[Slayer]

Looks like a few people got some new rims recently so I'll throw in a few pics of mine which I just got in on Saturday. Had some tires mounted and balanced on Monday. These are Motegi racing DP10 17x7 chrome wrapped with Kumho Ecsta HP4 235/55-17 tires. It's pretty close in size compared to my OEM 235/60-16 tires so there's hardly any error to the speedo. Tires are nicer than the factory duelers for sure as I don't make as much noise when I speed off into the onramp curves. :wink: :wink:

 

[Mohit]

nice...goes well with the rest of your shiny accessories. i like the lip too.

 

[Slayer]

Thanks, Mohit. Now I'm thinking of lowering springs from Eibach. I know I said that I would never lower the Rav cause of rally x but I think the Rav has enough clearance to allow a 1.2" drop without too much hazard. It's either that or some Koni adjustables, but man, those things are expensive. I'd rather have a tighter suspension than lowering the Rav4 just cause I luv going over bumps and dips and not having to worry about scraping anything. Oh and now I have to figure out what to do with the highly visible braking components. They just looked too exposed. Too bad there aren't really any aftermarket big brake kits like Brembo or Wilwood for our Ravs. I suppose I could paint the calipers and drums just to add some splash of color down there.

 

[TOY]

ur sunshade looks mean lol

 

[THE REAL SHORTY]

ur sunshade looks mean lol

i agree x2

 

[Slayer]

The better to scare away the little door dinging kiddies with.
:wink: Well, I ran into a bit of a problem. Finally went onto the highway the other day and my steering wheel started shaking at freeway speeds. Went back to the shop to have them check the balance on the rims. They said that they needed to install hubcentric rings. Don't know why they didn't do it in the first place. Well, after leaving and testing it out again at freeway speeds, it was still shaking at 65mph. At that point, I got tired and tried to get a second opinion from a shop that I knew had a good reputation amongst import racers. Yep, it turns out that the Kumhos while balanced on the rims were utter crap. Too many flat points and high/low points on the tires. I kinda knew that was gonna happen cause Kumho, while cheap, had somewhat of a reputation of being hard to balance and/or producing defective tires. So now, I'm cutting my loses with cheapo tires and going for Pirelli P Zeros at the reputable shop. I knew I should've spent the money to begin with at the better shop. Ah well. Oh and anyone from San Jose..avoid Wheel Works on Capitol Ave unless you want the run around like I did.

 

[RAV4J]

sorry to hear about your bad experience, now i know that i should stay away from Kumho's :shock:

 

[Derek]

Yup Slayer, I've experienced the shaking at 65 MPH too due to an imbalance of the wheels. Mine's was due to installing some wheel spacers that were not hubcentric. I solved that with some hubcentric H&R wheel spacers.

Now with the Nissan Skyline rims that I just put on my RAV, I learned from my past mistake and had already purchased hubcentric centering rings to match the "new" rims. The center bore of the 4.1 RAV is 60.1 mm, and the center bore of the Skyline rims were 66.1 mm. So I got some hubcentric rings to mate the two perfectly together.

The research has payed off because there is no shaking since I've installed the new rims/tires. I just took the RAV up to 90 MPH today without any problems. The wheel shop that installed your rims without putting on corresponding hubcentric rings probably does not care or know the possible side effects of not using them, this is especially true for not having such rings on the front end of the car.

Hope everything works out well for you.

 

[Slayer]

Yeah me too. It's like having a rev limiter on your car. I want to drive faster but the ride just doesn't want me to go past 60mph. I hope I don't run into any problems with the Pirellis but looking over the reviews on TireRack for the P-Zero Neros didn't reveal any problems like I saw on Kumho brands.
Yeah, the first shop I went to really didn't know anything beyond just putting on oem types of tires it seems. Don't get me wrong. They were nice guys and all, but the difference in the two shop would be comparable to getting your taxes done by a high school kid in accounting class to one who's a college graduate. The good shop just knows alot more beyond just slapping on and balancing tires. Now, I just need to find a reputable suspension shop.