Hello,

I am a proud owner of my first Jaguar. It is a 2002 XJ8 Vanden Plas and I am in love. I am still figuring out how everything works

BUT, it came with 22" wheels.
I know very little about car wheels but am researching desperately.
I know I want these 22" Hurricanes off the car. They rub, and are definitely not my style. I also have learned I definitely do not like low profile tires.

I am trying to figure out the best wheel size. 20", 19" or 18".
I like an unusual look, and the beefier profile a larger wheel gives, but I will not sacrifice the ride or safety for it.

Any help, advice, experiences or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

Well, welcome to the forum, be sure you also post an intro in the new member area, otherwise the moderators will be all over you .

Surely, you will get a lot of positive reply for your decision not to like those 22" .
Perhaps some pictures before you remove them will do well on this forum.

On the downsizing, remember the smallest size rim on these cars were 16" (plus a rather huge sidewall). Then it went up to 17" (Probably your car had these ex factory) and 18", and 19" for the limited XJR100.

In your case, you can probably go down to 16", unless your VDP is a Supercharged, then you likely have slightly larger brake calipers.
This forum surely can tell if we see some pictures.

I guess I can say that 18" is the most favorable size for upgrades, a good combination between look, comfort and sidewall height.
If you google X308 Jaguar 18", you will find plenty of examples on the net.

 

After attempting to sync my phone with my laptop in order to upload one of the few pictures I have.... and ending up grinding teeth instead...
I logged into this site via my phone. Attempting to upload now, and I may end up posting multiple of the same picture as this stupid phone is thwarting me.

I will go hunt up the new member area shortly, unless my phone meets wall in the immediate future...

 

Perserverence.... maybe the upload will work this time. If it does, you will see a picture of my pride and joy...with the spare wheel (17") on the rear....
It did not work. I even went outside and tried taking a picture. After watching the picture upload via percentages... I get to 99%. Then poof. No picture.

My Jag is dark blue with 22" Status Hurricane rims... Chrome and blue that matches the car. I will look around the site for info on uploading pics.

 

Yep, get those 22inch wheels off sooner rather than later or you car may well appear in this thread! https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...en-jag-170977/

My XJ has 18 inch XKR wheels on, there are a huge variety of factory wheels that will fit these cars so the choice is yours really.

 

I've but the same car as you, but with stock wheels - they were 16" - the vdp is the only x308 variant with wheels smaller than 17"/18" and if you're not driving like Al Uncer Jr. they make for the best ride quality of almost any car, modern or Y2k era. I'm in nyc where there are more potholes than flat bits of road and my 140k mile rims are still perfectly intact, outlasting the shocks and all suspension components.

I'm not sure why someone would want a larger wheel on a luxury car used as a daily driver.

 

Yes... I want these wheels off of my Jag as soon as possible.

I am thinking 18". No idea why the previous owner put these wheels on the car. They look absurd and the car does not handle nearly as well as I think it should.

 

I've but the same car as you, but with stock wheels - they were 16" - the vdp is the only x308 variant with wheels smaller than 17"/18" and if you're not driving like Al Uncer Jr. they make for the best ride quality of almost any car, modern or Y2k era. I'm in nyc where there are more potholes than flat bits of road and my 140k mile rims are still perfectly intact, outlasting the shocks and all suspension components.

Ok, I figure vdp is Vanden Plas? But what is an x308? Is that another term for an XJ8?

And how about 19" wheels? Any opinions?

 

X308 is the factory definition for the car. X300 was the one before that with the 6 Cyl Engine. X100 is the XK8/R models and X400 is the X Type. If you look at the name of this section it has X308 in brackets.

The base model cars in Europe came with 16 inch wheels and their sizes climbed from there. My car has 18 inch XKR wheels fitted to it as an option, but would have come with 17 inch otherwise.

 

How about 19" wheels with 40 tires (not 35)?

I am attempting to upload the pictures here. One shows my car with the spare tire on. Tomorrow I plan on taking better pictures.

I am considering 19" Lexani's as a found a nice set of wheels and Nexen tires were recommended. I want a smooth ride with no issues if I hit a pothole here and there.

I really appreciate everyone's opinion!

 

If you wanted to run 19's with 40 series sidewall and keep the factory outer tire diameter, which seems to be ~26 inches, you'd need to run narrower width tires. Don't know what the wheel width of the one's you're looking at is, but tire calculator shows 225/40r19 is closest, 235/40 is +1.5%, 245/40 is +2.7%. Using the XJR 255/40r18 as outer dia reference. What section width you can fit on there will depend on the rim width. However, a 225/40r19 and 255/35r19 will have almost the same sidewall height, so just having a 40 series tire doesn't necessarily mean a smoother ride, since it's a function of width.

https://tiresize.com/converter/

 

+ 1 on above considerations.
Comfort (or the lack of) mainly comes from the side wall height.
Going for 19" will be a dramatic improvement over your 22", but it will still be harder than the original tire combo.

As addition to the above, 19" will fit, but watch your tire diameter against the tire width (and offset).
The rear of the x308 has plenty of space (provided you got the offset right), but the front will start to rub easier on full lock.

It took me a lot of reading, some asking and then the plunge to find I got it right, but I can't get more than a finger between tire and the wheelwell liner at full turn (F:245/45 @ 8Jx18xET33, R:275/40 @ 9Jx18xET35).

 

I have to admit I am re-reading the last 2 posts... trying to figure this out. Stupid tires, who knew they came in so many variations.
The front tires may rub on full lock? Ok, I give up, what is full lock?
(F:245/45 @ 8Jx18xET33, R:275/40 @ 9Jx18xET35) I need a cryptographer for that one.

225/40r19 is closest, 235/40 is +1.5%, 245/40 is +2.7% .... I know the sets of numbers indicate something to do with the tire. Not sure what the percentages represent.

I need the kindergarten version of wheel and tire education it seems. This is embarrassing, but I am determined to learn and to get this correct.

Are offsets (not sure what that means but am googling too as I go along) different per each car? Or just make and model?

This is akin to learning another language with algebra thrown in.

"225/40r19 is closest"
Would that be a safe set up for my wheel and tire combo?

And again, thank you!!!

 

The thing is that you have to make a choice between going Jaguar OEM, or aftermarket.

If you go with OEM wheels, there is some, but not much variation in the different parameters, and this forum can quickly tell you what will, and what will not fit.

However, if you go aftermarket, and be in control of what you get and how it will look at the end, then you will need to understand each of the parameters, how they are related, and what they will do relative to your car and the available space.

This forum is to share and help, and I have no problem to help you understand what is what.
Just not today, as I am battling a terrible flu, which is getting worse by the hour.

In the meantime, I googled a lot of pictures on x308 16", x308 17", etc.
As a start, it first gave me an idea of what size and model I wanted (or actually, it gave me a very good idea of everything I did not want).
Only after that I went into details as tire sizes, fitment, etc.

Will get back to you.

PS. Full lock is where you turn the steering wheel full left or right.
You might check this on your car with the 22" fitted, should be interesting to see the results, and what to avoid ...

 

I hope you feel better. Homemade chicken soup is definitely what is called for. And very warm water with lemon and honey...

I really appreciate this, and will definitely take you up on your offer, once you feel better. I googled offsets, and am starting, slowly, to see how they work. The sales person stated the offset would work with the wheels I am considering. I will see if I can find a picture.
Bolt patterns, offsets, dimensions, suspensions... my brain is cranky, but every time I look at my car, I know it is worth it

I am in the off topics area, here, and attempting to get a profile picture up. It shows in the edit portion of my profile, but not on my posts... so maybe it takes a while to load?

 

Arguenot,


All above suggestions were very useful, the following promises to be less so.


Once you've found several likely rim & tire sizes, go on-line to several major tires wholesalers and look up prices of several leading brand high-performance tires.


My entirely non-technical opinion: the popularity of "wagon-wheel" size rims on modern performance cars has reduced the choices of high-performance tires for smaller (obsolete) rims.


I'm not claiming you cannot get any tires for a 17" factory rim, but several major tire makers "best of the best" are not available any longer in this size, and I expect this situation to get worse.


Once you reduce your options to a manageable number, choosing the rim with the most performance tires available might be the way to go.

 

Those wheels are awful! I can see why you want them gone! Especially as on one side of the car they are rotating the wrong way.

I notice you mentioned Nexen Tyres, I have these on my XJ with 18 inch wheels and I also had these in 17 inch flavour on my previous XJ. They're not bad tyres, better than the Pirelli tyres I've had in the past which were just noisy. I personally don't go in for the whole "Designer Tyre" malarkey owing to the fact that the roads around here are quite bad and sooner or later I'll end up damaging a tyre on a unavoidable or hidden pot hole.

 

You make an interesting point.

At the XJ-S forum, there is this exact problem for the original 15" rims, where not even the best-of-the-best are no longer available, but even getting tires with the correct speed- and load rate is becoming a problem.

Having said that, not everyone is looking for the best-of-the-best on an XJ8, and even here on a small island, I had no problem sourcing a variety of tires in the 225/60R16 range.

 

There's lots of sites that will explain this in a more clear way than I will, but the short of it...

I'll use XJR factory tire size as an example. 255/40r18.

The first number, 255, is the section width, roughly the width of the tire in mm.

The next number, 40, is sidewall height, as a function of section width. 40 means it's about 40% of the section width, so .4*255 would be the "height" of the tire.

R is radial, pretty much everything in passenger cars now.

18 is the rim "diameter" class, in inches. Yeah, yeah, not metric... but an 18-inch-class rim will have a standard tire mounting diameter, so the a tire designed for an 18 inch rim will mount on any 18, assuming the rim width (XJR factory is 18x8, so 8 inches wide for the standard rims) is within the functional range of the tire. Most will say what width rims they are compatible with. Most of the 255/40r18 tires ive seen specify 8.5 to 10 inch rim widths, so it's with a grain of salt...

There's more that goes into it, like bead shape, curb guards on tires, etc. that arent really important here.

So the diameter of the rim+ section width will be the tire outer diameter. The percentages were deviation from OEM outer diameter.

 

"designer type malarkey" Besides that I love that line... are you referring to the tires (Nexen) or the goofy wheels?
Which do you find problematic around potholes?
I have found those awful 22's to be so problematic I have parked my beautiful car until I can get reliable, sane (though stunning) wheels on it