Discovered while I was cleaning my calipers at the weekend that I had a 8.5J x18 with 225/40/18 on the front and 8J x 18 with 255/35/18 on the rear. So the tyres were right but on the wrong wheels (108’s BBS). I had the tyres swapped round today but the front looks quite stretched in comparison to the rears. Is that normal?
OEM stretched tyres
- Thread starter golfgeezer
- Start date
No, they should look the same end to end.
Hmm summats not right then 
Have they been refurbished and someone has made a huge error when they put them back together?
hold on..you have the smaller wheels with bigger tyres on the rear??? that sounds arse about tit 
you should have the 8.5 on rear with the 255's and the 8 on the front with the 225's surely
you should have the 8.5 on rear with the 255's and the 8 on the front with the 225's surelyI reckon they’ve definitely had a refurb pre my ownership. Could be someone has mucked up somehow? Staggered fitment on my 220d but they’re square all round.
Yes that’s how it is sitting now. It’s the 8 on the front with 225’s that the tyres look ‘stretched’mr.tourette said:hold on..you have the smaller wheels with bigger tyres on the rear??? that sounds arse about tit
You should have:
Front 8 x 18 with the 225 and rear 8.5 x 18 with the 255
Front 8 x 18 with the 225 and rear 8.5 x 18 with the 255
Yes that’s what I have
golfgeezer said:Yes that’s how it is sitting now. It’s the 8 on the front with 225’s that the tyres look ‘stretched’mr.tourette said:hold on..you have the smaller wheels with bigger tyres on the rear??? that sounds arse about tit
Ah right, misread your original post, the fronts shouldn't look stretched at all..pics?
I’ll get some later this afternoon and post here
Attleborough, Norfolk
Of course it'll look different... 255 is 30mm wider than a 225, but an 8.5" rim is only 13mm wider than a 8" rim. So the front to rear stretch difference is 17mm...
Rear on the car
Front on the car - sidewall sticking out quite a bit compared the rear which doesn’t
Front wheel removed from car. It’s difficult to show on a picture the noticeable difference between the front and rear. If I had a big tyre caliper I could measure the wheel width accurately...but I don’t
as i say, 8" is 203mm, so a 225 tyre is nominally 22mm larger.
8.5" is 216mm, so a 255 tyre is nominally 39mm larger.
so yes, the front is going to look slightly more stretched on the rim than the rear does. its perfectly normal with OEM tyre sizes.
8.5" is 216mm, so a 255 tyre is nominally 39mm larger.
so yes, the front is going to look slightly more stretched on the rim than the rear does. its perfectly normal with OEM tyre sizes.
Strange then that the same front tyre size on same size wheel on my 220d doesn’t stick out like that
I'd like to see some face on pics..those angles aren't helping, can't really make out if its stretch or just the natural shape of the tyres rim protector
Mister T said:Rockhopper said:
I bet someone has accidentally swapped the centres and that's why they were 'the wrong way round' in the first place
So far Mister T looks to be on the right track. With the tyres on I can’t accurately measure the rim width however I can measure from the back of the spoke part of the wheel to the lip. On the 8” wheel that measures 7.25” and on the 8.5” wheel it measures 6.75” so I reckon someone has indeed inadvertently swapped the centres not realising the size stamps were different on them. That said the tyres I changed round I’ll now need to change back
:I’ll check the passenger side now just to confirm my suspicions. Next question is how easy is it to change the centres? Lots of bolts to undo I realise but I’d like to right this wrong and have them correct.