As many of you may have seen last week in my last thread, I finally got some new wheels for my car. In said thread, where I mentioned I wasn't sure what brand they were, someone suggested they were likely from tirerack.com based on the logo in the center caps. That's about all the more I know about the wheels other than they have a 5x112 pattern, a 35mm offset and are 17x7.5 inches.

That said, I do NOT know for sure the bore diameter (other than its obviously not smaller than my car's hubs, as the wheels are in fact currently on there lol); I do know (at least everything I found via search confirmed this) that the bore diameter for our hubs is 57.1mm. My concern is that I may need hubcentric rings because something I also found via search, matches my problem nearly identically. At about 40-45mph, I start getting a slight vibration; when I hit 60-65+ it sounds like I've got a helicopter hovering above me for my entire drive and the whole car feels like its going over washboard roads; the steering wheel only transmits the bumpiness, it doesn't shimmy side to side as if one of the front wheels isn't bolted on correctly (I know this because I actually had that happen; somehow didn't torque the wheels right when I put them on (the stock ones about a year ago) after painting them and as I was driving, the lugs on one of the wheels slowly were working their way out and it was causing the steering wheel to rapidly keep jerking side to side as I drove until I could find a place to pull off and discover what the issue was)

I originally thought the wheels were just out of balance and causing this (I steered away from the possibility of rings at first due to the seller I bought these from telling me that they came off of my exact year and model car, so I didn't question fitment issues right away) so I took them in to be balanced, and much to my dismay and a 60 dollar bill later, it didn't make any difference. So my next thought was maybe the tires themselves had irregular wear from maybe having been previously drifted or skidded in a hard stop so I decided to see if the problem receded a little after getting a couple hundred miles on them in hopes of the rubber getting a little more evenly worn, but also to my dismay, after almost 1k miles, they still show no sign of even slight improvement, which leaves me to consider that just maybe I do need rings after all.

The problem is I'm not very knowledgeable about rings. Are they a universal thing that are based on the car and not specifically the wheel in question, or do I have to know the bore diameter of the wheel in order to get the correct rings? Also, I'm assuming rings aren't hard to find, I would imagine I could order a set from tirerack or maybe even ecs, but if that's not the case, if someone could point me to a relatively inexpensive (and possibly free shipping) site that has them, I'd greatly appreciate it

Thanks in advance for the help

 

i know that they arent universal at all im sure that you could just measure the bore of the wheel and then from there go online i know ecs has them and with a whole bunch of different sizes but if that doesnt work then idk what to tell ya...sorry if that did nothing for you!

 

Haha no worries, your suggestion was more useful than tirerack; all I could find regarding rings on that site was what they are and what they do, there was no mention on how to determine if you need them, if they sell them, or if they're a universal thing. On my way to ecs now to see what they've got on the subject thanks for the reply

 

Hah. Shoulda went to ecs first, in a matter of about 30 seconds, I got all the info I needed (other than if I for sure need them, since I can't tell my symptoms to ecs and have them tell me if it is in fact due to needing rings or not lol) but I did find that they're cheap and definitely not universal so all I need to do now is determine if I do in fact need them and I'll be set

 

Back when I bought my car it had 19x8 aftermarket wheels... aftermarket meaning they were designed to fit a number of vehicles. As you know for our cars Audi uses a 57.1mm diameter hub. If you have aftermarket wheels chances are you will need hubcentric rings, or at least should get them regardless.

Just pull off a wheel, and measure the bore diameter on the wheel, and find something on Ebay that will work. This is where I got mine:
http://stores.ebay.com/Your-Pit-Stop...&_sid=60030758

 

Yea, that's what I was planning to do; like I said, I just shied away from needing rings at first cuz I was told they came off my same model and year, and even color (oddly enough) so some odd synapse fired and by some odd logic, figured that maybe even being aftermarket, they somehow had a perfect match bore (don't ask how I might have come up with that, I can barely keep up with my conscious thoughts, my subconscious is indefinitely on its own lol)

Anyhoo, thanks for the ebay link, I don't know for sure if I'll get them there or not, I have to order a few other things from ecs anyway soon so I might just package it all into one order and one shipping figure, but I do appreciate the response

 

Yes you need them! But you need to figure out what the size of the hub hole is in the wheel. I didn't see if you found that out but that is real important. if not your just bolting on a wheel and it could be bolted on out of alignment and will cause you all sorts of hell!

 

i ran my wheels without rings for over year and never got vibrations. it was always a huge pita putting the wheels on everytime though haha.

rings are very simple, the outer diameter of the ring needs to match your wheel hub bore and the inner diameter of the ring has to match the 57.1mm hub size on the car. extremely popular hub bore is 66.56mm. aren't there any shops near you that sell wheels?

 

Hmm, thats a new perspective. I was somewhat convinced, again by my slightly skewed logic, that all the ring did more or less was aid getting the wheel on straight but once the bolts were in, it wouldn't make much difference, but what you say makes sense so next free minute I've got I'll be sure to pull one off and try to get a measurement of the wheel's bore.

Thanks for clarifying exactly how the ring functions, that makes a lot of sense. I'd have to say you're pretty lucky for not getting any vibrations over a year, I can barely stand going above 60 between the noise and the bumpiness. There are shops near me, yes, and I haven't checked with them yet (had a pretty busy weekend) but I would imagine they'll have them and depending on what they charge to put them on, I may in the end just save myself the hassle and have them do it.

 

I wouldn't have a shop do it considering all it is is pull the wheel off and put it back on. I think he was referring to taking a wheel to the shop so they can measure for you so u get the right hub centric