Now the weather's improved a bit, got the tyres swapped over onto the new wheels at the weekend:

I really like the Spiders, and though I'll admit the 17s look better, I don't want to sacrifice the ride quality. Ideally I'd like to fit 5mm spacers to get them sticking out the same amount as the standard wheels, but you couldn't tell at a glance, and don't look at all bad as they are.

The standard wheels will now have some winter tyres put on them June/July time, when there's stock and the prices aren't silly.

Next on the list is some b-pillar vinyl I got off of someone on here. I reckon it'll look good with the tinted windows, and give that good "floating roof" look.

Very nice. Good idea on the winter tyres - they make a huge difference in the cold weather.

Really nice in keeping with the OEM look. The other thing with 17s is the loss in mpg (well for me anyway).

Where did you get your 16s?

J

im starting to sway towards 16's now instead of 17's. where u get them from?

i ran 16's last year, swapped to 17's this year... only time will tell if i swap back to 16's again.....

Just kept an eye out on ebay. Save a search, and it'll tell you when new matches are listed. Not many people will list them as Spiders though, so keep to generic stuff like "16" Skoda alloys" etc.

They were a little more expensive than I wanted to pay, but were newly refurbished, so look brand new. I did look at a couple of other sets, but by the time I bought them, and had them refurbished myself, I reckon I'd have spent more.

MPG was another factor in keeping with the 16s, as you say Jimi. The spiders look way better than the standard wheels in my opinion.

Car is sitting on 25mm drop Eibach springs btw, for anyone that wants to know what they look like.

I noticed an mpg drop to when fitting 17"s thought it was just in my head

I noticed an mpg drop to when fitting 17"s thought it was just in my head

Are you sure the mpg actually did drop with 17" spiders ???? or was it that the trip computor showed an mpg drop ????

The reason I ask is when most people fit 17" spiders they fit them with 205 40 R17 or 215 40 R17 tyres, both of which have a greater rolling radius than the std 205 45 R16 tyres.

This results in the speedo/odometer and trip computor under recording actual distance travelled v fuel used.

One other option would be to fit 225 35 R17 tyres, these have a slightly smaller rolling radius than the std 16's....but at least they would show a (false) increase in mpg lol.

Bill.

Not only I have noticed a drop in mpg, also noticed a slight drop in acceleration. I'm running 215 40 17s.

I've been told it could also be to do with the cheap tyres that are on it but at the min I can't afford £400 worth of new tyres so back to standard 16s it is