Long story short, busted a wheel at a construction site, bought a new one, bought the wrong one, turns out the offset makes it sit in more than the others. Looking at the others i noticed I dented the other wheel on the same side during the accident. I figured i could buy a new one with the different offset and run them up front. Would I be able to run two offsets of front and back? Or am i gonna need to buy a whole new two wheels so that they all match?

 

As long as you don't rub the tire on parts of the body, running different offsets will make no difference on your car. Its actually quite common for people to run different widths/offsets on their cars. Heck, a ton of cars out there COME with two different sizes of wheel to begin with.

 

That's what I thought. Thank you. But I need to get an alignment. The goodyear i go to said they wouldn't be able to do it if i had the different widths. Do you think any other alignment place would be able to do it?

 

Any reputable alignment shop won't have a problem. If they did, Corvette's and S2000's would never get alignments.

 

A differential in offset front to rear in itself does not generate a problem, but if the wheel position SAI does not match the rim offset and width, tire scrub radius will be affected, which can cause dangerous conditions in the event of uneven suspension height (hitting a pothole), low tire pressure relative to the opposing side, or a complete blowout of a tire.

SAI: Point of intersection of the upper and lower suspension pivots (IE ball joints)

Scrub Radius: Point of intersection of the SAI and the wheel/tire centerline. Positive scrub is an intersection above the ground, zero scrub is where the tire centerline and SAI meet at the ground, and negative scrub is where the intersection occurs below the ground. Most FWD tuner cars use negative scrub and screw it up by putting offset wheels on, resulting in either zero or positive scrub, which is dangerous.

Vehicles equipped with different offset wheels front to rear cannot have tires rotated without dismounting the tire and placing it on the correct rim. Excessive offset inward/ or outward, will also create a mechanical advantage on the wheel bearings, overloading them simply by changing the offset, cornering will increase wheel bearing pressure, and induce failure.

To put it simply, offsets do not simply exist so you can fit a 255 tire on a Honda, they exist because different suspension geometries require them.

 

Okay, thank you for the long-winded response. I was only referring to the average user that comes into this forum, requesting information for their daily driver.

 

You don't need to take it so hard, people need to have access to information regarding these types of changes, not simply copy-pasting what other people do because it worked for them. It is better to know the foundations before making these changes. Knowing that you can devise a solution that works for you, and your level of comfort (IE safety).

I don't post to gloat, I post to provide insight for the few of us that may search for a thread like this, and find good technical information.

 

You're misinterpreting my post. I wasn't being sarcastic. I was being genuine when thanking you for the in-depth article.