thisissarcastic

First of all, I'm new here and I'm sorry if someone finds it a little rude that I'm already posting questions. But if possible, I need help in choosing the right steelies for my car. I researched on the internet and found that there are 3 parameters to look for.

1. Wheel diameter
2. Bolt pattern - Number of bolts
3. Bolt pattern - Diameter of bolts

Wheel diameter and number of bolts was easy to find, but for the bolt diameter, I used the following site.

Cheap Custom Rims - Vehicle Bolt Pattern Guide

I found the bolt pattern for my 05 civic si sedan to be 4x100 15 inch.

I found someone selling their 1 year old steelies on kijiji, 15 inch off a 2001 Mazda protégé. The link above didn't have the information for the protege so I consulted the following link to find that they are 4x100 too.

Mazda - Vehicle Bolt Pattern Reference

Just wanted to know I'm doing things right and I won't end up scewing things up.

Thanks for your time and help!

MPR

Pretty much any 4x100 rim will fit a civic. That's part of the joy of having a car with 4x100 bolt pattern. It's practically the #1 most common bolt pattern.

That being said, if you want to save even more money, find some 14" steelies. The smaller the rim size the cheaper the tires will cost for them.

I don't think you can go any smaller than 14" though.

Just make sure the overall tire diameter stays as close to the same diameter as the oem tire size. There are tire size calculators if you do a google search that will help you find the right tire size.

thisissarcastic

Hey Mike,

Thanks for your reply. I'm picking up the steelies this weekend and putting on Bridgestone Blizzacks WS70s on my car. Its my first time driving in the winter, so I'm taking some precautions. I also drive to Kitchner a lot, so I thought the extra soft Blizzacks should work well. I've heard they put some extra tread depth in the 70s compared to the 60s to compensate for the faster tire wear.

MPR

^Good choice. Blizzacks are one of the best snow tires on the market.

ol Dusty

iTrader: (2)

another thing you need to consider is the diameter of the centre bore, where the hub goes into the wheel. On civics older then '06 for the most part, we're lucky, our hub diameter is small so we can fir most 4X100's. We can fit VW golf/jetta rims, but due to our hub, our rims don't fit on VW's. There is a valid argument that if the bore on the wheel is larger then the hub, you need rings to fill the gap. Rims used to be lug-centric but most cars on the road today are hub-centric. The wheel will be hanging on the lugs and not the hub. When you tighten down the rim, the lugs will pull the wheel into position, but not 100% perfect. This can cause a vibration in the wheel as it's centre would be off the centre of the axle it's on. You can usually find used steelies at junk yard for $40-50. Get Honda ones from an LX and have the perfect fit. rings are usually only used by people when installing after-market alloy rims. Wheel shops usually even offer them for a few bucks extra when you buy rims for your car. Like CT sells sahci alloy winter rims for ~$80/ea+ and a set of spacers for $15 more. (these spacers CT sells fit perfect with rota's on civics)

This is advice you should be aware of but is not really a safety issue, more a comfort thing. Though a vibrating wheel may or may not occur without them, it could even with of course from other problems, bad rim, bad balance etc, and that can cause premature wear of suspension components. I don't know if you can even get rings intended for steelies and this is why I suggest factory rims. If you can fins a used set in decent condition for a fair price that is.

If you intend to get a nice set of wheels someday for your Si, then I'd just put winters on the factory alloys, make sure they coat the bead section of the rims with that black rubber gunk they use to help seal tires, to reduce corrosion of the rim and then nicer rims for summer and the car will look good all year. Even a used set rims on here in the classifieds could do the job if you find some old cheap factory rims.

That brings me to another important parameter missing, offset. How far in or out from the centre of the car does the wheel sit vs where the hub is that the wheel is bolted to? if the wheel sits too deep back into the wheel well, it can rub on things and cause damage or even lock up on a turn. If it sticks too far out from the car and this is an issue with being too deep in your changing the way the load is placed on the ball joints. It's a term called scuff ratio. Again this can cause premature wear of suspension components, like ball joints.

All of these different factors are why I suggest for the purpose of a winter wheel, factory is best. Takes all the guess work out and you know your not adding to the stress you put on your car in the first place.

Sorry bout the book but I hope this helps. One thing to consider lastly is when picking tire size, maybe go a little skinnier and taller (if your not slammed) taller to keep the aspect ratio correct and thinner to help both with making up for the increased rolling resistance of a softer tire but also it put more weight over a smaller surface area helping to cut through the snow and get down to the pavement.

Like if you have a 195/50r15 stock, go with a 185/60r15, not sure about these exact number or if they would work for your car but just an example. My 93 Si came with 185/60r14's and in the winter I usually run Civic VX 13's with a 175/70r13.

Good luck with your tires and drive safe in the snow! (don't tell anyone but finding a big empty parking lot and playing around in the snow, is a good way to get used to recovering from a slide or lock up and can turn skills learned into automatic reactions)

D.T.P

As mentioned above, you need to watch out for:
Bolt pattern
Offset
Center bore

If you get these 3 down, you will not have any problems.

MPR

What ol dusty mentioned is all good stuff to keep in mind.

About the hub-centric rings etc. On the MR2 and my civic I've always used rims with larger center bores with no hub centric ring and there hasn't been any issues. Torque the lug-nuts to spec and it should be fine. Especially at the relatively lower speeds we're limited to on the street. :P

thisissarcastic

Thanks for your insight guys. But before I read these explanations, I had already gone ahead with the steelies. The guy I got it from, used them on his 04 civic lx without any problems, so I'm hoping it should be fine for me too. I definitely hate steelies. I wanted to keep nice rims all year long, but I was told by my buddies to stick with steelies for the winter. I want to upgrade to better rims next winter though. Now I'm not sure if I should get the blizzacks put on the steelies or my current fat 5s. Hmm...