Upgrading wheels/tyres on Santro

[razor4077]

165/65 R13 tubeless Goodyear G3's with Aura alloys. Thats what my Santro runs on... makes a huge difference from the stock 155/70's. Better grip, rides smooth and the alloys, of course, add to the drool factor in addition to improving ride quality.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Now that my new Baleno is decked up with 195/60R14 Yokohamas on BSA alloys, my wife's Santro is feeling ignored.

Now, many of you may turn up your noses at the mention of automatic transmission. But the fact is when driven properly, it can hold it's own. It may not be quick to accelerate or have much passing power, but it can go fast when needed. However, I have never been happy about it's tyre grip. I remember skidding all the time when I was driving the ghats last year on a tyres with just 5K on it, now it has 15K.

Now my wife wants to keep it for 15 years or until it kicks the bucket. Since I end up driving it everyday, I might as well do something to make the drive better. BTW, I drive Santro before lunch and Baleno after lunch. I follow this strange practice because, it is much easier to drive the Santro during the morning rush to my son's school through one narrow road full of pedestrians. My afternoon drive is much more relaxed.

So I want to move it to tubeless on alloys, what else...

What is the best upgrade for Santro Xing, has anyone done it? The stock is 155/70R13, would it make sense to upsize the rim to a 14" alloys? Regarding width, how much is good, 165 or 175? What model tyres?

hi samurai,
how are the yokohamas coming on now, after 1 year & how many kms has it done ?

[Lalvaz]

Have a Santro with Bridgestone stock tyres with metal 13" stock rims. Have touched 165 kmph for extended periods without any issues so far (Touch wood), I'm really satisfied with the handling and speed, excepting on corners. But, after reading all the posts on how alloys and tubeless tyres have made such a drastic difference, I'd like to check it out. Is there any Bombay based guys who've switched to alloys on a Xing? I'd really like to see how it handles before forking all that cash....

Cheers ,
Lalvaz

[faithless_1984]

hey guys i recently upgraded to alloys.
thanks for your time and patience ishan bhai

well they are 13` prestige alloys in hyper black finish ,paid 10k for a set of four,tyres stock (155/70r13) .
the design of the alloys is such that the wheels are sticking out from the body/arch by 1-2 inch/inches so they were scraping/rubbing against the body while turning but that problem got sorted out (although not completely)
also the guy told me that i will need spacers in the rear wheels so after much consideration (and after reading the posts here) i have decided to go for them.
my question is ,i am getting them for rs 250 a set (rubber spacers,dont know much about them) is this ok should they cost so less ??
also how much will it effect the handling and is it safe ??

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by faithless_1984

the design of the alloys is such that the wheels are sticking out from the body/arch by 1-2 inch/inches so they were scraping/rubbing against the body while turning but that problem got sorted out (although not completely)
also the guy told me that i will need spacers in the rear wheels so after much consideration (and after reading the posts here) i have decided to go for them.

OK, now this sounds very weird. If the wheels are sticking out, it has nothing to do with their design. It means you picked alloys with an offset that doesn't match your car. You should always consider offset value carefully while upgrading to alloys. What is even more weird is that you want to fix this with spacers, not a good idea. You are better off switching to wheels with the right offset for your car.

Click this link and search for Inset, and you might understand what has happened.

[faithless_1984]

OK, now this sounds very weird. If the wheels are sticking out, it has nothing to do with their design. It means you picked alloys with an offset that doesn't match your car..

yes sir you are right the guy said that they are `negative something`
(i guess this is a term used for alloys which are like the ones on safari`s scorpios) alloys.
initially i wanted to go with 14` alloys but for that i needed new tyres i guess 175/60 r14 so i thought its better to go with these as i had a budget of around 15k max

What is even more weird is that you want to fix this with spacers, not a good idea. You are better off switching to wheels with the right offset for your car.

i was going to solve the problem (touching of the body by the wheels while turning) by going for 165/65r13 ,the spacers will prevent the wheels from touching the body when the car is loaded.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by faithless_1984

i was going to solve the problem (touching of the body by the wheels while turning) by going for 165/65r13 ,the spacers will prevent the wheels from touching the body when the car is loaded.

This is getting more confusing now. How are you fixing this issue by switching to a wider tyre? Exactly where are you putting this spacers?

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by Samurai

This is getting more confusing now. How are you fixing this issue by switching to a wider tyre? Exactly where are you putting this spacers?

@Samurai I have done the same thingy of installing the spacers on my old Alto. Did face a similar problem with the Alto after installing alloys.With 4 peeps in the car, the body would touch the tyre.

The spacers are installed on the shocks to increase the height of the body so that the body doesn't rub the tyres.Never ever faced a prob till date. Touch wood !!

I am planning on a similar install on my Baleno this weekend.Have checked with a MASS and they have the spacers for the Baleno also.

Faithless IMO go ahead with spacers and please check if they can provide you with metal spacers rather than using rubber spacers.
My install of 4 metal spacers costed roughly about 1200 bucks on the Alto.
Regarding handling issues, haven't faced any as yet. The car has been used extensively on almost all our family trips and no problems.

[rks]

Originally Posted by Lalvaz

Have a Santro with Bridgestone stock tyres with metal 13" stock rims. Have touched 165 kmph for extended periods without any issues so far (Touch wood), I'm really satisfied with the handling and speed, excepting on corners. But, after reading all the posts on how alloys and tubeless tyres have made such a drastic difference, I'd like to check it out. Is there any Bombay based guys who've switched to alloys on a Xing? I'd really like to see how it handles before forking all that cash....

I am surprised that nobody has replied to your query. If you are going to do those kinds of speeds, you must choose your alloys very carefully, to match the specifications of your stock rims, especially the offset. Otherwise you may end up with vibrations and braking/handling problems at high speeds (see some of the threads in T-BHP, especially by sAP). Even in this thread you see some people with problems due to wrongly chosen alloys.

Secondly, I strongly suggest that you switch to tubeless tyres, for better handling and safety at high speeds. If you are sticking to stock steel rims, go for stock-size tubeless tyres ( I am using stock-size Bridgestone S322 tubeless tyres on my steel rims). But you need to make sure that your steel rims are not too rusted or bent out of shape before going for tubeless. If you want to upsize, I suggest you contact some T-BHPians like iraghava, who have a lot of experience with upsized tyres in Santro.

[kpzen]

Originally Posted by faithless_1984

yes sir you are right the guy said that they are `negative something`
(i guess this is a term used for alloys which are like the ones on safari`s scorpios) alloys.
initially i wanted to go with 14` alloys but for that i needed new tyres i guess 175/60 r14 so i thought its better to go with these as i had a budget of around 15k max

I think your alloys must be something like this

Originally Posted by faithless_1984

i was going to solve the problem (touching of the body by the wheels while turning) by going for 165/65r13 ,the spacers will prevent the wheels from touching the body when the car is loaded.

Installing spacers isn't a very good idea in term of looks n handling..

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

@Samurai I have done the same thingy of installing the spacers on my old Alto. Did face a similar problem with the Alto after installing alloys.With 4 peeps in the car, the body would touch the tyre.

The spacers are installed on the shocks to increase the height of the body so that the body doesn't rub the tyres.Never ever faced a prob till date. Touch wood !!

I am planning on a similar install on my Baleno this weekend.Have checked with a MASS and they have the spacers for the Baleno also.

Faithless IMO go ahead with spacers and please check if they can provide you with metal spacers rather than using rubber spacers.
My install of 4 metal spacers costed roughly about 1200 bucks on the Alto.
Regarding handling issues, haven't faced any as yet. The car has been used extensively on almost all our family trips and no problems.

What size tyres do u have in an Alto?
Are u getting spacers for Baleno to increase the hieght or tyre scraping issue?

KP

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by kpzen

What size tyres do u have in an Alto?

Are u getting spacers for Baleno to increase the hieght or tyre scraping issue?
KP

13 inchers on the Alto.

I am doing this on the Baleno only to increase the height because my heart aches when the bottom scrapes some of the mega sized speed breakers in Bangalore.
Also I drive quite often to Wayanad and every now and then the bottom scrapes over the speed breakers with 4 people in the car.

Cheers

[kpzen]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

13 inchers on the Alto.

Size of the tyre?
I also installed a 165/65-13 in my zen n had this scraping issue but got it solved without using spacers by getting the wheel arches hit from the inside using a plastic hammer....

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

I am doing this on the Baleno only to increase the height because my heart aches when the bottom scrapes some of the mega sized speed breakers in Bangalore.
Also I drive quite often to Wayanad and every now and then the bottom scrapes over the speed breakers with 4 people in the car.

Cheers

Yeah the only thing that hurts in a Baleno

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by kpzen

Size of the tyre?
I also installed a 165/65-13 in my zen n had this scraping issue but got it solved without using spacers by getting the wheel arches hit from the inside using a plastic hammer....

Same as yours mate . I dint want to do what you mentioned because somehow felt uncomfortable doing that. The dealer had suggested the same
Let me check if I can get some pics of the car over the weekend with the spacers on it.

[faithless_1984]

pics of the alloys i`v got right now





?

Installing spacers isn't a very good idea in term of looks n handling..

how bad will it effect the handling ??

[faithless_1984]

some better quality pics