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I've been trying to work out why my car feels so weird when I take off my standard width and offset wheels and put on the wider ones with the somewhat low offset (7 wide, +17). After it gets about half way through steering lock it feels like the tyre changes the surface that its sitting on, and like it loses grip. I think as the track gets increased so much it just throws out the steering geometry, sort of like if it had heaps of castor?

Has anyone had their alignment redone specially to make it feel normal with low offset wheels? I'm thinking it would want a bit more camber on the front and less castor if thats possible?

It's due to the change in....damn i forgot what its called... the point at which the tyre pivots when you turn it. With stock offset it is in te center of the wheel, but with a nice offfset its on the inner edge - this makes it feel weird when you turn past a certain point.

Not sure if a wheel alignment will help, if you can afford to try out a couple of settings then go for it. The less castor thing sounds like it may help, but i doubt if it'll fix it completley.

I just live with it.

Dave

i noticed this when i first put my wheels on, at a certain point when turning it feels like you loose some of the grip. But it seems to have gone away as i dont seem to feel it anymore, or i probably just dont notice it..

Sheck, yeah, thats pretty much what I'd figured out, and I spoke to my mate that does my alignment and he said we could probably get it so it cancels most of it out, but you'd end up putting a lot of extra load on the wrong side of the front bearings

Green_Comet, thats just how mine feels, I think the fact that i change between my sets of wheels all the time exacerbates it, as the difference in feel between them all is quite marked, and one set has I think 80 something mm more track than the others. But my stockish watanabes definitely feel better in the hills even though they have reallllly crap tyres while the wide ones have good tyres.

Its just really annoying because they look so cool on the car

When I put my +15 wheels on, I noticed that the steering was lighter around the middle, and that subconsciously you seemed to need more lock to get the car turned in.

But personally I think that mid corner grip is greater and that this is prolly just a matter of feel. But like Green Comet, I've just gotten used to it

Yes yes, going from the watanabes to the stockies I noticed a change, steering feel was different, not as light in some areas...

hope that helps.... at all