Wheels for XR's

[Guest Suresh]

Hello to all fellow Ford nuts.

I am a new member to the forum and really enjoy reading the numerous posts.

What do you guys/gals think about the wheels on the current XR range - both the 17" & 18" variants?

Has anybody out there changed to larger OD rims? If so, why?

I work at FMC as the Wheel Design Engineer and would love to hear what customers out there would like to see on the next generation XR's.

[Guest cul08r]

Hate the 17s, 18s are OK.

Gotta be big with minimal spokes. Most popl hate cleaning wheels, so the little ripples like the small channel in the end of the spokes on the 18s, while character buildong, are a pain to get brake dust out of.

clean, big and smooth is the way my friend

Andrew

[Antisocial]

I have an XR with 17"s but I feel they are a bit 'fussy' for example the wheels from the AUIII XR8 are far better looking.

I did not get the 18"s because the combination of raw and pollished/machined alloy looks odd with such wide spokes..... to me anyway.

I do like the wheels on the F6 and even the territory are not bad.

My favourite aftermarket wheels are the Chile/Herrod motorsport type ones and Boyd Coddington Smoothie/American Racing Torq Thrust II's are the best lookin retro type wheels.

IMHO.

...oh yes and welcome Suresh

[slikxr6t]

Suresh! Sounds like a cool job mate! I've got the 17's on my T but I definitely prefer the design of the 18's (just not the tyre replacement cost). Love the rims on GT's too! :roll:

[Falchoon]

I have the factory 18s on my XR and reckon they look great. I do have to agree with Andrew about them being a little hard to get brake dust out of the little grooves on the end of the spokes but a minor inconvenience really. Some of the VY Commopdores have a similar design but without the grooves and they look too plain IMO.

I was thinking of upgrading to 19" AMG Quake but I saw a set of 18s on an AU XR8 ute and they looked too similar too my BA 18s so I shelved that plan.

The factory 17s look good as well, I saw a set on a XH or XG ute the other day, they really suited it (didn't know they fitted, thought the offset was too shallow).

I reckon that the FPV vehicles should have an optional 19" wheel.

I don't like the wheels on the F6 Typhoon, maybe they will grow on me over time as I see a few around.

A few of the guys here have bought aftermarket 19s, MS700, Saleen1 and BCL are a few that spring to mind. Brian's (BCL) have a 'dish' on them and look quite good, especially as he has slightly wider on the back than the front.

Someone one here or maybe one of their mates had a set of 20" mags on their BA XR, looked too big, didn't really do much for me. Plus they were chrome/polished which I reckon is only for the 4cyl brigade (ricers!). Each to their own.

[XR6ISM]

Ive got the 17's, they are ok, nothing special though.....same as the 18's......im actually thinking about getting a set of Billet wheels, but ill see how I go

[sykes]

Hi & welcome Suresh!

What a F@$%ing cool job. I would love to work somewhere in the design department of FoMoCo but me thinks with my Building Design skills things my turn out to be a bit of a box.

But I think yeh a set of optional 19's for the FPV's and I think that it would be good to have a selection of say 3 or 4 types of 17's to choose from (at no cost) as a part of fords personalisation thingy and the same for the upgrade 18's it would give people a real sense of individualisation from the factory and also be no hassel's with warranty or insurance issues etc. Even a selection from say 2 different spoiler kits that can be mix & matched. That would give us another one up on those HSV twits and make just about every car different too!

[Trumpy]

Check out the wheels on the latest BMW's. All of them (ie 3 series all the way through to the 7s) seem to have fresh, original designs to their wheels. I am yet to see a set that I thought were truely ugly.

I like the XR 18inchers, the 17s are becoming too common now, and the typhoon wheels were in my opinion.

[BA_Turbs]

The factory 17"s are great looking wheels, but, being the only 17" option, everyone has them. The only way to make your car a little different from every otherone out here is rims (well, you could go a body kit, but :roll: ).

So even though the 17"s looked good on the car, straight off and to the tip and on with the 18" Azzurros. Not to everyone's tastes, but unique.

The factory 18"s really do nothing for me at all. But that just shows why it is important to have a few options for rims from the factory, the majority here clearly like the Ford 18"s they have. I would have handed over the jack flash to Ford for 18"s, but I didn't like them, so FoMoCo went without.

The main thrust of my post is, doesn't matter what you offer, you ain't going to please everyone, so offering a couple of different options for 17" & 18" rims would be a good idea.

[Benny]

I've got 18" AMG Matrix wheels on mine because I like the open design so you can see plenty of brakes behind them. They also have a deep dish which I think makes wheels look tough. Some of the wheels that Rays in japan make with deep dish design look really good on the drift cars.