My Focus and 17" wheels - Help!

[chrisr6]

Hi all,

I just bought some 17" mvk wheels off of my mate at work (215 - 45 - 17). He fitted them and they looked snug but as i got on to the main road it went real bad... any kind of bump or pothole or bend on a hill will cause the rear tyres to rub really badly. Is there anything i can do or shall i take them back to him. My car has been lowered but only half lowered i think. Any help very much appreciated! Thanks, chris.

[Whelk8891]

Are you positive they're rubbing? If you push the back of the car down does the wheel touch the inner wheel arch?

You can either put the 15s back on, refit standard springs or stiffer suspension.

As a side note, I had 215/45/17s on mine (mk1 saloon) for about a year and a half. Got through a dozen tyres in that time - admittedly two were slashed by an idiot but that still leaves ten. I had it on standard springs with no rubbing. The ride was a lot rougher than on 15s and any accidental pot-holes were followed by a trip to the dentist to have my knocked out teeth replaced. If it was that bad on standard springs, god knows what it'd have been like lowered. Oh, and my economy went down from 55MPG to less than 45MPG.

I eventually cut my losses and went back to 15s.

[chrisr6]

Are you positive they're rubbing? If you push the back of the car down does the wheel touch the inner wheel arch?

You can either put the 15s back on, refit standard springs or stiffer suspension.

As a side note, I had 215/45/17s on mine (mk1 saloon) for about a year and a half. Got through a dozen tyres in that time - admittedly two were slashed by an idiot but that still leaves ten. I had it on standard springs with no rubbing. The ride was a lot rougher than on 15s and any accidental pot-holes were followed by a trip to the dentist to have my knocked out teeth replaced. If it was that bad on standard springs, god knows what it'd have been like lowered. Oh, and my economy went down from 55MPG to less than 45MPG.

I eventually cut my losses and went back to 15s.

Well im pretty positive, there fine in a striaght line with no bumps but hit any bump in the road and it really scrapes loudly, any bend that goes up hill. I do not have the original springs :( How much would these be?

[chrisr6]

Also where i could buy these from? (in the UK)

[Whelk8891]

I'll have to let somebody else answer that one as I've never done anything to the suspension on mine and don't know a great deal about it.

[SierraYankee99]

17" wheels should be absolutely fine on a lowered focus to 40mm drop. The tyre size is perfect for the car so all that can be wrong is the offset of the wheels. The offset for the focus should be ideally ET42 but anywhere in the range of ET35-ET49 (the offset for the wheel is stamped on the inside of the wheel) shouldnt really cause any problems. Other things to check are damaged mudflaps that the wheels catching on, loose arch liner thats catching.