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Rubbing/scraping help!


jamesssn
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Hi all,

I've recently fitted some 15" wheels and coilovers to my Lupo 1.4, but am having some trouble with the tyres rubbing/scraping on the wheel arches.

When I have passengers in the car it is pretty much constantly scraping, and even when I'm in the car alone I have to drive extremely slow over the smallest of bumps. I know it's expected with very low cars for the underside to scrape against bumps, but it's actually the tyres on the wheel arches scraping for me, which I don't believe should happen. This is causing the tyres to actually get cut/gouged on my wheel arches and I'm worried for my upcoming MOT!

I do plan to eventually go even lower by rolling my arches, getting some stretched tyres, and adjusting camber - which I'm hoping will solve the problem, but until then I haven't a solution other than winding my car a bit higher which I don't really want to do, because it's not very low as it is! I've thought about trying some bumpstops, but I've no idea how they work or how to fit them, and I've no clue whether I need to buy a specific set for my FK coilovers or not?

Has anyone any suggestions, or know anything about bumpstops? Thanks! 

 

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16 minutes ago, jamesssn said:

 when I'm in the car alone I have to drive extremely slow over the smallest of bumps. I know it's expected with very low cars for the underside to scrape against bumps, but it's actually the tyres on the wheel arches scraping for me, which I don't believe should happen.

a solution other than winding my car a bit higher which I don't really want to do, because it's not very low as it is!

Has anyone any suggestions, or know anything about bumpstops? Thanks! 

 

Bump stops will not work, they do what they say, stop bumps. 

And just exactly how low are you? You're saying in the first paragraph that's it's expected with extremely low cars and in the second you're saying you aren't that low. 

You will fail your mot if they can't drive it onto the ramps.

Do not buy stretched tyres, you wouldn't by shoes to small for your feet would you.

Depending on the specs of your wheels you need a smaller side wall of the tyre. My standard 6"x14" were 185/55/r14 I now have 7"x15" and as a result I use 195/45/r15 tyres which are 10mm wider but critically have 10% less sidewall height. 

My suggestion is to wind your coil overs up to a height you don't scrub at until you can sort out some low profile tyres of the correct width.

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13 hours ago, mattarosa said:

Bump stops will not work, they do what they say, stop bumps. 

And just exactly how low are you? You're saying in the first paragraph that's it's expected with extremely low cars and in the second you're saying you aren't that low. 

You will fail your mot if they can't drive it onto the ramps.

Do not buy stretched tyres, you wouldn't by shoes to small for your feet would you.

Depending on the specs of your wheels you need a smaller side wall of the tyre. My standard 6"x14" were 185/55/r14 I now have 7"x15" and as a result I use 195/45/r15 tyres which are 10mm wider but critically have 10% less sidewall height. 

My suggestion is to wind your coil overs up to a height you don't scrub at until you can sort out some low profile tyres of the correct width.

Ah I see, so I'm best off not stretching tyres, and actually finding some with smaller side walls which won't scrape against the arches? I presume once the arches are rolled too that will be a big help. 

At the moment i'm not very low at all, I have about 3 fingers gap between the tyre and arch. I was just saying that the underside of cars scraping against bumps is to be expected if you are extremely low, which at the moment I am not. It's actually a different problem with me - the wheel arches scraping the tyres when going over bumps, which I don't think normally occurs on lowered cars.

Thankyou for the help :-)

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Sorry if I came across a bit blunt :D 

is it just your rear tyres scraping or the fronts as well? You shouldn't be scraping with three fingers gap unless you have really small fingers or you're holding your hand horizontal :P

were your coilovers brand new or second hand? 

What size wheels and tyres have you put on?

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On 04/04/2017 at 5:57 PM, mattarosa said:

Sorry if I came across a bit blunt :D 

is it just your rear tyres scraping or the fronts as well? You shouldn't be scraping with three fingers gap unless you have really small fingers or you're holding your hand horizontal :P

were your coilovers brand new or second hand? 

What size wheels and tyres have you put on?

Haha no worries!B)

It's mostly the rears that rub when i go over bumps, but the fronts do scrape occasionally aswell which is the main problem, because when they do scrape against the lip on the arches they're taking little chunks of tyre off each time!:wacko: Yeah i've double checked and it's actually two fingers gap on both the front and read, my bad!

The coilovers were brand new FK coilovers, I think they're pretty common on Lupos but not too sure!

The wheels are 15in 7J, and the tyres and 195/50 R15.

I'll post up some pictures in a sec.

 

Edited by jamesssn
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Not a problem, for a start I'd drop to a 195/45 tyre, the smaller side wall gives you more clearance and it's as close as you can be to your original o/d which keeps the speedo as close as it can be. 

I use 195/45 kumho tyres on my 7x15's

fk's are a common choice, the reason I asked their age was in case they are leaking fluid meaning they're to soft for the car. 

The he problem as I see it is they compress to much when you hit a bump, if you want to maintain your current height rolling your arches will be the route. What offset are they wheels?

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On 4/8/2017 at 3:10 PM, mattarosa said:

Not a problem, for a start I'd drop to a 195/45 tyre, the smaller side wall gives you more clearance and it's as close as you can be to your original o/d which keeps the speedo as close as it can be. 

I use 195/45 kumho tyres on my 7x15's

fk's are a common choice, the reason I asked their age was in case they are leaking fluid meaning they're to soft for the car. 

The he problem as I see it is they compress to much when you hit a bump, if you want to maintain your current height rolling your arches will be the route. What offset are they wheels?

Okay that's great, it does make sense to me that getting some smaller tyres and rolling the arches should sort the problem!:D

I'm not sure on the wheel offset - they're actually just some cheap Chinese BBS fakes I'm running for the moment till I can afford something better, but from what I can tell there is a fair amount as the wheels do poke out quite a bit!

 

Edited by jamesssn
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