If there is one single upgrade you could do to your car to increase performance in all areas, it would have to be the tires. You could install a fancy suspension system, a power-boosting tune, or any other impressive upgrade, but if you don’t have the rubber to stick it to the road, what good is it? I guess it all depends on what you’re going for. If it’s strictly appearance, then tires probably aren’t all that sexy, but if it’s performance, tires are a crucial component. They may not be the first thing you upgrade, but they certainly should be at the top of your list.
I made quite a few upgrades to my Cruze long before I upgraded the tires, and the reason was fitment. I wanted the widest tire that would fit with the least amount of rubbing issues. That would most likely mean wider wheels as well. Wider wheels and tires would require calculations and measurements to make sure they would fit and to make sure I would be happy with the way the fitment looked. I guess now we all know I am going for performance and appearance!
I made quite a few upgrades to my Cruze long before I upgraded the tires, and the reason was fitment. I wanted the widest tire that would fit with the least amount of rubbing issues. That would most likely mean wider wheels as well. Wider wheels and tires would require calculations and measurements to make sure they would fit and to make sure I would be happy with how the fitment looked. I guess now we all know I am going for performance and appearance!
So, first things first. I needed to know the specs on the stock wheels and tires, so I could start calculating what I could actually fit in the wheel wells. The stock wheels are 18-inch LTZ wheels, which are 7.5 inches wide with a 42mm offset. All that information can be found right on the back of the wheel. I don’t recall if the bolt pattern is on there or not, but we’ll get to that later. The tire size could be read right off the sidewall, which was 225/45. Knowing what those numbers mean is important to make the calculations easier. A Google search for wheel offsets or reading tire sizes will give you loads of info if you’re unsure.
Another thing that makes calculations easier is a calculator. On a Google search for a calculator, I discovered www.willtheyfit.com, which has a very nifty calculator with a number of useful calculations. It also has a very nice graphical comparison between your existing fitment and your new desired fitment. Since all wheels and tires are not created equal, it can’t be 100% accurate, but it will get you close. The least accurate part would most likely be the tires, because tread width’s, section width’s, tread edge, etc., can all vary from tire to tire, so there is no way it can be 100% accurate.
So, I entered my existing wheel and tire specs into the calculator, then started entering and re-entering specs for the new wheels and tires until I came up with something I thought would fit. What helped a lot was the 20mm spacers I had on the wheels. When I upgraded the brakes, I added the spacers so the wheel spokes would clear the calipers. With the spacer, the outer edge of the wheel fit as if the offset was 22mm, so on the calculator, I just changed the offset on my existing wheels back and forth between 42 and 22 to give me an indication of how the new wheel would compare. What I came up with was an 8.5-inch wide wheel with a 35mm offset. The outer rim stuck out the same as the stock wheel with a 20mm spacer, and it was .25 inches closer to the strut than the stock wheel without the spacer. All I needed to do was measure the space between the stock wheel/tire and strut to see if there was a big enough gap for the new wheel, and there was!
I now knew what size wheel would fit, I just needed to decide on what kind of wheel I wanted. If you’re reading this post, you most likely own a Cruze, and you are most likely aware of the sick joke Chevy played on Cruze enthusiasts with that ridiculous 5×105 bolt pattern. You are also most likely aware of how difficult it is to find a quality set of wheels with that ridiculous bolt pattern. A few good companies are offering that pattern, but none that were my taste. Countless hours of searching brought me to the Work Wheels website. They had several wheels that caught my eye, so I started searching through their spec sheets to see if, for some odd reason, they offered a 5×105 bolt pattern. Unfortunately, they didn’t, but fortunately, they offer custom-drilled patterns for some of their wheels. The wheel I decided on was the Work Emotion CR Kiwami, size 19×8.5 with a 35mm offset. I know, a 19 is heavier than an 18, but I have always wanted 19-inch wheels. Why? If I told you, you would shake your head and think I was crazy, but if you are really that curious, hit me up and I’ll explain it to you.
So, now I needed tires. On the tires, I knew I could at least go up to a 235, but I wanted to go wider if I could. The issue was going to be the rear. I still had a little room to work with on the front, but on the rear with the 20mm spacer, the sidewall of the stock tire stuck out slightly passed the fender, but the edge of the tread was flush. The edge of the tread on a performance tire is usually more squared off, and even with the sidewall, so I wasn’t confident I could go wider than a 235.
Since I want to do track days with this car, I wanted a tire that I could use both on the street, and on the track. I researched all the different test results for summer high-performance tires and decided on the Yokohama Neova ADO8R. Luckily, I’m friends with the owners of Quality Tire, a local wheel and tire shop in my area. They were kind enough to order a 235/35, and a 245/35 to test fit and see if the wider one would fit. I would have loved to get a 255, but I knew that was way too ambitious. I started with the 235, and on the front, it fit nicely with a little extra room, so a 245 was probable. On the rear, it wasn’t quite as good of a fit. As I mentioned previously, the performance tires have more of a squared-off edge on the tread, so the tire was sticking out approximately .25 inches past the fender. I sure as hell wasn’t going to go back down to a 225, so a 235/35-19 it was. I was just going to hope for the best once it was on the car.
Once the 235s were mounted on the car, I took it for a test drive, and sure enough, every little dip in the road was causing the tire to rub on the lip of the fender. Not too many options at this point. I could raise the car up. Yeah, right! The other option was to have the fenders pulled/rolled enough for the tire not to rub. So, off to the fender rolling shop I went. They were able to pull the finder out enough to stop the rubbing, and all was good in the world. I now had some new shoes to stroll around town in.
DS
