Anyone have experience when using aftermarket wheels on an XK8? I just bought a 2002 XK8 that had aftermarket 20's already installed. The tread was low on the tires and the wheels were of an "unpleasant" design, so I swapped them out for new tires and wheels. One thing I noticed was there was a 5mm thick spacer with a small lip that was on the rear and the little lip was probably 5mm wide and fit very snuggly on the hub. I'm guessing it was a hubcentric spacer. I took them off because they would only allow about 2.5 turns of the lug on the new wheels. I took it out on the freeway this morning for the first time and a vibration comes in the car at 60mph and gets worse the faster you go. I had some paperwork, sunglasses, and garage door opener on the passenger seat and it vibrated right off. I can feel it in the whole car which leads me to believe it's a rear wheel as a front would be felt in the steering wheel. Its rough enough that I must do something about itquickly.

If I had gone from stock to these I would chalk some of the ride changeto the lower profiles tires and larger diameter, exept I put about 500 miles on the 20's it came with and it rode beautifully.

I watched them balance the tires and they all zeroed out but one of the rears called for 2.5 OZ inboard and 5.25 OZ outboard which to me seems excessive. I also left off the hubcentric spacers on the rear.

Anyone have any experience in using aftermarket wheels on the XK8's?

As a side note the 20's that came on the car were 20x8.5 with 255-35-20's and the ones I installed are the same in the front but 20x9.5 with 285-30-20's in the rear. The front tires on the car now, were the back tires on the original set of wheels because the tread was good.

 

Always hard to get aftermarket stuff right. The XK is very sensitive to tires and wheels. Even with factory wheels, you can put a fairly agressive tread tire on there and have all kinds of vibrations or pulling. I would the wheel back if you just got it and get a replacement.

 

Those were hubcentric spacers you took off.
They were probably on there because someone sold the you BMW bolt pattern wheels which are 5x120, compared to our cars which take 5x120.7.
This is fairly common to do in the aftermarket wheel industry, since the bolt patterns are so close. ( I'm a wheel designer.)

Without the hubcentric spacers, the wheel will center around the first lug you tighten, pulling the wheel almost 1mm off balance.
This is why when I had wheels made for my car, I made sure they were hubcentric and the correct bolt pattern.

It will be safer for you to put the hubcentric spacer back on in the meantime, and have longer wheel studs (ARP makes really good ones) installed.

Here are my 20" Cache Corsicas, and they have been great.

 

YurikazeKnows what he"s talking about
Being a Jag Tech i never really cared for aftermarket wheels for the verry same thing your talking about
Vibrations
Hubcentricity is a big issue with these cars
Sport Tuned Suspensions only makes you feel more imperfections in the tires and wheels

 

FactoryJaguarTech,

I am glad to see that you may have answered a question I had regarding tires. I have a pre-owned'04 XKR you've helped me with before. I brought it in to my local dealer for a few issues after purchasing the car and they took care of them all under warranty and I was more than impressed.

Now to the tires. I'm getting some vibration in the steering wheel at speed and the tires were in good condition but I noticed they were Yoko's and not Pirelli which I thought were standard issue. The car has 26K on it and I asked the Service Manager if these Yokos were original and he said that they were replacements and it is normal to get about 20K miles on a set on this car. I didn't know that, but okay. He said he had a technician check the balance and the tech said all was in order and it is probably the tires and recommended replacing them when they are at the end of their life cycle if I could live with that. This makes sense to me, but of course I'd like your opinion.

Thanks in advance.