Wheel Replacement Questions
 

One side of our 2004 Nissan 350Z Touring wheels are bent very bad. We looked in various places and see the same wheel with two different part numbers 40300CD026 and/or 40300CD028. Why does the same wheel having two different part number? Looking for suggestions for replacement wheels based on your experience. 1) Fix the current set of front and back rim. 2) Buy a used set from Junk Yard (mostly no pictures, but some pictures looked pretty bad) 3) Buy refurbished set of rims.(pictures available). When refurbished, we see that they repainted the rim beautifully. Do they also check and fix bent or out of round areas? Thanks

Well, first off, the PNs you quoted are not for 18" Touring wheels, these numbers correspond to the Base and Enthusiast 17s. And on those, I'd surmise that one PN is for the front 7.5" and the other for the 8.0" rear.

Base/Enthusiast wheel:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....9793bedf49.jpg

These are the 18" (Touring V.1s) that were used for the '03-05 Touring model.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....800c07aa4b.jpg

40300-CD129 Front
40300-CD185 Rear

What puzzles me about these PNs is that they ARE the identical size, 18x8. :dunno:

S'far as re-furb'd wheels, most of the shops you'll find that do/sell re-furb wheels do check them. Can't guarantee that but look at the source's ratings (say, on EBay or wherever) and use your best judgement. I bought some factory wheels for my Benz from a refurb company and they're awesome, no issues.

On the oem sites it lists one of those part numbers as Made in Taiwan, the other is listed as Made in USA. Since they apparently have Enthusiast wheels on a Touring maybe they just got them from a junk yard or something.

The car is 2004 Touring with 5 speed automatic. The 17 inch wheels are the original wheels that came with the car. Perhaps, Touring has two wheel options? 17 or 18 inch wheels?

Thanks,

Touring auto came with 17’s while the 6 speed got 18’s.

Different part numbers for the 18x8 wheels, has to do with the odd stud on the front rotor. The rear specific wheel will not fit up front, unless you remove the mystery stud.

Good info, terrasmak. Never knew the Touring came with those.

And that "mystery stud", hahahahahaha. Never heard it called that. I like. More like, "the useless mystery stud that gets thrown away on first wheel change".

Can confirm. My '03 Touring 6 speed came with the same wheels. 6 spokes with a 5 lug pattern! :dunno: WTF? So I swapped in the much better looking V2 Touring wheels (available '05-'07), but still have the stockers in the shed.

JM-was that you that said that about 6 spokes and 5 lugs in some other post? Been thinking about that and never gave it much thought until you (or whomever said it.) Wow, you must be more OCD than me! Hahahahaha.

But gee, what about all the other nice 6 spokers out there like Track V.1s or TE37s or RPF1s (well, sort of) or Advan RGs or..... ?? :icon17:

Symmetry thing, eh? Laff....

I have a set painted pearl white if you are interested. They were my winter wheels, but I don't need them anymore since i have a truck now.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....c2e44c71f9.png
Info on the auto

Thanks. Just bought a 17 inch wheel for one side (front and rear off). All four wheels are bent and out of round per Costco when they put on the new tires, but one side is very bad so replacing those. Even rolling at slow speed, we can feel the car going up and down as well as slight sways.

Cheers,

Throw those 17s in the trash and get new wheels. What part of Mass are you from? I'll sell you my track wheels for $600 with the tires if your wanting to keep things oem.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....7cf36f2883.jpg

Yes it was me... this is just one of things I never understood about wheel design. I have 5 lugs so who decided the wheel should have 6 spokes? Apparently someone who can't count! A mutant with 6 fingers? :icon8:

Now (as mentioned) you can pull of the 6 spokes with 5 lugs deal if the design includes some kind of center hub (like TE37s) which visually separates the wheel/spoke from the hub. The advantage here is a single wheel design or signature "look" can be made functional with 4, 5 or 6 lugs. Back in day when 16" were considered big wheels many designs featured a (removable) center cap that covered the lugs so it didn't matter. However today almost all wheels feature exposed lugs so the pattern mismatch becomes more obvious. And I am not a fan of that misaligned look.

Even on the Track Wheels the V2s look so much better then the V1s because the lugs are aligned so nicely with the spokes. I guess its the partial engineer in me but its seems logically that each spoke should have a corresponding lug for maximum boltage (I just made up that term :icon17: ). However I can see where the odd count / non symmetry of 5 spokes bothers some people :icon43:

Truthfully my real hate on the V1 Touring wheels is just because they really look bad / ugly: the weird soft gray color (which matches NOTHING on the car), the slightly cupped center section, the round yet just a little flat spokes... ICK :icon16: the misalignment just makes things worst :icon39:

Im sorry for posting a picture of the not engineering friendly v1s.. Here is a picture of the summer wheels to help make up for the horror.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....242bb0b470.jpg

Only thing I cant get over on the v1s is the offset

C'mon Mike, we're talkin' stock 8/8.5s. OEM applications rarely go aggressive because the mfgrs have to account for everything that can fail and anything aggressively offset DOES put undue (read: non-OEM) type stress on the bearings.

And, the suspension was designed to use those "conservative" wheels and "skinny" OE tires. To this day, I cannot TRULY say that my 5-SPOKE, 5-LUG uber wheels handle that much better than my Track V.1s with sticky tahrs other than from an ultimate grip perspective. Turn in and return was/is simply amazing with the Tracks.

Just givin' you a hard time because you say the same thing about the Track offset as many times as I USED TO mention, ahem, "driving school". Laff....

Here, to satisfy JM's detestment of the 6 on 5 arrangement....
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z....5c49c9747a.jpg
...and look, the lugs line up with the spokes!! :D:icon17: Heeheeheeevil I am.

Those wheels looks great. Unfortunately, tires are purchased and wheel is on-route.

I approve, those look so nice :thumbup:

Now talk about HORROR... my Dakota has 6 lugs, but only 5 spokes :suicide: why Dodge? why? :icon30:

Alright since we already on-topic:

The 6MT Touring model came with 18" wheel standard - Were those 18x8" front and rear or 18x8" front and 18x8.5" rear?

I've read that they are 18x8 on all four. Is that correct?

To my knowledge, all OEM wheel sets for the 350Z are staggered.

And you are wrong. The early wagon wheels were 18x8 all around, but the tires were staggered