. Those American Mags sure looked good on my new 64 GTO. I never had a wheel failure but was evidently lucky.

Maybe I should have stuck with my Baby Moons.

I've had two sets of American Racing wheels. The dealer made sure the offset was correct, my oem tires fit just fine. They looked incredibly good on my cars. I opted for the brushed finish because I didn't like the glare from the chrome plated wheels. Cleaning off the brake dust was a miserable job, none of the special wheel cleaners really helped. I never had any safety or performance issues but they were too high maintenance for me. I'm sticking with factory alloys from now on.