Quote:
Originally Posted by special-K
I don't know, but I've never gotten into the whole modern wheel thing. Wheels used to all have a backspace that would allow any wheel with the same bolt pattern to fit a vehicle with the same bolt pattern. When buying wheels you just got the diameter and width you wants and unless you measured for your own curiousity, you never knew the backspace. ...
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Yeah, that's what I always thought until I tried to adapt 6-hole wheels from an 88-98 pickup to a 4wd squarebody. The bolt pattern works fine but the center hole and backspacing don't. The center hole can be "fixed" but the backspacing causes the wheel to hit the tie rod end.
That was my expensive education about backspacing. I suppose one could use spacers but I've heard various opinions about the safety of those and besides they cost as much as new wheels.
For some reason the trend of nearly all "newer" vehicles is wider axles and high backspace wheels. The only reason I can see for this is maybe the extra width is needed to allow for the CV axles of IFS FWD and 4WD vehicles ???