TSX rims on my Civic (w/pics) - Update: Interesting story, ended w/ Si rims

[chconline Veteran]

For the last few months, I have been searching hard in my local classifieds for some OEM Honda/Acura rims to mount winter tires next season.

The reason is because I'll be making a lot of highway runs next winter due to work, and I have been running all season tires on my car since new. Granted, I have some really good all seasons that I have excuse to not change over in the winter here in Calgary -- the Continental ExtremeContact DWS -- which, for those who are not familiar, it is simply the best performing all season tire in the snow with amazing dry/wet characteristics in the summer. They're W rated Ultra High Performance tires, but if it gets cold enough (-20c or so), a patch of ice and I'm pretty much out of luck.

So for my own personal safety and keeping my insurance record clean, I know I'll need to grab some winter tires next year. However, I hate those black steel rims that everyone uses with their winter tires with a passion; it's cheap but it's fundamentally ugly. Since I got almost 10 months between the time I've made my choice for winters to the time I actually need them, I decided to find some OEM rims to mount my winter tires on. So the search began.

There weren't a whole lot of listings. Either people sell them for way too much money, or they're OEMs that I don't want. Finally, last month someone listed a set of 2006 Acura TSX rims for $300 with tires. It's worth it just for the rims alone! Despite the fact that I wanted 16" rims for my winters and not 17", and they live in deep south Calgary (I live in the NW), it was a deal that I simply couldn't pass up. So on a Friday afternoon I made a 45 minute road trip and picked them up.

The condition: Excellent. Two of the rims have minor curb rashes, but I'm not complaining for this price. The tires have around 6/32 tread on them, but since they're over 6 years old, I'm not going to bother running them on my car. I'll trash them when I mount my winters.

The next thing came up is that I don't want to run my 2007 Honda Civic with Acura center caps on the rims. It's not a big deal, but it's weird. So I looked on eBay, and found a set of four Honda center caps for $16.98 shipped. I expected some cheap Chinese knockoffs, but 2 weeks later, they came in, and...

They're shipped from Singapore and they're genuine OEM caps! (I looked at the back.) Cool. So I popped down to my garage, took out those Acura center caps (Which I am selling for $40 right now and some guy's buying it from me locally :p ) and installed the Honda caps.

Since it's Friday afternoon and I usually don't want to do anything serious today, I went ahead and did a test fit on my Civic. I know it'll fit despite the fact that it's 17x7 with +55 offset (Stock is 16x6.5 or 17x7 with +45 offset for higher end models) according to people on various forums, but just in case it doesn't clear, then I don't want to be crappy myself over when I get my winter tires in the fall :p Plus, I needed to rotate my all season tires anyway, so it's just an extra 10 minutes of work. Plus I can see how it looks like on my Nighthawk Black Pearl Civic.

As it turns out, it clears my suspension and brakes perfectly, which is expected. It's not really tucked in much compared to stock despite the higher positive offset. Either way, I'm actually really impressed by the way it looks on my car -- better than what I've seen on the internet -- they should have made this stock in my opinion :p

[Sensayshun]

Nice one. Looks really tidy. Proper bargain as well!

[ARchamps]

Nice! Is that your car's stock height? Looks a bit lowered. I agree with you on the winter tire black rims. I hate them as well. I just bought a new Fusion and the tires are performance rated (not to be driven in Winter). I'll be looking for some winters as well with nice rims.

[chconline Veteran]

Thanks :laugh: Yep absolutely love it. It's stock height. To fit the size of my car, I need 215/45R17, the tires on the rims right now are 215/50R17, so about 3.5% bigger (Probably a bit less due to wear). The car has pretty a good fender gap config from the factory, haha.

I'm going to put winter tires on it in the fall, so the tires that it comes with are no use to me anyway.

[Open Minded]

Looks clean!

[chconline Veteran]

So I ended up not using these rims, lol.

I was going to use these for my car for winter, until I spotted some 16" OEM rims that are identical to the ones on my Civic LX right now. 16" winter tires are much cheaper than 17", and knowing how much the TSX rims are worth, I decided to pick up some 16" rims for $450 with tires. It's a little more expensive than what I paid for my TSX rims, but I did the math, and I will be at least $400 ahead in net acquisition cost if I made this trade. So I grabbed some cash from the bank, and got 4 Civic LX rims. They were in perfect shape. I later sold the TSX rims for $570, but ended up with a crazy buyer.

As you can see in my first post, I replaced the center caps with Honda center caps. I told the buyer these are TSX rims with Honda center caps (I put these in my listing), and they said they were fine with it.

After they got home, they claimed that the TSX rims did not fit their car, and here is what they wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

I'm thinking these aren't TSX, but maybe Civic rims ... they don't fit since the cup is different. Pretty discouraging when we needed to swap tires late in the evening.

Happy to give them back in exchange for my cash.

-----

This is what I wrote in response:

Hi -----,

These are TSX rims as indicated in the ad (2006-2008 TSX rims). The Civic has the exact same bolt pattern as the TSX, but with a different offset (+45 vs +55). They're interchangeable; the center cap is a Honda cap because I took out the Acura cap for my Honda.

But in case you don't believe me... here's a photo of a 2008 TSX.

http://i.imgur.com/eOrov.jpg

I know because these were from an actual 1st gen TSX.

And then I got this back:

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the reply, and for your picture. I can understand that you would not knowingly misrepresent the tires.

The tires do not fit the hub centre of our car. My husband is an engineer, and thus knew when we tried to put them on that they don't fit. We then flipped them over to see that they are Honda rims.

I have included pictures for you so that you can see the rims are actually stamped as Honda. (I'm not worried that you changed the little cap to Honda.) Had I known they were Honda rims I would not have come as I know they don't fit.

TSX rims have the same hub centre as our car, but Honda is not compatible with our car. (They do have equal bolt patterns.)

I can understand that you would not knowingly have advertised them as TSX rims had you seen the inside of the rims, but it is an advertising error. Unfortunately it takes up time and effort.

I would like to arrange a time to come by today please, to exchange the tires for the $570. Please let me know.

Thank you,

-----

Attached are two photos showing "evidence" that these are marked Honda inside, and not Acura. So I wrote back:

Hi -----,

The reason why they are stamped as Honda rims is because Acura and Honda is the same company. I'm not sure if you are aware of that. A lot of Acura parts and stamped Honda anyway, and the TSX is just a European Accord. I won't be surprised that they are stamped Honda, as they are just the same OEM rims manufactured by Enkei.

All Hondas of this type has a 64.1mm center bore, and I don't know why it won't fit your car. CSX, TSX, TL, RDX, Civic, Accord, etc all has the exact same center and bolt pattern, and thus, all rims are fully interchangeable. These are, in fact, TSX rims because they were actually removed from an actual TSX, and you can verify in the photo I have sent you earlier. You can look for images yourself, or even post on enthusiast forums like Beyond.ca, 8thcivic, Acurazine, etc and they will tell you the exact same thing. The evidence is clear, and I don't think there is any room for questioning in this regard.

I did not misrepresent anything, nor was any mistakes made in my listing, intentionally or unintentionally. I'm sorry they didn't fit your car, but without question, my ad is correct in every degree. You are free to consult a third party for verification. Therefore, I'm sorry I cannot take them back, since it does take time and effort to sell, even though I've let them go at a reduced price. You are free to resell on Kijiji though, or if you really want to get them back to me, I cannot pay back full price for it, because I see no reason why I should spend extra time and effort compensating for an error I clearly did not make.

(Sorry if I sound kind of harsh -- I really don't mean it. But I'm just talking purely business, and the facts are the facts!)

Obviously, if I wanted to provide more evidence, I can just link to some rim spec database, or photos of people with TSX rims on their Civic as well as people with Civic rims on their TSX. A simple Google search turns these up:

http://www.8thcivic....6-tsx-rims.html

http://tsx.acurazine...ad.php?t=669133

http://www.tsxclub.c...t-look-bad.html

But I thought that was enough, and they didn't write back, so I thought it was case solved.

So to make this thread a little more interesting... I just looked up on Kijiji and this is what I found, lol:

http://calgary.kijij...QAdIdZ404289012

Set of four Honda tires and rims - fantastic shape!!

5 x 114 bolt circle - centre hub is Honda. Tires are at 6/32 (about 65%).

Reason for selling - the jerk who was selling them at $675 misrepresented them and wouldn't take them back when they didn't fit our car. Our loss - your gain. $620 and these babies are yours.

Here's the funny thing when they said I misrepresented them:

1. The tires measure out to be 5.5/32. When I listed them, I said "about 6/32" since I didn't have a tire gauge. They actually brought one to my house, and measured it out. It turned out to be exactly 5.5/32, and that's why they talked me down on the price. Clearly, they know it is NOT 6/32 tread, and they've listed it at EXACTLY (not "about" as I've written -- I only got a coin and I actually got it pretty accurately) 6/32.

2. Any "mechanical engineer" would know that 6/32 is NOT 65%. Assuming a new tire has 10/32 tread, and worn down is 2/32, 6/32 is (6-2)/10, which is 40%. It is still pretty decent tread, and the Michelins have excellent treadwear, but this is clearly a lie.

3. I was selling them at $675, but the actual selling price is $570. They're selling at $620, and tries to mislead the viewer that they got them for $675. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with their wording if you need to argue it out word for word, but it is extremely misleading.

4. "Fantastic shape"? One of the rims have a scratch across one of the patterns, and they all have minor curb rashes. I wrote all that in my original listing, but they completely took that out in their resale.

At the end of the day, I don't know why it doesn't fit their car, but any "mechanical engineer" would know that there is OVERWHELMING evidence that these are TSX rims; and even if they are so-called "Honda rims", it is still interchangeable, so it doesn't really matter. They never said what car they were installing it on, but I've never asked. Also, if they are accusing me of misrepresenting, it is kind of funny because just from their ad I realized 4 problems with it, whereas mine was as clear as possible with full disclosure. Their ignorance, and later desperation, is simply a case of someone who made a mistake and are not willing to admit it, so they try to make it someone else's problem. If I am the "jerk" who misrepresented them (Which I didn't), what makes them? Also, what do I have to gain by selling Honda rims as Acura rims, which I didn't? It's not like Acura OEM rims costs more than Honda, and they're the same thing anyway. I mean, even if I really wanted to 'scam' people using this method, I could have at least put Acura center caps back on, which would have been a lot more convincing.

I can't believe people would argue on facts with so much evidence, and not even open up their eyes to see that they're wrong.

Anyways, back to the story:

A while later, about a month ago, while I was surfing Kijiji, I found some guy selling 2006-2008 Civic Si rims for $300. The tires on them are trash, but he said the rims was OK. I talked him down to $250, and checked them out. They were not in perfect shape, but for $250, you really can't ask for more. So I got them, and decided to sell off my Civic rims. I brought these Si rims home, as I really like the look of them, lol.

As for the Civic LX rims above, someone bought them off of me for $500. I even installed it on their car for them. Small profit of $50 on this sale compared to what I make in my day job, but "free" money on a Saturday afternoon is still nice :p

So now we're back to 17" rims again... but because of the profits I made in the last few sales, it definitely offsetted the cost of the tires. I ended up buying four Continental ExtremeWinterContact (I love Continental tires, lol) 215/45R17 to go with the rims.

I paid $857 USD with shipping and tax for all four tires from Tire Rack. They're manufactured in the 44th week of 2011, which is acceptable in my books. Yes that's expensive to what you guys would have paid if you are from the USA, but every tire shop quoted me in the range of $1024 to $1300 for these tires... which is ridiculous.

Anyways I got them mounted today, and gave it a quick install to see how it looks like and if it works properly on my car (Since the brake clearance on a LX for Si rims is REALLY small, like <1mm :laugh: ) Everything checked out; I'll get them off tomorrow and put my regular rims back on, which has Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires.

I got them mounted and balanced at a local place called Treadline Tire and Wheel here in Calgary. I would say they've done a great job at mounting the tires, not to mention that they only charged $15/tire. For 17" and 45 profile... that's definitely an excellent deal. The store is clean and service was quick, with really friendly staff (Y) First time I've been there and highly recommended.