Hey guys,

Here's the story:


Today i brought in my new set of wheels (17x7.5 +45mm offset) to get tires fitted. The tyres were 225/50 17R and fit fine with a tiny bit of overhang. The guys at the tyre place fitted and balanced the wheels and tyres and said that everything was perfect. So i drive off and all of a sudden i listen carefully and i hear some scrapping noises coming from the rear. So i check it out and see that the inside tyre walls/profile is scrapping against the edge of my Koni shocks!!! About 0.5cm of the tyre profille was rubbed and melted down with it all the rubber flinging into my guards! I was so scared (and pissed off) at that point that it might cause an accident, so i called the tire place. By that time, i was at home and they said to put back the original 15' wheels which i did do. This brings me to drama #2.

I got around to taking off the front right tire, when all of a sudden my jack collapes!!! My A4 just goes BANG into the pavement (leaving a hole in it too), landing on the bottom bolt on the lower suspension arm. I am in shock at this moment.. lol. So i jacked up the rear end and used a 2nd jack to get the front back up.

Ok, so at this point i got the original wheels back on and took the car for a drive around to see if my car is a goner. The only apparent problems so far from the car destroying my driveway are:

*Having to hold the steering wheel 20 degrees to the right to center the line of travel as if the wheel (or maybe even suspension.....!) allignment is off
*The illumination of my speedo/etc. and air con. has gone dimmer!?!?

Everything else seems ok though.


Also once i get over today's drama, i was thinking of what am i going to do with the wheels. I'll obviously expect new tires from those "tire professionals", but i'll still have the rubbing problem at the back. I was thinking of 2 options:

1) Change rear Koni shocks (they are old school non-adjustables) to coilovers - will these or any other shocks give more clearance for the tires? (Its the wide middle part of the Koni shock body that rubs - so i need shocks that have a smaller middle body)
2) Put back the original shocks (which i don't have..) with new springs?

The offset of the wheels are 45mm, and they're Audi replicas and was told they'd fit.. but maybe they would only fit ok with the stock shocks? (i don't want to get 10mm spacers as they would then hit the guards/fenders)


Thanks for those who have come to read this far! So pretty much i was hoping if anyone could give me some advice/suggestions on:

*Having to hold the steering wheel 20 degrees to the right to center the line of travel as if the wheel/suspension allignment is off
*Any other things that i should look out for cos the car hit the ground!
*How i can fix the sudden dimness illumination of my speedo/air con., etc.
and
*The change of suspension to fit the wheels

Thanks in advance.. wish me for better luck with my car

 

Sounds like one problem after another! regarding the steering it could be any manner of different things you could of knocked the tracking off which is probably one of most lickly causes and should be relatively cheap to fix just drive it to a garage and they will sort you. And i'm not too sure on the wheels as i think spacers will be all that u need unless you have done some serious suspension lowering of >50mm then u may need spacers and to roll your arches

 

you could go with a wheelspacer or you could go with a 215 or 205 stretch. Sucks about all the drama

 

said to say but this has happened to me as well. i had to go with all new wheels with a larger offset and made the tire place give me new tires as well. you would think that they would check spacing but they are lazy and don't know whats going on.

 

said to say but this has happened to me as well. i had to go with all new wheels with a larger offset and made the tire place give me new tires as well. you would think that they would check spacing but they are lazy and don't know whats going on.

 

thats why you always put a jack stand under your car when your working with a jack

 

Getting in on old jack stand advice... Shake the **** out of the car from the roof after jacking up the car, and climbing under it/taking wheels off. If it can't handle a good shake, it means it wont handle someone wlaing by, and bumping it, the wind blowing, a dog running up, and you nudging it, etc. the car will then fall.

Ever have a car fall on you?

 

yea, u shoulda used jackstans, but the jack shouldent have faild either, i'd call the jack company and say that because of the jack fail, they are going to pay for alignment/ dimmer problem.

in tearms of your problem, i'd go with coils, and make the people who sold you the wheels pay fo them.

start there, and see where it takes you

 

THe jack company will probably tell you that you should have been using stands but its worth a try. Coil overs would probably work but theres cheaper solutions like spacers and rollling the fender.

 

Yeah, on the jack, it specifically says somewhere that you should never work under a car that is only supported by the jack....so they will call you an idiot and laugh at you. Don't even waste your time trying to get anything from them.