would 14 inch 'greenline I' wheels fit a normal fabia

[fabia55]

i believe the standard oem wheel on the greenline I are 14" by 5 or 5.5"? with 165 wide tyres?

Would 14" steels clear the brakes.

Can I go any narrower without the tyres collapsing and still able to drive at 70mph?

main reason is for fuel economy. I don't mindif handling is slightly compromised

Edited 20 January, 2013 by fabia55

[Ootohere]

If you fit tyres with the correct speed rating and load rating for your particular vehicle as your insurance requires you to do, i would not worry about them collapsing at 70 mph which is the UK national speed limit maximum anyway.

The Manufactures rating for your car will have the required Load rating (& speed rating) well exceeding that.

I would bother more about driving with good handling and braking tyres rather than saving a few pennies ever mile but fitting cr4p tyres.

Have you figured how much changing to these ECO tyres and rims will cost compared to the annual saving if you did get 2 MPG extra with these narrower tyres?

'Fifth Gear' on Dave might be repeating today , yesterdays programme with them fitting £500 worth of Eco tyres and saving not a penny.

george

Then this one.

[Moist Von Lipwig]

Personally I buy tyres that will enable me to stop when I want to and go round corners without ending up in a ditch. Economy is frankly a low priority next to safety, for me at least. If I could get a good economic tyre and not pay through the nose for it the great but I have a feeling, although not researched it, that as George says you are unlikely to see any benefit given the higher initial outlay.

You are likely to get good savings by driving economically rather than having to rely on the expensive fuels and tyres.

Not sure about wheel sizes generally on the Fabias but the vRS front brakes are snug behind a 15" steel anything smaller def would not fit it.

[Huskoda]

I'm interested in this as SWMBO is thinking about replacing the Polo with a Fabia II. She has 14" steels for winter and it would be nice if the fit around the brakes. Can anyone with a regular Fabia II please look on the fuel flap and see if 185/60R14 is an approved size?

[XK140]

George,bless him,specialises in long and comprehensive replies.

I don't.

Bad idea on many levels.Forget it.

[XK140]

I'm interested in this as SWMBO is thinking about replacing the Polo with a Fabia II. She has 14" steels for winter and it would be nice if the fit around the brakes. Can anyone with a regular Fabia II please look on the fuel flap and see if 185/60R14 is an approved size?

In the Fabia II brochure all models have 15" wheels and above.However,185/60/14 for winter I think would be Ok,similar rolling radius to 195/55/15,....as long as they fit over the brakes?

As stated,you need 15" wheels to fit over vRS brakes,but surely the lesser Fab II models have smaller brakes?

[Ootohere]

http://www.kouki.co....size-calculator

Short and sweet.

I would not be going down in Total Diameter (& rolling radius) by that much, especially for winter use. Not close enough IMO.

(obviously you need to go by how the tyres measure and not by the numbers, easy enough to actually measure)

george

these are 185/65/14, close enough to 195/55/15

[FAB59]

I'm interested in this as SWMBO is thinking about replacing the Polo with a Fabia II. She has 14" steels for winter and it would be nice if the fit around the brakes. Can anyone with a regular Fabia II please look on the fuel flap and see if 185/60R14 is an approved size?

I've got a regular Fabia and I do remember there being a 14 inch approved wheel on the fuel flap, but I can't remember the exact tyre size. I'll have a look in the morning and report back.

[FAB59]

i believe the standard oem wheel on the greenline I are 14" by 5 or 5.5"? with 165 wide tyres?

Would 14" steels clear the brakes.

Can I go any narrower without the tyres collapsing and still able to drive at 70mph?

main reason is for fuel economy. I don't mindif handling is slightly compromised

I used to have a 5 series once, that came with 15 inch alloys. I later fitted 18 inch alloys. Used to measure consumption over a certain route that I drove regularly, and the difference was consistently around 1.5mpg, in favour of the 15 inch ones. I don't know if my findings are of any help, 1.5mpg is negligible to me, but maybe if you're doing loads of miles, it probably matters to you.

[FAB59]

Just for argument's sake, dimensions for the tyres on that car were 225/60/15 before and 235/40/18 after.

[Ootohere]

fabia55,

back to the OP.

These are 165/60/14 & 165/65/14 that i used to use for Autotests.

Instead of old bald tyres i used new ECO ones because they were as easy to get to break away to spin the car and were rubbish for grip.

'Ditch Finders'

(the bent rim was hitting a pothole when being used on road, surprisingly the tyre was still OK)

george

[Ootohere]

If for the sake of simplifying, lets say all things were pretty equal and you were driving much the same on the 15" rims & the 18" rims

kind of economically , similar treads, compounds etc

the difference would be the 235 & the 225,

But if different tyres, 235 does not mean automatically that there is a wider tread on the road than 225 tyres.

but,

they could also be much wider in the contact width on the surface than just 10mm.

235 & 225 are the tyre width not the tread width. (wall to wall)

A 15" but 60% aspect ratio sidewall (bulging) can have quite a narrow width of tread possibly compared to a 235 low profile tyre that may have pretty much 235mm width of tread on the road.

not only 10mm of difference.

george

[FAB59]

Agreed. And in addition to that, the weight difference of the wheels overall was quite significant. If I remember correctly, the 18's were 4 or 5 kg heavier, per corner.

[raisbeck]

If it helps I have a Greenline 1

Tyres are 165/70 R14

The rims are:

5J: This is 5 bolt holes with a 'J' type rim contour profile

14H2 : 14 inch diameter wheel with a H2 bead hump profile

ET 35: This is the wheel offset from the mounting point

57: The size of the hole in the middle

PCD 100: Pitch circle diamter of the 5 bolt holes

[FAB59]

I'm interested in this as SWMBO is thinking about replacing the Polo with a Fabia II. She has 14" steels for winter and it would be nice if the fit around the brakes. Can anyone with a regular Fabia II please look on the fuel flap and see if 185/60R14 is an approved size?

Checked the fuel flap today, 185/60R14 is indeed on the list of approved wheel and tyre sizes.

[Huskoda]

Superb, cheers

[fabia55]

Thanks all for the replies

I have two sets of alloys, 15inch, all four tyres need replacing soon with *196-55-15, and 16 inch, two of the 205-45-16 tyres need replacing soon.

My thinking is that 14 inch tyres will be cheaper to buy and more fuel efficient.

The greenline I is a few mpg better than the non-greenline with the same engine but the suspension is slightly lower (by 15mm?) but i'm not sure how much of the better fuel economy is attributed to the lowered ride height and how much due to thin tyres.

edit: *typo 195

Edited 22 January, 2013 by fabia55

[Ootohere]

Same engine but has it the same gear ratios?

the Fabia Greenline II is on 6Jx15" 185/60R15 84T Low rolling resistance tyres.

george

[fabia55]

Same engine but has it the same gear ratios?

good point, i didn't think of that, i know the 0-60mph is the same so possibly same gear ratios for the first 2 or 3 gears maybe, i don't know what the top speeds are..

[Ootohere]

The rolling radius of your 15" is 187.04mm, 16" is 185.64,

then the Greenline 1, 185/60/14 is about 181.40 mm

Greenline II, 185/60/15 @ 189.44 mm Rolling Radius.

george

[fabia55]

thanks for the info. i guess the rolling radius will reduce as the tyres wear out. I think most my tyres are bout 8mm new, now about 3mm tread left

[FAB59]

I don't know about the cost of tyres, but you can easily check that online. I'm fairly certain however that the better fuel economy of greenline models cannot be attributed to the wheels alone. I don't know much about these versions but I do know they have several minor differences (most under the skin). All of them combined will add up towards getting more mpg.

[Ootohere]

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/165274-underbody-trays