Interesting conversation. I bought the Fit 2015 with the steel wheels and caps (185/60/15) with the intention of installing aftermarket wheels and performance tires and keeping the steel wheels for winter duty. I was going to buy Motegi MR116 wheels in 16 X 7 with 195/55/16 tires as per Tirerack recommendations. The Motegi wheels have an offset of 40 and after reading some of your posts, I wonder if I should look at wheels with an offset of 45 or more only. I absolutely want zero rub.

I could get narrower 16 inch wheels instead but then what tire size could I put on them ? Tirerack recommends 185/55/16 for wheels that are narrower than 7 inch. Try to find a good summer performance tire in that size !

One more question please. From the posts around here I understand that it's the front tires that rub mainly but what are they rubbing on ? They rub on the outside but there is a lot of clearance inside right (hence the 45 offset vs lower values like 35mm or so)? When I went to the dealer to try the car, I thought there was a very big gap between the wheel and the wheel well so I'm surprised to hear about rubbing issues on a plus 1 configuration with stock springs.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

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They rub on either the wheel arch, fenders or suspension components. It just depends which way your wheels fill out. If you increase diameter of the wheel with adjusting the profile of the tyre, it'll fill out the wheelwell more, and might rub on the inside of the arch. But you're right, there's a lot of room inside the wheelwell, so that's not really an issue unless you're lowered, and it's not a permanent issue, but more like your tyres become bumpstops.

The main issue is because when you fit bigger wheels, the offset changes AND the width of the wheel changes AND the width of the tyre changes. So your wheel will probably end up closer to suspension components, and there's going to be less clearance when you turn. So while you may not actually touch when the car is going in a straight line, when you turn, or hit bumps, you get rubbing.

Lowering offset matters because it fills out the wheelwell more - moves your wheels further away from the suspension - regardless of the width of the wheel. But the effect of increasing offset pushes the face of the wheel further out.

You probably won't have issues. There's a lot of room between the lip and the wheel anyway. But I would say that you probably don't need 7 inch width tyres with 16s.

High performance tyres in that size? Which is the size I run.

Hankook Ventus V2 H457 or the Toyo DRB.

 

Be sure they are Direzza Stars if you're looking to compete. Dunlop offers a similar tire that's not as oood. check tireterack description.

 

the offset does not change with bigger or wider wheels. It is the +difference between the hub face and the centerline of the tire, no matter how wide or diameter of the wheel. as for rubbing its the tire size that matters not the wheel as long as the tire fits the wheel properly.
and the latest i hear from our a/xers is the BFG rival and Dunlop Direzza Star II's are the leaders. check the slalom tims reported by tirerack. and GRM for their a/x tests.

 

I'm not sure I understand your explanations but thanks anyway. It seems way too overcomplicated to get a decent setup that doesn't rub with this car (by what I have read so far). If this is all true, I would have got another car altogether. I have a 10 year old Toyota Echo hatch. As soon as I had bought the new car, I threw away the OEM wheels and tires (in manner of speaking) and got the best looking wheels I could afford and performance tires to match. Heck I never checked the offset and it turns out it was +35 with 195/50/15 Toyo Proxes tires. So I was running a true +1 setup and lowered the car with Tein S Tech springs with never a rubbing problem for the life of the car. No camber adjustment whatsoever was needed either. A good wheel alignment was done and tire balancing and that was it. Handled like a charm.

Also, honestly the Hankook V2's look nice and are slightly above OEM in performance but it is not what I consider a performance tire. If I'm going to get aftermarket wheels and drop the car, I want a summer performance tire to go with it. I was going to get Bridgestone Potenza RE760 sport but I'm waiting until I can be sure my setup won't cause problems.

 

Maybe I'll never know if the setup I want is going to cause rubbing or not but one thing's for sure, the steel wheels and caps have to go.

 

My car is lowered 1.6 in front, 1.3 in the back, 185/55/16 tires, 16X7 42+, 10mm spacers in the back. It rubs the top forward pushpin that holds the plastic wheel well liner in the front. With -1.7 camber there's no problem, but with 0 camber I have to pull out the pushpin and then there's no rubbing. So you can see it's really close where 45+ would alleviate the issue.

If you don't lower your car, it's possible you won't have any issues with +40 even, except on really hard compressions.

I am planning on 205/50/16 soon and this will increase the outside width another 11mm, so the only way it will work is by adding camber, which I am OK with.

 

I didn't say it did. I said lowering the offset pushes the wheels further away from the suspension components and fills out the wheelwell more.

 

How good do your tyres need to be with a max 120bhp engine? Probably not that good. Especially if you're not modding.

At some point you'll see diminishing returns from fitting road tyres that'd be more at home on a Type R Integra without any suspension changes.

That's probably at the point where you're looking to buy RE760s. This is just my opinion, ofc. I don't think you need to buy those tyres for this car. I totally agree you want to avoid terrible Chinese brands, but as far as high performance tyres go, I wouldn't put them on my fit without needing them or planning to need them in the near future.

I run a very similar tyre sold for the Asian market, the RE002, on a Celica. They're the tits, they really are, but even the Fit RS is very flabby compared to the Celica, and there'd be no advantage to running the RE002 on the Fit with stock suspension and a stock engine. I also ran Proxes on my Civic Type R, but they were garbage compared to the RE002. I would run the Proxes on my Fit - but I'd probably go to the Hankooks first. For the Fit I just chose tyres for the reason I bought it in the first place - fuel economy - and bought EP422. As stock it's never going to out-handle anything else I've owned. If I upsized to 17s I'd consider a different tyre for the appropriate width, but because the RE002 are really noisy, I'd probably go for something else.

Use the wheel and tyre calculator, and then get some measurements of where your current setup is in relation to your bodywork. Pretty sure you won't have issues with the setup you suggested, but it's not a problem to roll in a lip anyway.

 

I was planning on lowering it for sure but mildly. On another forum thread I asked if anybody had tried teh Ark GT-F springs because they seem to be the one that lower the front the least.

So I guess I'll have to check for +45 wheels then. From what I have read though it seems like you can't lower and ditch the stock wheels as well. It looks like it's one or the other.

I guess I could start by just a wheel and tire combo and try to stay on the safe side and if that works out well, try the mildest drop I can find.

 

I lowered mine first knowing I would have no clearance issues with the factory wheels. Once I got it the height I liked, I selected a wheel and tire that's fit the dimensions that I was left with.

 

From my limited driving experience (20+ years), the tires are the single most significant update anybody can do on their car. You might think otherwise and it's OK. The 4 season tires Honda or any manufacturer of regular (as opposed to sports) cars fit on their cars are crappy when it comes to handling, acceleration, braking, road feel, steering response, water evacuation, etc. Some people never notice because they've never driven on better tires and some others just don't care. Of course people who have sports cars with more power will appreciate the better tires even more but even on an economy car, it can make a significant difference on the variables I named above.
The Hankook's are a little better than what the manufacturers put on their economy or entry level cars. I'm 100% sure that if I put a better tire than the Ventus V2 on the Fit I'll notice it right away. You don't have to have a 200 BHP + engine for that.
If I decide to go 185/55R16 I might have to get the Hankook's. Apart from that, the choice is very limited. I found Nexen Nfera Su1 which I know very little about. The tread seems nice but that doesn't mean anything. The rest are all what tirerack calls grand touring tires (hard wearing and boring).

 

It's a placebo on a stock Fit. But it's your money.

 

I have some Nexen tires (N3000) on another car because I bought them while just trying to stay on budget and can attest to them being crap tires. They get slick quick, which would not be expected based upon their tread wear number yet also wear really fast. They have the little Michelin man molded into the outer tread blocks on this tire, but I've worn out the tires all around (AWD) with a bit over 10K miles on them. I would never buy them again. Is there a reason that Kia specs them on their new cars? Yeah, they are there because they are cheap. Please steer clear of that tire/brand.
The rubber matters, regardless of the car it attached to.

 

Any street stock/showroom stock racer would laugh in your face for a statement like that. Also, where I live the RE760 are not much more expensive than the Hankooks Ventus V2.

You are right, it's my money but it's not even a question of money at all.

 

Not everybody thinks that way apparently. I used to have Toyo Proxes 4 on my Echo (granted it was modified but not more than about 15-20 HP more than stock) and once they were used up, I bought a set of Kumho ECSTA AST to save money. Although both were considered performance all season, the Kumho felt completely different. It was more comfortable and less noisy but the handling was much worse because the compound was soft. I felt I was riding on marshmallows. In the wet, I would never ever loose traction on acceleration with the Toyo's but I could easily make the wheels spin with the Kumho's. They weren't bad but they weren't very good either.

Thanks for the heads up on the Nexen brand.

 

Tires matter regardless of vehicle or horsepower . a 40 hp sprite with BFG rivals will outcorner a typical OEM tire so much that handling improves enormously. Stick a proper set of Hoosiersor Pirelli Trofeo R'son it and see what that does.

 

Stick a set of Hoosiers on your Fit and tell me its a placebo.

 

Feed me more placebos please.

 

I got back from the alignment shop after putting -1.7 camber in the front w/ toe set to 0. Way better. No more rubbing and I can put the liner pushpins back. Rides and handles great; I think I've got room for 205's as well.

I put camber bolts in before to test clearance, but I did it without an alignment and took them out. It drove like crap and put me off because when negative camber is increased with the bolts, toe in also increased - a lot actually. -1.7 degrees camber bumped the positive toe to about + 1.3 degrees or so both sides. Trust me on this, positive toe-in sucks.

After the alignment brought the toe back to 0 and kept the -1.7 camber, it's all good. no more buzzing at all, no matter what conditions I encounter and I like the handling even more. After measuring fender clearance I am confident I have room for 205's.

I'm looking for some good tires in the 200 - 300 tw range. any recommendations? 205/50/16's