Wheel Well Gap - Lower/Bigger Tires/Suck it up

Not to long ago I bought a Lexus IS250 - with the current rim/tire setup I have more wheel well gap than I would like.... my problem is that its really hard for me to try and justify lowering an already low car in Wisconsin.

My options seem to be:

I figured I could do coil-overs and go up and down every spring/fall but thats a PITA (no airbags - to much $$$)

Larger tires to fill in the gap but might look just as odd when all said and done

Just deal with the gap



Anyone have/had this problem with wanting to lower a car in an area that can get hammered by snow

Here is the car/gap now:

I'm the one with the lowered Black IS posted when you were shopping.

As already stated, seperate wheels with snowtires is a great move. I have stock 17" with snows, and 18" better offset and summer tires.

Ask yourself, are you really going to drive that car in over 4" of snow????

So you got 5" clearance now and lowered on Eibach springs makes it 4". I just stay home with that much snow on the roads or wait for the plows.

BTW, I replaced stock struts at 80k miles with 65k of them on eibach springs only. Picked up a slightly used set of stock struts (not f-sport) for $150 and my car rides great again and at 125k miles now. No wheel gap and rides the same as a sport setup (firm, no bounce). go to clublexus.com and lower that beast

A 1" lowering spring isn't really going to make much of a difference that would justify the $$ to do so. I personally don't think it looks that bad as the gap atleast looks about even all of the way around opposed having more of a gap on top then sides.

I found this on a site

Standard Rim f/r = 17"x7"
Standard Tyre f/r = 215/45-17
(A -40mm drop is possible with this combination)

18" upgrade f/r =18"x7 1/2"
18" upgrade f/r =225/40/18
18" upgrade f/r =18"x8"
18" upgrade f/r =225/40/18
18" upgrade r =18"x8.5"
18" upgrade r =255/35-18
(A -30mm drop is possible with these combinations, however minor arch rolling is needed with the 255/35 combination)

19" upgrade f/r =19"x8"
19" upgrade f/r = 235/35-19
(A -25mm drop is possible with these combinations)
With 19's don't run any rim bigger than 8" on the front as it will hit the strut.19's will rub on the front inner arch at full lock, but this can be solved by cutting or bending away some of the plastic trim

I was thinking about a 1" or 1.5" drop all around if I did lower it (as low as I can go w/o any other mods) which looks possible from @Dave's numbers (thanks for that!)....

I usually take "the back way" to work - then I can haul ass and not worry about cops, but you bring up a good point -- if there is weather/snow odds are I would take the highways which are clear pretty early.... odds are it wouldn't bother me more than maybe like 1/2 times a year.

Odds are I'll end up doing it once I'm home from school and have a garage.... Thanks guys.



@JoeB - have you done anything else to yours you would recommend - I plan on a roof spoiler really soon - I love they way they look on this car....
I'm really glad I went with this car, its just beautiful!!!!

Just lower it with some Eibachs or whatever, as stated above. A few years ago I had a Chrysler 300 that I put Eibach's on (I live in Michigan) and it was fine - only in the very worst of snow storms would it be even remotely an issue - sometimes the exhaust would drag on the high center part of the road if ruts were really bad, but that might have been once or twice, driving home from work when it would snow a ton during the day.

I did an Eibach kit on my Acuar back in the day. It was 1" front 1.4" in the back if I recall correctly. It worked out great and I love it, I feel you could benefit from the same thing.

Nick, If go with springs you may want to look at how much new struts are going to cost.