(no subject)

[psipsy]

Now that I have my trip to Japan behind me, it's time to take on something bigger.

But a more immediate fire to put out is aichan95 is in need of new wheels. The set of steel wheels she came with have rusted out so badly they're scraping her calipers. Funny thing is, I was investigating getting a whole new set of wheels and tires for her already. But waiting on that isn't going to get her back on the road any time soon, and the existing tires themselves are still good, so for now it's best to just get some more 14" wheels and go from there. I figure that'll buy me some time to find some 15" wheels.

Why go up in size? Because the selection of 14" tires for Ai is vanishing. Meanwhile, there's 5x as many for 15". This is do-able because some trim levels of the Integra originally came with 15" wheels. That also means there are OEM 15" wheels out in the wild, and they would fit naturally without need for any spacers or centering rings. Manufacturers of aftermarket/3rd-party wheels make the bore size as large as reasonable in order to accomodate as many possible cars, because there's no real standard for center bore size from one vehicle maker to another. Hence, centering rings are almost always required for aftermarket.

Can I still get OEM wheels? Yes. I can get used or refurbished. I think I can still get new ones too, if I don't mind spending a total of $1600. Salvage yards are hit-or-miss: By the time they get there, they're very beat up. I've already made some casual searches on the likes of ebay and Craigslist.

This is for a car that's 22 years old and has enough mileage to have been to the moon and back. I'm in unexplored territory, and have been for a long time.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Wow! You'll keep driving her until manually-driven cars are obsolete!

[psipsy.livejournal.com]

And after, too! The plan is to keep driving her until the wheels fall off and won't go back on.