18" wheel upgrade - advice appreciated

spiker

spiker

trying to growl less these days
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Ok so I didnt win that poker tournament - and just missed the qualification for the 3rd satellite in a row AGAIN coming 2nd both times so I havent the budget I wanted for some wheels

currently still have standard avus 17 on 2002 s3

so looking at ebay and found these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=110211842089&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=001

ok so they must be replicas but would appreciate anyones advice here on replicas / genuine wheels and whether or not this is a sensible purchase - I could always wait a few months and spend more later in the year

Would also appreciate your comments about spacing the wheels - do I have to - whats involved - do these wheels simply bolt on etc

Any help much appreciated guys as I am sure many of you have made the upgrade to 18
 
They look quite similar to OEM, never to sure with replicas though.

If you wait around long enough a set of OEM's should pop up at a decent price. I got my TTV6's off ebay with new PS2's fitted for 200 quid. :w00t:
 
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they might look good and they might actually be a bargain but some cheap imported alloys are weaker and buckle easy so you could end up paying twice
 
So OEM the way forward ?

Replicas a bad idea ?

Anyone else have any comments ?
 
voorhees said:
they might look good and they might actually be a bargain but some cheap imported alloys are weaker and buckle easy so you could end up paying twice
Click to expand...

2nd, seen some reps buckled quite seriously from not alot at all. I belive the Italian made ones to be higher quality than the Asian stuff but depends on the materials at hand.
 
Not sure about his "As you can see in excellent condition..." comment, at least two have bubbling down the spokes. You'd spend another £120 refurbing them, then you still need to shoe them.
 
thanks aky but terrier has a point

another 80-100 for refurb + tyres seems like a lot to me for second hand ones

but thanks anyhow

just going to check those other ones daz
 
is there any noticeable weight difference between oem and replicas?
 
Tastyterrier said:
Might be worth a bid, caps are easy to come by

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AUDI-TT-A4-ETC-18-ALLOY-WHEELS-AND-TYRES-5-X-100_W0QQitemZ290198473766QQihZ019QQcategoryZ9888QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Click to expand...

Something doesnt add up with these, genuine TT wheels are offset of 33 and I thought they were 8" wide, not ET20 and 8.5" respectively, again the edging detail is not right for an RSTT wheel.
I would guess hes got the PCD wrong and its an RS4 type from an A4.

I had a set of Italian reps but over time started to have problems with balancing and one of the wheels getting a slight dent from a pothole, I replaced them with some genuine wheels and they seemed a lot sturdier.
I paid about £300 for mine with 4 almost new bridgestone RE050 tyres but I had to add around £225 to that for a good wheel refurb. Most of the good condition wheels when I was looking ranged between £450 and 700 with good tyres, less than that was refurb or new tyre territory.
 
Aky thanks for the link

Kiteboy - yeah always thought that but fancy a change its my third S3
 
Ok so I finally bought the RS4 genuine 18's and had them fitted yesterday

Took it to Protyre and they found some interesting readings on the alignment - looks like I might need tie bars after all ( even though the Eibach and fsd setup apparently didnt need them)

Protyre suggested I had lowered the vehicle - which I havent

The tracking on the rear cannot be corrected - It looks like its at least 1 degree outside tollerance on the rear offside

I will get some pictures done and get the readings - hopefully you guys can comment - ( AKY - you still watching this thread )

Thanks
 
I got a full set of R32 reps from Wheelbase for my 3.2 A3 (including Audi logos) for £465. They're great and the -so called- budget tyres (Kenda Kaiser) are much quieter than the originals. BTW I wouldn't recommend BK Racing - I bought a set from them for a Primera Egt (£545) and the tyres kept coming off. I ended up having to buy a new set of tyres but not before all the rims had been damaged! I did send the wheels back to BK racing but all they did was inflate them and leave them in a corner as a test. The problem only occurred when I was driving on them. They sent the wheels back and said they had found no problem. They had also removed the special valves (£5 a piece) and replaced them with ordinary cheapo valves which made maintaining tyre pressure very awkward and also resulted in slow deflation. BK Racing - never again!!
:no:
 
Lol did u see the date of the original post? Talk about resurection from the graveyard!! :p
 
18"x8" ET 32 alloys will clear the standard S3 calipers without spacers wont they?
 
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