Welcome to my Alfa Romeo
Spider tribute! With an award-winning Pininfarina design and an engine to match, – a real
head-turner and truly a driver’s delight!
T H E W H E E L S
The GTV Spider comes originally equipped with 205/50 tyres on 16"
rims (some are delivered with 195/60/15 – yak!), but it definitely
deserves something else.
The ultimate Alfa rim, is in my opinion
the ones made by German Zender especially for Alfa. The old "Milano",
now deleted, and the new "Siena" are both looking
excellent on most Alfa models. They both come in 17" and
18", although the 18" with 225/40 rubber looks
definitely best. Together with a 30mm lowering, it feels glued to
the road, – but it suffers a bit in comfort on
sharp bumps. (Bogstadveien anyone? 🙂 Guess you can’t have it both ways…
The 18" Siena’s will set you back
at least NOK 3500,- a piece, but they are not that easy to obtain in
Norway. Try Carrozzeria Alfa in
Drøbak [tlf. 64 93 32 11]. You could also check out www.zender.de
for more info. For more info on wheels and tires in general, check
The
Wheel & Tyre Bible.
What tyre size
should you use on…
15"
rim
16"
rim
17"
rim
18"
rim
195/60/15
[1932mm]
205/50/16
[1920mm]
215/45/17
[1964mm]
225/35/18
[1931mm]
225/45/16
[1912mm]
215/40/17
[1897mm]
225/40/18
[2001mm]
235/40/17
[1947mm]
235/35/18
[1953mm]
245/35/17
[1895mm]
245/35/18
[1975mm]
[All of the
above sizes are within the legal +/- 5%] For more sizes, try
The
Wheel and Tyre Bible
Wanna see how
different rims look on your Spider?
Check out
The Wheel Machine!
Actual speed or just happy
reading? The speedometer is
notoriously known to give you a too high reading, – in worst
cases up to +10% – but by changing the tire size you could
actually end up getting a none intentional speeding ticket,
which we all agree is no fun at all. So if you’re planning on a
new set of wheels, check how your speedo reading will change with a different
tire option.
Enter original/current tire size:
/ R
Enter new tire size:
/ R
Enter your current speedometer reading:
km/h or mph
When your speedo says km/h or mph, your actual speed is
km/h or mph
Tire pressure Tire pressure on your GTV/Spider
should be: front 2.7 bar, rear 2.5 bar. For high speed driving:
front 3.0 bar, rear 2.8 bar. Remember to check pressures while the
tires are cold. Surveys done by Dunlop show that at least 25 per
cent of all tires examined are under-inflated by more than 10%!
The GTV/Spider rims uses 5 x 98mm bolts.
Bolt size is 12×1,25mm. The center hole is 58,1mm. Original offset
depth (ET) is 35mm and Norwegian regulations says +- 15mm, but
with an ET larger than 40 mm, the wheels will probably sit in too
deep, and cause problems with the discs or rub against the inside
of your wheel arches. The following
is some of the 17" and 18" rims that should fit the 1996> model (not necessarily
the GTV6). Please do a double
check with your local wheel dealer, since there seems to be some
confusion on what fits and what not.
)
![](javascript:ViewImage('images/alfa_spider_2001_3_700.jpg',700,450,'Alfa Romeo Spider w/ Zender Siena 18" wheels')){kind=link}