Hello Fitfreaks!
This is my first post here, please be gentle...
So my girlfriend bought her first car ever last year, a brandy new 2013 Honda Fit. Being a noob at car purchasing, she went with the cheaper option of steelies and hubcaps instead of nice alloy wheels. Well winter driving and parallel parking has taught her about the advantages of alloys as she lost one of her hubcaps. These cars are too new to find such replacements on craigslist, which was my first instinct. Ebay has them though and she sourced one for herself for $40 (vs. the $100+ the dealership wanted). Anyhow she keeps saying how she never would have gone with hubcaps had she known their tendency to go missing, so I am scheming to get her a set of alloy rims for her car for her birthday (got a few months there, plenty of time to hunt).


So now the question for the experts: She has the stock steel rims, which are 15". The stock alloy rims are 16" So if I want to get her alloys I'd have to get new tires as well. What I'd like to know is if I can get some 15" alloys from a different Honda model so that I can swap the tires over? I was thinking of getting her some used snow tires to swap on the steelies, then put her lightly used tires on the alloys for summer.
Thoughts? What's the bolt pattern and acceptable offset? Not looking to do any mods or use adaptors, just want a straight swap.
Thanks so much for any help in making a very happy Fit owner and winning me some brownie points! Hopefully there is an easy answer....

 

Hello and welcome to the forums... I'm not an GE8 owner but I think I may be able to give you a little insight of what would or would not work... Just as a note, its actually better that she had did loose a hubcap opposed to clipping one of those factory wheels (assuming she curb checked to pop off/loose hubcap) as one of the '12/'13 wheels is 400+ bucks at EMPLOYEE PRICING.

Now in terms of lug pattern, the Fit runs a 4x100 PCD so MOST 15x6 inch 4-lug OEM Honda (Civic, Insight) and Acura (Integra) wheels will fit.

As for offset, it kinda depends on what size tire is being used... Presuming you/she went with the OEM correct size of 175/65R15, you should be able to easily run an offset as low as +40mm on a 6 inch wide wheel. One issue with the factory spec 175 tire, you'll be kind of limited on what wheels you can "safely" run since the tire size is recommended to be used on wheel widths of 5 to 6 inches wide (according to Tire Rack, using the Dunlop SP31 as the reference tire).

I hope some of this helps... Again, I'm not as savy as some on here with the GE8 generation since I own the older GD3. Hopefully someone will chime in and give you more accurate and/or detailed information. ^.^

 

That about covers it.

Stick with Honda wheels, many of the other make factory wheels are 4x100 but hub bore is too small for Honda.

 

thanks guys, any years I should look for/avoid? After posting I did some searching here and found a post that said civic/Integra models from early 2000s have the correct hub size. Yeah, she has the 175/65/r15s, as far as offset goes, I just want to make sure there won't be any rubbing/turning issues with alloys from another model.
In review:
15x6, 4x100 Honda wheels should work for a direct swap using the stock 175/65/r15 tires? No lower than +40mm offset, and I'm seeing in some other posts the hub needs to be at least 56mm? Is that accurate?


What about tire sensors? I see some craigslist ads that say "sensors included" Will I need to put sensors on new Alloys to work with the new fangled computer systems in these cars? I've been driving a 71 Beetle since I got my license in the 90s. On those cars you just, y'know, LOOK at the tires every once in a while to see if they need air. I have no experience with any of these futuristic "sensor" systems in cars these days. All my sensors are biologically attached to my skull.


Thanx so much for all the help so far!

 

Yup, Hootie, pretty much answered your question.


As for TPMS (sensors), there's quite a few threads going over that, and issues with that. If the stock steelies have TPMS then, just have the tire shop swap them over to the new set of alloys you buy. As long as they don't damage any one of them, it should be a direct swap, no reprogramming needed.

For overall sizing (GE8), I can't recall the exact spec (I think it was 24.1" diameter)... You can check tire rack, or google "tire size calculator"
I know the 16" alloys are 185-55-16, to which a lot of us switched to 205-50-16, and that keeps the speedo pretty much spot on. On my 15's alloys (from a different Honda) I run 205-55-15 (I like the wider tire).


not trying to be a smartass, But why not just ziptie the hubcaps to the rims (like all the taxi drivers around here do)?


Personally, I'd invest that money in a better set of rubber, cause the OEM tires leave a lot to be desired (for many owners).

 

Yes, you're review is pretty much bang on. If memory serves me right hub bore is 56.1mm.

Most Civic and Integra OEM wheels are in the mid +40 offset range anyway. You can look on the back of the wheel and see the offset stamped in one of the spokes to verify in person or check on any OEM wheel sites to check for sizing.

Also, if you don't mind going outside of Honda/Acura for wheels, the 15 inch wheels on MINIs work PERFECTLY for us.

MINI wheel guide | library of motoring - An online collection of MINI information

As for tire sensors, ANYTIME you introduce a new sensor or put on wheels without the factory/original sensors the TPMS system will code and you will not be able to deactivate VSA. It doesn't matter if its another sensor from another Fit, Civic, Insight, CR-Z, Cooper, Mazda 2, Pinto, etc. The system will code because it only knows and will retain only one set of tire pressure sensor IDs.

To remedy this, you'll either have to transfer your pre-existing/learned sensors to your "other" set of wheels or have a second set of sensors in your other wheel set and relearn them to the car when its time to run them.

 

^Yes Mini wheels... they have a lot of good offerings and are fairly light for OEM wheels. The 15" Mini wheels are only like 14-15lbs and hub, bolt pattern and offset are perfect for the Fit. They show up pretty regularly around me on Craigslist for cheap, like $200 cheap for the smaller wheels. The Cooper Works wheels and Cooper S wheels are usually still pretty expensive but base wheels are the ones to look for deals on from what i've found.

Once you get to 17" sizes they start to get a little heavy (weight).

 

MMM...Hootie, thanks for another piece to the puzzle. So, if I want to get the 2 sets of tires thing goin, and I get sensors on the alloys (or get some that have sensors), what goes into "re-learning" the new sensors. Would I have to take the car to a dealer or authorized shop? What are the costs associated with that? The other option is put the stock sensor on the alloys and swap the tires every season, which sounds heinous. Around me its about $25 per tire, and that'd be twice a year, so $200 a year to run winter tires if using one set of rims vs. $??? to re-code the ECU twice a year. Is the coding something I can do myself?

 

er.. you may wanna let her continue using her training wheels (hubbed wheels) until she can park properly.

imagine getting massive kerb rash, with the rim lip folded or cut when you are sporting new alloys.

I run 16"s and yes they look good. but to be honest with you i would think 14s/15s are fine and you save a lot on rubber. rubber for 16s and every size up seem to increase exponentially and they wear faster since they have more grip.

 

Would you rather pay or risk damaging one OEM 2013 Fit Sport wheel which costs 400+ USD to replace with a new one or pay 120 USD for one new aftermarket wheel?

It would be a cheaper investment to go with aftermarket wheels with a set of hub centric rings if you have a driver that is prone to curb check wheels (in terms of wheel replacement). In addition to that, 16 inch tires aren't too much more expensive than the 15s... maybe 10 to 20 bucks more per tire.

As for tire wear, that isn't quite true. It depends on primarily on how the car is driven... then the tire's characteristics like tread-wear and type (Summer, All Season, Snow, etc) will be other deciding factors.

 

i hope i'm not reading it wrong. they don't have sport wheels - they have the hubbed wheels, right?

no disrespect, but from a very practical/economical point of view, i would just rip all the hubs out and let her run with black wheels until she's learnt to park.

true, it's about 20 more per tyre but the lifespan is reduced by half or at least quite a bit as well. so one could be running 4X15" rubbers for 2 years for $320 or 4X16" rubbers for $400 every year. That's quite a difference IMO.

 

Just get tires with a rim protector if it's that big of a concern. The S Drives I run have such a big rim protector i'd have to run into a curb at 40mph to curb the wheel

Also wheel size by itself has nothing to do with grip or tire wear. so i'm not sure where that's coming from.

 

No...no, you are right... I miss read/forgot the original post. For some reason I was thinking going down from a 16 to a 15 inch wheel.

But you do indeed have a good view point of having the hub caps removed. Steelies are usually cheaper to replace than an alloy of the same size anyway.

Though, I'm a bit confused on where you are coming from in terms of tire wear though. Changing wheel diameter should not significantly affect tire wear as long as you maintain the correct tire size (not even factoring for wheel alignment in this example). I could understand complaining of a shorter tire life if someone had a tire with a high 560 UTQG rating like the Yokohama AVID ENVigor and replace it with a performance summer tire featuring a lower 280 UTQG rating like the Dunlop SP Sport 01 to complain about having a shorter tire life span despite maintaining the factory correct size... On the other hand, I can also see someone who changed to a 16 inch wheel talking about seeing longer tire life than that of the factory 15s with a higher 700 UTQG rated tire like this Pirelli Cinturato P7.

 

you know, strangely, my tyre lifespans seem that way for me.

i was on 15" and they lasted forever.
i have since used
2x goodyear LS2000 hybrid II
1x falken ze912
1x hankook evo
rubbers since that change.

also my friends with 15" seem to change their tires much less frequently but my tires have to be changed every 30-40k (km).

i'm not sure if it has anything got to do with wider tires and heavier rims. my falkens lasted the longest but the grip was the WORST of all. when it rains, i would slide sideways (0.3-0.5m) when making a u-turn, no matter how slow (10-15km/h) i was.

i'm running 205/45/16s.

 

these cars are not too new to find stock rims on craigslist. just be patient and keep looking, eventually you will find some. or keep looking in the for sale area here.
i stayed patient and found several stock rims for a sport listed on craigslist. eventually picked up a set for 400 bucks. just keep looking !

and as others have pointed out, if curbing the rims is going to be commonplace, keep the steelies

 

If she tends to hit curbs, then having nice alloy rims will only result in having them damaged. I would rather have steel rims and generic hubcaps than alloy rims with a driver that is somewhat careless. Also, be aware that the Honda alloy rim is poorly designed. If you remove the wheel and allow the wheel/tire to fall face-down, the alloy spokes will get skuffed up since the spokes hit first instead of the tire, which really stinks. Walmart had to purchase a new rim since I warned them and then they did just that to one of the wheels during a rotation. Honestly, I wish the car had come with standard steel rims.