hub center bores different

I have been looking at getting some wheels, but have heard the the center bore is not the same for the front and rear. I have found that the front is 56.1 and the rear is 54.1. I don't have a way to test this, can anyone confirm this is actually true and if so would this be a problem for aftermarket wheels.

I think a bigger problem will be the wheel and tire sizes - If you can find a pair of 15 X 5 wheels for the back with a matching pair of 15 X 4 wheels for the front, then I'll BET those wheels were designed for just this car (what other car would use such a combo?) so the centerbores will probably be correct. I bought the SE model partly because it looked like it might be impossible to find any other alloy wheels that would fit an ES model

The 175/60 rear tire on the 5 inch wide wheel sure doesn't look like it would fit up front where they currently use a 145/65 tire onb a 4 inch wide wheel

Don

So I guess we shouldn't rotate our tires front to back...LOL

Anybody planning to rotate them left to right? It's really not recommended on radials?

Woo-hoo, manufacturer-caused elimination of tire rotation! :lol: I've been telling EVerybody for years that EVs required less maintenance, but this is icing on the cake. Besides, tire rotation only serves to disguise imperfect alignment, right? The i sure steers like it has zero toe-in, so adjusting for that wear shouldn't be as necessary as on most pigeon-toed gassers. I'm expecting to replace the fronts much faster than the rears anyway, as though the braking wear has been largely removed from them, they sure bear the brunt of cornering forces, and have less rubber to take it.
I thought that the skinny front tires were primarily just to reduce oversteer and make the car a little less tippy, but that there would be ample clearance for mounting rear rims on the front if one chose to do so.
HowEVer, the wikipedia entry states that the original JDM i shares these staggered sizes, so bulking up the front wheels may not be that easy... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i

This is all true. You can't rotate the tires because they are staggered tires sizes, but there are some wheel manufactures out there that do some wheels 15x6 for some older honda's. The problem is the hub bore for these wheels are 54.1 and I have read the front hubs on the I-MiEV are 56.1 and the rear is 54.1. Has anyone tried to put a front wheel on a rear yet to see if this is true.

This may limit anyone from putting aftermarket wheels on.

Of course custom wheel covers are also an option, and much cheaper. The 'salt flat discs' that I'm running do have one flaw, in that every rotation of the wheel causes flexing that is amplified by the steel cymbals on my rims, and it sounds like I'm driving on a wad of tinfoil at low speeds. It's imperceptible at high speed, but this may be to annoying for some.
I haven't tried any sound deadening or a rubber gasket between the cover and the wheel yet, will report back if I do.
http://www.karmanneclectric.blogspot.com/2012/03/to-make-jelly-bean-fly.html

qttire1 said:

This is all true. You can't rotate the tires because they are staggered tires sizes, but there are some wheel manufactures out there that do some wheels 15x6 for some older honda's. The problem is the hub bore for these wheels are 54.1 and I have read the front hubs on the I-MiEV are 56.1 and the rear is 54

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If that were the only problem, any good machine shop could bore the wheel out to 56.1 quite easily - I think the bigger problem is that you cound never get an appropriately sized tire for a 6 inch rim on the front of the car . . . . there's not much clearance there now for the tiny tire it came with

Mazda Miatas used 14, 15 and 16 inch wheels with the same bolt pattern and offset as our wheels too. The '90 thru '93 models came with 14X5.5 inch wheels which would probably fit . . . . at least on the rear

I have '91 RX-7 convertible BBS basket weave wheels on my FWD Protege 5. I had to have the centerbore of the wheels bored out a lot more than just a couple mm's and they've been on the car(s) for more than 100K miles

I'd bet the gas version of our car was a lot more tail heavy than our 45/55 weight distribution, hence the smaller front tires. Interestingly, I also found that the gas model had 12 less HP than our EV model

Don

Obviously you can't rotate these tires ..but you can flip the tires ...put chalk mark on outside of tire ..then dismount the tires from wheels and put tire on opposite wheel ..chalk should be on the inside of tire when remounted .

Also it clearly states in the owners manual that wheel not approved by Mitsu will void the warranty .

koolmits said:

Obviously you can't rotate these tires ..but you can flip the tires ...put chalk mark on outside of tire ..then dismount the tires from wheels and put tire on opposite wheel ..chalk should be on the inside of tire when remounted.

Click to expand...

But you'd also have to take the rubber off the rim to make that happen...

If I got a MIEV I would want to convert the tires to G1 Honda insight tires AKA 165x65r14 all around

Mainly because to this day they still have the lowest rolling resistance of any tire.

Ah well, just a dream, I wonder if rims could be made like the oldies in the 1980's where one rim would fit a car with 4 or 5 lugs (you know those goofy looking things with all the extra lug holes)

The Soviets also had a SovGum brand winter tires, which would last over ten years with no wear. No grip either, but they would last!