A purchase has been made...

"Manwich - now Keto-Friendly" (manwich) 01/09/2020 at 17:25 • Filed to: None

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And for those of you with eagle-eyes, you’ll see that the tires are for a base Honda Fit. But you may remember that I actually have a Honda Fit Sport... which has 15" wheels.

Well I’m about to also acquire a set of 14" wheels.

My current Fit has 15" steelies with non-OEM tires that that likely came off of a pre-2005 Civic... and they don’t look great. And they are actually a little too big as well.

On top of that, sticking with the stock OEM 15" wheel/tire size would increase my tire replacement cost by over $200. And I’ll end up with tires with a 55 aspect ratio sidewall... for a nice hard ride.

So... I did some searching on car-part.com, found a set of 14" steelies off of a wrecked 2001 Civic for $100 that will enable me to install the base model Fit tires. I’m picking up the steelies tomorrow.

Going down to 14" wheels will save me some money, give me tires with more sidewall which will have a more pliant ride, less chance of getting a flat if I hit a pothole and probably a little bit better fuel economy. Added bonus... I’ll be able to reuse the chrome wheel rings I have leftover that I bought for the Suzuki Aerio:

The black-steelies-with-chrome-ring-and-chrome-lugnuts look I think will look better than my current crappy-steelies-with-crappy-plastic-wheel-covers-held-on-with-zipties look my Fit currently has.

If the Fit Sport actually had a meaningful difference in performance compared to the base model, I would stick with the bigger wheels/tires.

But it doesn’t. Engine is the same, transmission is the same, brakes are the same. Though the Sport model does gain a rear anti-roll bar.

And I’m a cheapskate when it comes to cars.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 01/09/2020 at 17:57

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Steelies can look good, but they have to be utilitarian and not cheap looking. The chrome rings accomplish that well.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 01/09/2020 at 18:07

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Some steel rims look better without hubcaps:

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 01/09/2020 at 18:15

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Yeah... decent utilitarian look exactly what you see on the Aerio in the picture above is what I’m going for (but without the collision... LOL) .

My original plan was to get 14" alloy wheels off of a pre-2005 Civic, Integra or Insight and I was willing to pay up to $150 for a set.

They didn’t have to be perfect... some scuff marks wouldn’t bother me. As long as they were usable, weren’t bent or cracked and looked at least ‘okay’, that’s all that mattered

But when I called around on car-part.com, the places near me wanted $75-$100 per wheel for old 14" alloys. One place admitted to me that they had the set of alloys for over 300 days. I told them I’m offering $150 for the set and if they don’t take it that’s fine. But I doubt there is huge demand for them and it’s likely they’re still gonna have those 14" alloys 300+ days from now.

There were places farther away that had used alloys for reasonable prices, but I don’t want them so badly that I would drive hundreds of km or spend $50-$100 having them shipped.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 01/09/2020 at 18:35

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Sadly, mine don’t, even painted black. I tried it.

Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 01/09/2020 at 18:39

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You need more color:

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 01/09/2020 at 18:44

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I thought about white but then realized how many coats it would take to look good and also how much work it would be if I want to go back to my hubcaps.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 01/09/2020 at 18:50

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Add some chrome rings and it will look way better:

And they’re not expensive. You can get them at Amazon for a reasonable price:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B079XSNB2Y/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all

And you can get really cheap plastic ones for less.

facw > Demon-Xanth knows how to operate a street. 01/09/2020 at 20:35

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I’d say pretty much all steel rims look better without hubcaps (yes, even horribly rusted ones!) Hubcaps, especially the predominant ones that are designed to look like aluminium wheels (as long as you don’t get too close), just look cheap and awful to me, like throwing fake chrome vents on a car. Maybe you could make a case for some of the weirder designs from decades ago, or simple dog dishes.