Alternative to wheel spacers

[Henners]

Hi, I've got some modifications coming up for my MK7 2016 GTI. All but one are covered with reasonable insurance prices. All except wheel spacers, which adds an extra £700 (doubling my insurance..). Wider wheels and tyres adds no cost however. Whilst this makes no sense to me, I have no interest in finding out why.

So my question is what other alternatives are there to get the edges of the wheels wider on the car and filling the rims, instead of getting wheel spacers. What wider tyres and wheels have you tried/ seen/ heard of?

Cheers
H

[japes1275]

You don’t need wider wheels or tyres if you don’t want them, just a wheel with different offset. That way the wheel will sit further out but without using spacers or being any wider. There are calculators on the net that will work out wheel/tyre size and I think also give an idea of where a wheel will sit in the arch if you change the size or offset.

I don’t think insurance companies like wheel spaces due to the fact they can sometimes be an unsafe way of widening track, MSUK don’t like them either.

[Exonian]

I had an insurer refuse to cover me if I fitted spacers to my Golf R around nine years ago so it’s not a new thing.

The most common fitment for aftermarket wheels are 8” wide (8J) and around 45mm offset in Golf fitment.
You could squeeze 8J ET35 on the rear as the arches are cavernous.
You could go 8.5J but it’ll ideally need 235 wide tyres minimum, so factor that in.

As japes says, you don’t have to go wider but getting 7.5J wheels in low offset isn’t always easy.

If you want to keep OEM with the wheels then T-Roc, Passat, Scirocco wheels run a lower offset than Golf items and are easy bolt on plus use the same centre caps and bolts etc.

[willni]

So you're a local man seeking a wheely good time, here's a few of my iterations:

Brescias 7.5J ET50 with 12mm Front Spacers and 15mm Spacers Rear 225/35R19


BBS CI-R 8.5J ET45 no Spacers 235/35R19




T-Roc / Passat Pretorias - 8J ET44 no Spacers 225/35R19

[Mikeyd1]

Love the set up with the troc prets . I’m looking at getting a set