legacycentral bbs

Guy in my area selling some nice 5 spoke 17" rims with tires off a New Mustange (4.5 on 5 lug pattern) Being a RWD car I figure the rims wont fit my Legacy but brought up a good question.

What is the Lug pattern and Offset for a legacy?

also what max size/width would you recommend? (Personaly seeing the pictures of 17" wheels on the sight, Ill probably stick with 15".. maybe 16")

Any 5 lug subaru wheel will fit with the exception of the new STi's. As far as size, most people like to upgrade to 16's. You can usually find good deals on used WRX stuff or RS stuff. You can run a 215 on a 16" rim without rubbing issues but if you decide to step it up to 225 you will probably end up having to roll your fenders. I'm running the stock turbo rims, 15", with a 205/60 and it works great for me. Sticks well but has enough give to allow me to drive up in the mountains. I'm wanting to say the offset is either 48 or 53mm. If you do a little bit of searching you'll find lots of info and if you go to the gallery and search for rims you'll find all sorts of inspiration.

5x100mm is the bolt pattern

...and the offset of ANY subaru rim should be at least +48 in offset, no less. Your wheel bearings will thank you for it.

im gonna disagree with the 48 offset. many wrx owners are dipping into the 43 range just fine.

WRX's also have wider fenders.

A 225/45/17 on a 17x7.5" + 48 rim fits without rubbing anything without rolling the fenders (even lowered, they clear with room to spare).

225/45/17's REQUIRE fender rolling on our cars with a 17x7.5 +48 rim.

It's more a rubbing issue than a wheel bearing issue, though to a point there's a limit.

Then I must have it wrong.. I thought the offset determined wear on the wheel bearings, or something, as well as its spacing on the vehicle.

Guess I'll be studying now

Well, since we're on the topic... say I was getting 16x7 Rota Slipstreams, 5x100 bolt pattern, 48mm offset. What tire size wouldn't require me to do anything to my fenders? Or an all-around better way of stating the question: what tire size would be best?

I don't have 16's but from what I've been able to figure out from others, 215's will work just fine and as Phil said, 225's will require rolling the fenders. That's something however that you can do fairly easily if needed.

Only the sedans have wider fenders and I thought that was just to allow wider axles. Since as you can see by looking at a sedan and a wagon that the wheels line up the same distance to the fenders. So if a wrx, or rs or sti for that matter, in sedan form can have a lower offest, then a wrx, or rs or ts, in wagon form can too have a lower offset, right?

Also, did you make a mistake on the tire sizes or something?

Yeah, I'm thinking he did... here are the options (unless for some reason more money should be spent on getting the wheels and tires separately):

205-50-16
205-45-16
205-40-16

But as I know zero about tires... yeah.