Steviewevie

Sorry to hear about that, hope she makes a speedy and full recovery.

Sorry to hear about that . But I think you can repair almost any alloy wheel damage, e.g. have a look here and scroll down and see the video examples, also pics of a horrifically damaged wheel here which these people appear to have fixed I can't vouch for their service, just something I found on the net. As Gord said, I think it mainly just comes down to ££££ and who can do a decent job.

It does sound like a good service. The RAC are apparently planning to launch something similar, story here (very briefly). Found this picture, which is kind of amusing

But it's just an IS200 satnav screen though, with the wrong diagram on eBay ?

Thanks. But how then, can you use information like "42 and up" when choosing wheels, because as the offset gets bigger then as you say the wheel moves in so surely it's going to be coming into contact with the inside of the car, which is what I was saying in my initial examples using the offset calculator. Where does this "42 and up" figure come from ? Am I right then that it's a guide to how to avoid the wheels sticking out past your arches (but taking on Gord's point about tyres affecting this too) but doesn't say anything about if the wheels might rub the inside ?

Thanks guys. Bazza, your example seems to show that the IS200 has a negative offset though. This is one of the things that's been confusing me, trying to figure out if the offset is negative or positive. I've been assuming it's a positive offset, but if it's negative that will turn my examples on their head. If it's a negative offset then that will start to make the "42 and up" example, for 7.5" wheels, work for me, in that with a 42 offset there's 8mm less clearance but going up from 42 there will be more clearance, so I can see that it makes sense that way. There's still presumably a limit on how high you can go before the wheel starts sticking out though, so these figures are just referring to the inside clearance, it seems. I guess it's easier to solve the problem of a wheel that's sticking out though, e.g. through wider arches. So the IS200 has negative offset, yes ? Are pretty much all the wheels on alloy wheel websites negative offset too then ? I only see offset being mentioned, not whether they're positive or negative.

It seems to be just the screen, as far as I can tell from the diagram (part labelled 86111) :

The part number is for an IS200 OEM satnav screen. It's the later of two part numbers so I'm guessing it's the bigger screen (but I'm not 100% sure). Looks like he's used the wrong picture.

I'm confused by some aspects of wheel offset :duh: I understand the concept, and I assume that it's a positive offset that the IS200 has. I understand that offset is important in terms of whether the wheel is going to foul on the inside of the car (e.g. suspension components) or stick out too far (past the arches). However, what I don't understand specifically is what a valid offset range would be for different wheel widths. I've looked at Mat's posting as quoted below : As an example, with 7.5 inch wheels, the correct offset for the front seems to say "42 and up". To me, that means an offset of 42 or greater (numerically, e.g. 43, 44, 45, 50, etc). However, using the offset calculator here, if I start with a 7" wheels with 50 offset (I think that's right for the IS200 OEM alloys ?), and put in that I'm going to a 7.5" wheel with 42 offset, then it tells me I've got 2mm more inner clearance and the wheels stick out an extra 14mm, so I presume that's ok. However, what's confusing me is when I start playing with the numbers. Given that the table above says "42 and up", as I start increasing the offset, e.g. 43, 44 etc, I start reducing inner clearance (and making them stick out less). If I get to 45 offset then I've got 1mm less inner clearance, and going further at ET48 I've got 4mm less inner clearance. So am I understanding the wording "and up" correctly in the above table ? Surely it can't mean that anything that is 42 and higher will fit fine, because if you go up more than a few mm you're reducing inner clearance and at some point will presumably hit the inside of the car. Similarly at ET41, the calculator shows that I've got even more inner clearance, but the wheels start sticking out even more. So is the table above in fact showing the minimum offsets required to stop your wheels poking out past the arches, and saying nothing about coming into contact with the inner parts of the car ? I get the feeling that I'm totally missing something here !

That looks brilliant, really low - much lower than Stevie's car looked though, do they take a while to bed in then? Yeah took a little while - think mine looked like Stevie's when they were first fitted. I was thinking the same thing as Parthiban. Wow, sounds like mine have got a way to go yet even though they've settled somewhat already ! :o

oooeeerr, sorry, I ain't got a scooby doo about that? Don't know what diamond cutting is? All I know is that they did a mega brill' job on mine ormi. Col... It's the fine concentric grooves on the fact of the wheel. Normally refurbushers don't restore the diamond-cut finish, and even if they can it usually costs extra to do so (and can be a problem since it can make the wheel more prone to corrosion). EDIT - one of Patrik Lindblom's pics showing the original diamond-cut finish :

*cough* :winky:

Ah ok, sorry, I looked at his thread again and I see what you mean.

No it's very easy. See my walkthrough on it here.

Rob will know for sure of course, but looking at his other thread I think he drilled out the holes to make them bigger for his new screws.

Wow, that's impressive, both the number of miles and the fact that you've done them all yourself !

That won't help if the password has been burned into something like EEPROM memory though. From the sounds of it by Googling on the subject, it's very hard to get rid of the password on Vaios.

Your windscreen could have been replaced with another OEM windscreen though. Or there could be another reasons why the arms were taken off.

989,458

ok, so TigerFish is right, your wiper arms are on the wrong way round ! Just swap them over (and swap the blades back again) and all should be fine.

I have got no overlap between the wiper blades, at rest, at all, there is a gap in mine (see my pics). I think that TigerFish is onto something here. The passenger side arm is 3cm longer than the driver's side arm. I wonder if your wiper blade arms have been installed the wrong way round at some point (e.g. after being removed due to windscreen replacement) ? My driver's side wiper arm measures 47 cm from the top of the hooked end to the start of the plastic cap hiding the nut. The passenger arm is 50 cm long. Measuring the driver's side again, the top of the blade to the top of the arm (hooked bit) is 27cm on my car.

How long is your driver's side blade from the end of the arm to the top of the blade (i.e. "top" as in your last picture) ? I will go and measure mine.

ok, sorry, I see that you did say you'd tried adjusting it in your original posting, my bad.

Looking at the manual, you need to remove a cap off the connector of the wiper arm (it suggests using a screwdriver with its end taped over for protection), then you can undo a nut that's holding on the wiper arm, and take it off. I would guess this would let you reposition it. On the diagram below you can see the link assembly that the wiper arms attach on to, which is in turn connected to the wiper motor.