Hi all,
Been lurking around for a few months, and reading a fair few threads, and it sometimes seems like there\'s a bit of confusion abnout what wheel offsets represent and how they effect the fitment of a wheel. So i thought i\'d post up this link that has always been helpful for me:
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=101
Basically, the offset is the distance from the centreline of the wheel to the hub mounting face. The lower the offset, the more \'sticky outy\' the wheel is.
The important thing to bear in mind is that no one wheel offset is right for all wheel widths. For instance, as it\'s relative to the centreline of the wheel, you can run a lower offset on narrower rims than you would on wider rims to get the outer face of the wheel in the same place.
There\'s a good calculator here:
http://www.driftworks.com/resources/wheel-offset-calculator,17.html
So, for instance, for a wheel that is 9" wide with an offset of +30, to get the outer face of a 7" wheel to sit in the same place, you would have to get an offset of +5.
Hope this helps, sorry if i\'m preaching ot the converted, but i always found it useful info :)