Some car mods should be easy. If you buy a set of wheels with the correct bolt pattern, hub, and offset they should have no problem fitting, right? Oh you’d think, but never underestimate the potential to have a bad day.
Lewin’s story on how to stop snapping Subaru wheel studs inspired Robn to point out that it’s not just Subaru owners who can have a really bad time in the wheel realm:
Years ago, I picked up some sweet, cheap 14-inch BBS basketweaves from an E30 BMW for my Honda Fit. Test fitted and everything seemed to check out. I refinished the wheels at home, got some new tires mounted, and then went to do the simple task of bolting them on the car. When tightening them up, that’s when I realized the wheel hub was just thick enough that I wasn’t comfortable with the reduced number of threads poking through the wheel. FOOL ME ONCE.
So I ordered longer studs from ARP and watched some YouTube videos at the time and it seemed easy enough to swap them in. When I went to pound out the stock studs to do the swap, I realized that Honda designed them with no clearance which prevented them from coming out – now I needed to remove the damn hub. FOOL ME TWICE.
So, I went ahead and did that. Bough two new front wheel bearings, and took the hub, bearings, and new studs to a local machine shop to pull and press everything back together. I put everything back on the car, and — extreme wobble. Somehow they messed up what I assumed would be one of their easiest jobs. FOOL ME THREE TIMES.
I was getting tired of this shit, and wasn’t about to go back to that place again. So, I decided to hit up a buddy who worked at a Honda dealer out of state. Figured it would be easier to buck up, do it right once and for all, and put this stupid project behind me. I went all in. I had him order me two new front wheel knuckles(!), hubs, bearings, and another set of ARP studs. And asked him to please have his mechanic assemble everything at the dealership and send me the fully assembled knuckles/bearings/hubs/studs. Pricy but foolproof. A couple weeks later the package arrived and I was ready to put the suspension back together and call it a day. Everything went back together just fine – until the ABS light wouldn’t go out. I double checked all the wires and connections, all good. That’s when I learned that the abs pickup is built into the Honda wheel bearings and they have to be installed with a particular side facing a particular way. And guess what – one (or both) of my bearings were most definitely not installed that particular way. FFS. FOOL ME FOUR TIMES.
Now I was so deep into this stupid wheel swap there was no turning back. Angry, dejected, defeated, I went to the local Honda dealership, explained everything, and said, please god just make it right. I can’t remember how much I ended up spending in total just to swap on a set of cheap wheels from Craigslist, but I’ll never get it back. Just like you’ll never get back the five minutes it took to read about my misery from 2009.
I’m angry on your behalf, Robn!
Matt wrote a bit of a silly post about how Hagerty isn’t doing Pontiac Aztek values any favor. Well, Otter offers a different perspective:
But how do we know that Galpin hasn’t amassed a huge cache of Azteks and used its captive auto hobbyist site to drive up Aztek values, even to the extent of pitching them as housing in the insane SoCal market???
But my favorite responses today came from the piece about the owner of Car and Driver and Road & Track purchasing Motor Trend, creating a buff mag singularity. From 2-Car Solution:
All the more reason to get my automotive news from this fine establishment.
Michael Beranek responds:
Really, I don’t trust any of the others anymore.
Torch/Streeter 2028.
Church fires back:
Clarke/Hardigree 2028 more like. And don’t give me that “must be born here” nonsense. Rules are meaningless now, so I’m sure we can swing it.
I like this election. I’ll take Adrian, Jason will go up against Matt. I’m just ending a day where I interviewed an RV engineer for a whole 40 minutes and then some. Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: eBay seller
I had a similar case on my 96 S10. I needed new tires and I found a set of Camaro steelies with the silver trim ring from a 5th gen Camaro on craigslist with brand new tires for about what it would cost to put tires on the stock wheels. I figured “both GM RWD, no problem”. Big problems. I was young, I wasn’t thinking much about lug pattern or offset or anything really. I just wanted them on. The offset was wayyyyy off. Like could barely turn the wheel. The bolt pattern was 0.5mm off, so they would bolt up but it was sketch. My buddy owned a diesel/offroad shop at the time. I had him build me a custom set of spacer/adapters CNC machined out of aluminum. That cost me like $500 and I still couldn’t turn to full lock, but it was driveable. The forest green truck looked amazing with those wheels but I ended up trading it in on an 03 CTS with a 5 speed and never looked back.