UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hey Everyone, I'm new here and I figured this may be a good place to get the answers I am in desperate need of. I have recently purchased some new alloys and tires for my vehicle. The new wheels are 16" compared to the stock 15" wheels. Upon fitting the right side I tried to reverse out of my garage so I could fit the other side. (My garage is very small and there is only adequate space to fit one side at a time.) Upon aiming to reverse out of my garage the car wouldn't move, It felt like the parking break was still on. Upon further inspection I noticed the wheel was pressing upon the break calliper which I thought was the cause to the car not moving. (This later resulted in having to buy new brake discs as fitting the wheel made my brake disk bend) I therefore purchased some 20mm wheel spacers and 60mm lug nuts and aimed to fit the wheels again. The same problem occurred as the car would not move. I checked the calliper and it was a good distance away from coming into contact with the wheel so it wasn't that: I jacked up the car out of gear and tried to spin the front wheel, it would not move. I tried to spin the back wheel and this to my delight would spin. So my question is any idea what could be causing this as it really has me stumped. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Sam.

What are the specs for the 16" wheels that you've bought compared to the original 15" wheels that were on the car?; width, offset and centre bore. The PCD for both old and new wheels will be the same (5x100), otherwise you wouldn't have been able to line up the bolt holes in the wheels with the mounting holes on the hubs. Did the place you bought them from confirm the wheels would fit the 6R Polo?

I can understand that the design of some wheels can cause clearance issues with the brake calipers that can be solved by fitting spacers, but I'm not understanding how the brake discs have become bent through fitting 16" wheels (larger diameter) to a car that previously had 15" wheels? Fitting a larger diameter wheel shouldn't cause any contact with the brake disk that would cause it to bend.

If you remove the new wheel is the hub free to rotate? If you replace the old wheel will it rotate?

Remember that the wheel is located by the interface of the internal and external tapers of the hub and wheel. The nuts stop the wheel falling off but are a secondary fixing with no locating function.

If the naked hub will not rotate you may have destroyed the wheel bearing when you clamped a seemingly incompatible wheel to the assembly.

If it will rotate with the old wheel then clearly the new wheel is at fault.

If it will rotate then clearly at least one of the mating faces of the wheel is causing distortion. The answer is to sell the wheels and buy some that fit or carefully measure and template the hub external profile and wheel internal profiles then have the wheels machined to make the wheel hub combination compatible.

I've never experienced alloy wheel hub incompatibility bad enough to lock a wheel but I have come across it several times with wire wheels.

Best of luck, I hope it turns out to be something simple and cheap to fix.

I'm sorry if this is a bit disjointed, I had to edit it which I find challenging, fat old fingers and small phone screens are not conpatible.

Just a thought, when you then bought spacers, did you also buy and use longer wheel fixing bolts, and if so, are they too long and fouling on the back of the hub or suspension leg? Ie one problem then now a different one?

I had the same kind of issue when changing winter wheels/tyres to summer ones. Problem there was too long wheel bolts... Bolts touched hub or something behind the brake disc preventing wheel to spin... New bolts were only about 4mm longer than previous bolts, but that was too much!