Cobalt Wheels

[stovt001]

Warning: Rant below.

So when I bought my 2006 Cobalt LS, it was a dealer dress-up including aftermarket wheels. With the aftermarket wheels, they used slightly different wheels in the back, identical to the fronts except for a slightly deeper lip created by angling the spokes back from the hub (same offset front/back) toward the center-line. I guess the deeper lip was supposed to make it look like wider wheel/tire combo in the back. I went along with it anyway because the wheels themselves looked great. Unfortunately, this setup nixes the possibility of tire rotation, and I bought this car to be affordable. So I come up with the great solution to just get a set of Cobalt SS wheels and sell my old ones to make up part of the cost. I found a brand new set on craigslist for 400 bucks, and everything looked great until I realized: GM, in all its wisdom, gave 2006 non-SS Cobalts 4-100 bolt patterns, while all SS models got 5-110 bolt patters. AAAARGH.

End rant.

[Dragoneye]

Did you buy them before you knew that?

[headpunter]

i use staggered heighths and widths on all my vehicles and have not had any problems not rotating. biggest thing is to make sure all the wheels are spinning true and your front end is aligned

[stovt001]

Originally Posted by Dragoneye

Did you buy them before you knew that?

I'll man up and confess to being stupid. When it was on the showroom floor, they actually put the deep lips on one side and the shallow lips on the other, and the difference was subtle enough that you couldn't tell. It wasn't until later that they were put on in the correct pattern. I also didn't realize at the time but this wheel/tire combo was slightly bigger than stock, slightly altering the speedo (2 mph off at 60 mph). Being the first car I bought dealer dress-up, I naively assumed they would have put on a same-size combo rather than just bolting on whatever looked good. Oops. I figured the easiest way to get back to a GM-quality set-up would be to bolt on some SS wheels, but no, the bolt pattern is different. So now I'm trying to find a wheel/tire combo that matches the stock hight and offset, is affordable, rotatable, and long-ish lasting. I understand I have no one to blame but myself, and I take this as a learning experience, but it is an expensive learning experience.

[Dave McFly]

Originally Posted by stovt001

Warning: Rant below.

So when I bought my 2006 Cobalt LS, it was a dealer dress-up including aftermarket wheels. With the aftermarket wheels, they used slightly different wheels in the back, identical to the fronts except for a slightly deeper lip created by angling the spokes back from the hub (same offset front/back) toward the center-line. I guess the deeper lip was supposed to make it look like wider wheel/tire combo in the back. I went along with it anyway because the wheels themselves looked great. Unfortunately, this setup nixes the possibility of tire rotation, and I bought this car to be affordable. So I come up with the great solution to just get a set of Cobalt SS wheels and sell my old ones to make up part of the cost. I found a brand new set on craigslist for 400 bucks, and everything looked great until I realized: GM, in all its wisdom, gave 2006 non-SS Cobalts 4-100 bolt patterns, while all SS models got 5-110 bolt patters. AAAARGH.

End rant.

that is not uncommon, true story my brother had a 97 Chevrolet Astro van. now the astro is based on the same basic platform as the S series small trucks. and because of this most of the stuff you can do on a S10 or Sonoma/S15 can be done to the astro. well his van had the standard dull steel wheels with center caps. he found a set of VERY sweet 16" alloy rims/tires off of a S10 Xtreme in chrome. he went to get them and the guy said you may want to make sure they will fit on the Astro. we thought hey it is the same platorms they should share the same bolt pattern, WRONG. the Astro wheels will not fit on a S series truck and vice versa. so he had to pass on the wheels and got a set of nice factory alloys off of a higher model Astro instead.

[Dragoneye]

Ouch...

[stovt001]

Semi-good news. Currently the wheel/tire combo I have (what the dealership put on, the one that's too big) is 225/45-ZR17 on 17X7.5 inch wheels. It looks like I can fit 215/45-ZR17 tires of the same brand on the same wheels. Not only are they cheaper, but according to my tire-size calculator they are almost exactly the same total diameter as the OEM wheel/tire package. I still can't rotate, but otherwise everything is good. Given that I'm getting over 30,000 miles on the tires, not rotating isn't a huge deal.

Still, when I get my Camaro, I'm not doing any dealer-dress up. If the dealer puts anything on, it will only be at my exact ordering at time of purchase. I'm older, wiser, and a little poorer now.