First of all, I just want to offer a belated thanks to the posters on this board who helped me back in December as I was looking to purchase a used G35. I am convinced that knowledgeable posters saved me from buying a car that had been modified after purchase, and I've ended up delighted with an '07 G35x in Blue Slate with Tech Package that I purchased just before the New Year. Special thanks to thescreensavers for his personal touch.

Now I'm back with another question. I've loved the car, but I'm not so impressed with the 17" wheels on the AWD model, and I'm starting to think about getting some aftermarket rims. I'm the kind of car enthusiast that reads Motor Trend every month and could quote you the horsepower figures and 0-60 times of any car out there, but wouldn't have the first clue how to put on a new set of wheels. So I'm looking for a crash course...

First and foremost, I don't want to void my warranty, since I've still got another year of powertrain coverage left. I'd like the changes to be pretty much purely cosmetic...no suspension lowering or anything. I've seen a lot of posts about "drilling" the wheels, which I assume has something to do with the lug pattern on the rims? Is that a modification to the car or just to the wheel? Basically, how can I get better looking wheels with a minimum of modification to the vehicle itself? Does the AWD complicate anything?

Also, how much should I expect to spend? I'd like to do something reasonable price-wise, but I've been reading over some of the wheel threads that are already on here, and knowledgeable posters have warned that low-cost aftermarket rims are actually worse quality than the stock ones. I don't want to go get something crappy.

As you can see, I'm a total newbie on how to do this sort of shopping, so any advice you can provide would be welcomed.

(As an aside, I've always loved the look of colored rims like gray and black but I'm colorblind so I'm clueless what shades look best with the Blue Slate exterior. How does powder coating or painting work? Help?)

Thanks so much to all who helped me out last time, and to those who'll help me out this time. Can't describe how much of a difference that made with my hard-earned money.

 

hey man congrats on your purchase and welcome to the forums!

well you dont have to worry about re-drilling wheels as long as the wheels you want to buy have the same bolt pattern as the infiniti does which i believe is 5 lugs x 114.3mm

since you have the AWD you will need to make sure that your wheel diameter is within a certain percentage of each other or the OEM wheels i m not really sure on that one either i ll let the pros handle that. I went the easy way and running square (same all around) so i can rotate my tires and avoid the whole AWD headache...

As for price you can pretty much spend anywhere from 1k to 5k+ easy on a decent to good set of wheels, i suggest you start with the vendors here they have a huge variety of wheels from Axis to Volks.

one suggestion though... since you said you arnt going to lower your car please dont get huge wheels and fat tires to try and fill in the wheel gap because it looks terrible.

Good luck and get some pix up!

 

For a light weight, good set of rims... I say about 2K for new. But if you can find a used, good set online it shouldn't be that expensive :-) For the X, can't have staggered set up so keep that in mind.

I actually have the same color (slate) with black rims right now, but honestly I would go with lighter colored rims. The blue slate with dark rims makes the color too heavy, and doesn't really flow well..... I recently purchased a M45S 19'' rims.
I had my 18'' sport rims painted professionally for $50 by a friend. Powdercoating gives a better quality black color to the rim and is a lot harder to scratch than regular paint.
Good luck with the rims! try looking at aftermarket rim thread, or search by typing "rims".

 

glad you found your car.

good luck finding some rims dont go black it looks funny on ur color imo.

 

Actually you can go staggered on an X but you MUST keep the tire diameters within 3% of the stock X diameters. Sometimes it's tricky finding tires for a staggered setup that have fronts & rears the same diameter. If you go to tirerack.com and plug in your year & model it'll show all the wheels that are OK for your X, you can also use the fitment program to see what your new wheel style will look like on your Infiniti.

 

^ sorry I dont drive an X go with what blnew said!

If you want to see what I meant by "too heavy" with blue slate and black rims, I'll post a pic. Just let me wash the car first.

 

a little late but welcome to the community. have you found your wheels yet?

 

wouldn't bigger rims and spacers cause additional stress to the joints (since they are heavier)?

 

Welcome, if you're looking to run a staggered setup (wider wheels in the rear) just go to any tire size calculator site to make sure your front and rears are similar in diameter. As for people saying you can't run staggered on an X that's not true I've been using a staggered setup for about 15,000 miles now and have no problems whatsoever.

As for what kind of wheels, try skimming through https://g35driver.com/forums/media-s...rket-rims.html 68 pages of 2nd gens with aftermarket wheels

Another thing, since you already stated that you aren't lowering the car I wouldn't look at anything bigger than 19's since the wheel gap on 20's without a drop is pretty horrendous. If you want an oem look you could always just get the sport 18" wheels from the g35s which come staggered or try finding a set from an xS which are non staggered

 

Hey welcome! You sound like me a couple of months ago... There is a lot of info to filter here, so just take a look at it all and see what applies to what you want to do.. I was in the same boat as you and didn't want to drop the car at all.. I actually have a 07 G35x in blue slate also. I ended up doing a very mild drop (as you can see), and just today picked up a set of g37 coupe OEM 19inch wheels. They were my second choice for wheels, but worked out great.

Good luck and here is a pic so you get an idea of what they might look like on your car.

 

Thanks so much for all the replies.

So it sounds like I should look for 19" wheels or smaller, and try to get four identical ones or close to it. TireRack.com will show me all the wheels that will fit? How can I tell which ones on TireRack are the "crappy" rims...there are plenty here that are $150 a rim, so I assume those aren't the best quality or are too heavy?

Also, how is it best to shop for them? Do users here sell them? Where is the best place to get good deals?