So this is something I’ve been thinking about for some time. We say these things or hear these things on a daily basis, ‘fitment’ ‘stance’ ‘hella-(insert whatever comes after hella here)’ ‘stance’ ‘slammed’ ‘stance’ stretched tires’ blah blah blah. Yeah this whole nicely ‘stanced’ thing is in right now but I really think its taking a shit ton of fun and safety away from actually driving.

You bought your car as an enthusiast to make it look nice, I know, but when did we take out the fun of actually driving them and start competing on who can get the lowest. And why the hell are we putting stretched tires on to get even lower!? Which leads me to probably my biggest point to address first…

Stretched Tires; being able to fit a 205 on your 10 inch wide wheel is not cool, it doesn’t impress me. What it does do, that I’m sure most of you arnt thinking about is making me think about the weight of your vehicle. Every size tire has a weight rating, this comes after the tire size and reads similar to this “92W” 92 being the weight rating and W being the speed rating-I’m not even going to get into the speed rating in this rant. That weight rating or ‘load index’ is there for a reason. To keep you safe.
Here is a handy guide from Discount Tire as to how much weight your tires are rated for…
http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoLoadIndex.dos
Ever seen a trailer tire blow out on the side of the road while carrying a car or under load? That generally happens from one of two reasons, the tires are old and the rubber is brittle, or the tire couldn’t handle the weight it was carrying. YOUR CAR TIRES WORK THE SAME WAY. Don’t be dumb.

Stance, Slammed, Whatever; Yeah my Z is low, but its not that low. I can make it over speed bumps-slow of course, I can turn corners really fast without rubbing and destroying my tires, and I can run over a McDonalds bag of trash that some ignorant person threw out their window while driving because they didn’t want the shit in there own car, and glance back in my rear view mirror relived that it didn’t get stuck in my radiator or intercoolers. So what’s cooler? Being able to drive your car like it was meant for with style, or hard parking to hide the fact you bought a car and can’t drive it without breaking a fender or your exhaust every time you take it out?

Wheel Spacers; ugh. Ok so I’ve ran spacers, they seemingly are harmless if you run extended studs or have bolt on spacers right? Wrong. Some engineer spent a shit ton of time designing every aspect of your car so everything would work together to last. Two years ago while I was running spacers I went through 3… THREE WHEEL BEARINGS!!! The spacers put a ton of stress on all the other components causing them to wear a lot faster than usual. Now, I know the fact I went through three in one year could’ve been because of added stress of drifting and road racing, or the fact that it had already been a couple years since I changed them-they shouldn’t have gone out that fast.
I no longer run spacers, now I run wheels with a better offset from the start, my wheel bearings are fine still.

Don’t get me wrong, they look nice. I can appreciate a car that has spent some time creating the perfect fitment that works and doesn’t effect how it drives too much. But we buy these cars to drive right? Why put small tires on your car just to make it lower and sacrificing our safety? If I see anything between a 275 and 335 on the rear of a Z, I’m going to know that guy or girl knows what’s up and isn’t a pussy. Get a tire that can handle the weight and power for your vehicle, not something that’s going to stretch the inner makings of the tires-the only things that are on your car that are touching the ground keeping you safe. If you want to replace wheel bearings and other suspension components more frequently, don’t expect them to be covered under warranty if your slammed, expect to pay to play.