Hello everyone. This is my first post and I don't know much about cars at all so I am looking for some friendly advice on what I should do. If you reply please try and keep it simple for me.

I have recently bought a 2001 Polo Gti with corroded alloys on it. It didn't matter because I thought I would just buy some new ones. However I have been looking around online and I don't know what I need. Should I even buy new ones or should I just get the ones I already have refurbed? I have a budget of £800 at the moment that I have assigned for wheels and possibly tires. Is this enough? I am happy to wait a bit and save up more if need be.

I have looked on my tires and it says 195 45R 15. Can anyone explain what that means?

I have also been to a garage and they said they can refurb my wheels for £440 to make them look new or they can do that plus paint the spokes black but leave a silver rim on the outer edge of the wheel (which i was thinking about getting) for £610. Is this the going rate? It seems expensive to me.

I may get the car lowered in the future so please bear that in mind incase it affects the wheels or anything.

I am happy just to have some decent looking 15" alloys and some good tyres that will last a long time.

Any help or advice will be appreciated.

Many thanks

Mark

A picture might help?

195 45R 15 is the tyre size. The 15 means you have 15 inch alloys, probly bbs as they come with the GTI.

A picture would really be needed to evaluate if they can be easily refurbed or need to be send off. It also depends if you want to do it yourself and if your comfortable doing it. Although if there is no bad curbing then its really just a paint job.

£800 will get you some very nice alloys and tyres. Take a look in the " Classified Ads > Parts For Sale > Wheels & Tyres (For Sale) ".

I was quoted around £300 for my alloys to be refurbed, just a black powdercoat, take tyres off, put them on etc. £440 is a lot imo, i dont know about anyone else.

If you can deal with having good alloys then i'd buy some decent ones £200-300 and save some money (maybe for tyres?), if you want perfect alloys either buy them or have yours refurbed, which will most definately be more.

As for lowering (dont know much about) id say you were fine with 15" aslong as your not planning going too low.

It depended what your after really if you like the wheels then get them refurbed depending on how bad they are mobile company's do it for less than £50 a wheel. But if you wanted to go for the look then with £800 like stated you can get some really nice wheels and tyres for this price.

For the future when lowering with a 195/45/15 tyre you should have no prombles I'm getting low on the gti wheels.

Personally I'd buy some Golf Cabriolet wheels. They are the same as Polo GTI one but 16" so fill out the arches a bit nicer.

I have looked on my tires and it says 195 45R 15. Can anyone explain what that means?

I have also been to a garage and they said they can refurb my wheels for £440 to make them look new or they can do that plus paint the spokes black but leave a silver rim on the outer edge of the wheel (which i was thinking about getting) for £610. Is this the going rate? It seems expensive to me.

Basically, 195 is the distance across the tyre, 45 is the percentage of the distance and this is your height of the tyre. 15 is the rim diameter.

You can mix and match tyre sizes up to a point - so obviously because you've got the GTi you've got the BBS wheels, I've got 195/50's on them. A bit chunky, but they fit.

People fit 165/50's too. So basically, the tyre is too narrow for the wheel, but they can be stretched on.

£610 for a refurb is a ridiculous cost. I'd have said £40 a wheel is good. If you have a spare set of wheels that can go on, you can take your own wheels apart, which will reduce the labour.

You need a Torx bit, some WD40 or Plusgas and a wrench. Wheels off, and remove all the bolts around the edge. Some will be very, very tight.

The wheels "split" and you can send them off for refurbishment.

I got my old wheels powdercoated (so the garage removed all the tyres, blasted the wheels and coated them for around £300). So yeah, £610 is a lot.

If you've got £800, get onto "Wheel-whores.com", Edition38, and here, you'll find a set you might like in the Classifieds.

Don't rush out and buy the first thing you see either, take your time.

IMO, the 6n2's suit 15's or 16's. 16's look good if you don't lower it that much.

You need to note the width though - the GTi's are 6.5J (the J basically means inches, so the wheel is 6.5 inches in width). The GTi's can take around 7J/7.5J but after that, it gets too wide.

7J up front is the best you'll get tbf. So stick with 6.5 (unless you want wheels poking out the arches).

Have a look and post links, we can help and tell you if they'll fit! :)

I'd say if your not that shit hot on wheels and splitting them then leave it to the experts. Polo GTI BBS can be a right pain and if you snap the bolts you will need to either remove them yourself or pay someone else to remove them. Most likely the latter. Thats extra cost to incur unnecessarily. Better of to just leave it to the professionals to strip them down and rebuild them.

I do agree that £610 does seem some what excessive.

£610 is crazy money... you can get a new set of wheels for that! or some good condition second hand ones and money to spare..

Hi everyone,

thanks for all the replies. Your information has been very helpful to me.

Here is a picture of the worst of my wheels.

The guy at the garage said they need sandblasting. I have emailed the picture to some companies to see if I can get a lower price to get them refurbed but if not then I will just buy new ones. Thanks for all the advice Adam. I really appreciate your post but I cannot see me doing the wheels myself. I don't have the time or the space to do them and to be honest I wouldn't feel confident at all even taking wheels off on my own. Well maybe I could take them off but I would worry about if I could put them back on properly afterwards. It is a lot better for me to pay the professionals to do it as long as they don't rip me off.

I have had a quick look at Wheel-whores.com and it looks good but I will need to take time to look properly. I was also told to look at rimstyle.com which also looked promising when I had a quick look.

Can anyone tell me whether there is any difference in handling between 15" wheels and 16" wheels? Is it just a case of the bigger, the better?

Many thanks to everyone

Mark

Can anyone tell me whether there is any difference in handling between 15" wheels and 16" wheels? Is it just a case of the bigger, the better?

Its certaintly not a case of bigger the better. Fitting bigger wheels and tyres can make the speedo read inaccurately, the same goes for fitting smaller wheels and tyres. There shouldnt be alot of difference in handling, but fitting bigger wheels with wider tyres can make the car 'tram line' (follow the grooves in the road left by trucks) With 16" wheels that will be a similair width you shouldnt see any problems to that effect. I personaally wouldnt go any bigger than 16" if you want to minimize the 2 issues mentioned.

I agree with the other guys on the refurb though. The prices you were quoted are ridiculous, they must have realised you didnt know much about cars and tryed their luck ripping you off. I wouldnt bother refurbishing the current wheels, as they are readily available second hand in better condition, or even already refurbished, for reasonable money. I cant find any for sale currently, but they go for about £200-£250 in nice, fresh, refurbished condition, with good tyres fitted. Just keep a look out on here, or ebay, for 'BBS RX2' as thats what they are called.

It's best to start somewhere - if you don't feel safe removing a wheel, you're screwed when it comes to taking it off when/if you get a puncture.

Removing a wheel is easy. When it's dry, (the weather), because wet makes it horrible. Have a look underneath the car, you'll see a line that runs all the way along the sill on the underside.

If you remove your jack, you'll see that on the top of the jack - where it goes under the car, there's a matching groove. Place the jack around half a foot from the rear wheel (or whatever wheel you're removing), slot the jack in and carefully wind it up.

Obviously crack the wheel nuts first - loosey lefty, righty tighty. Put the wrench on and stamp on it with your foot, it's the easiest way. Then jack the car up.

Remove all the bolts and the wheel pops off. Nothing to it, really. Get stuck in! :)

If you can get the wheels off and get them somewhere, it'll be easier.

Sandblasting is the correct term. It's as it sounds, they blast sand (fine sand) at the wheels at high pressure, it removes all the shite and crud.

They then polish/paint/whatever the wheels back up. It's common to split the wheels, polish the "lip" and powdercoat the inner whatever colour you want.

I picked up a set of the GTi wheels that had just been refurbed with brand new Toyo's for £200. The tyres alone are worth more.

ClubPolo is a very friendly forum, and by far the best tbf, people like helping! :)

Hello everyone. This is my first post and I don't know much about cars at all so I am looking for some friendly advice on what I should do. If you reply please try and keep it simple for me.

I have recently bought a 2001 Polo Gti with corroded alloys on it. It didn't matter because I thought I would just buy some new ones. However I have been looking around online and I don't know what I need. Should I even buy new ones or should I just get the ones I already have refurbed? I have a budget of £800 at the moment that I have assigned for wheels and possibly tires. Is this enough? I am happy to wait a bit and save up more if need be.

I have looked on my tires and it says 195 45R 15. Can anyone explain what that means?

I have also been to a garage and they said they can refurb my wheels for £440 to make them look new or they can do that plus paint the spokes black but leave a silver rim on the outer edge of the wheel (which i was thinking about getting) for £610. Is this the going rate? It seems expensive to me.

I may get the car lowered in the future so please bear that in mind incase it affects the wheels or anything.

I am happy just to have some decent looking 15" alloys and some good tyres that will last a long time.

Any help or advice will be appreciated.

Many thanks

Mark

.

I bought the same wheels in a worse state then that and it only cost me £120 to get them powder coated and they look good as new i got the spokes black and the outer rim siliver.

peice of advise be very very carefull when taking the 16 bolts out because i snapped one and it was a very stressfull ordeal getting it out. will try upload you a picture later so you can see what they look like

Edited 6 February, 201313 yr by JOSH-VW

Hi everyone,

I think I will just get new alloys and new tyres at the same time. None of the companies that I have emailed about a refurb have got back to me yet and I am not paying the garage that extortionate amount to do it. I have found some that I like. They are called Calibre 16" Eclipse. I will get them with the CONTINENTAL SPORT CONTACT 2 tyres. I think they will look good on my silver car. Can anyone tell me please whether they will fit my car or not?

rimstyle

Thanks in advance for any help.

Adam - I will have a go at some point when it's better weather. I did manage to change my aerial today which is the first ever car mod I have done. My mate helped me and neither of us know much about cars. It has made me want to have a go at doing more things in the future.

Adam and Josh - I was told at the garage that they weren't split rims and that the little bolts all around the edge didn't come out.

That's good! It's good to just get stuck in! :)

Your garage is wrong, the bolts remove and the wheel splits. The bolts are usually well corroded in, sometimes they snap (like above), but you can always get stuff out!

Your wheel choice is good! :)

Bolt Pattern : 4x100

Offset : 38

These are correct for VW so will fit no problems.

So they wanted £600 and weren't even going to split them? I did quite a few of these and I chaeged £40-£50 each wheel, that's with spliting and taking the tyree off and refitting them . I either was doing something wrong there or something right?

I like this wheels you've chosen and I think they will suit the car better. The bbs are nice, but all the gti's have them, so it would look the same as the rest.