Suspension and wheels....

Hi! I popped into my local motorworld this morning to take a look at some alloys, and the advice I got from them wasn't great! I've got the standard 13" steel wheels at the moment, and I'm thinking of getting some 15" alloys, so I figured I'd be looking at 195/45/15. The guys at motorworld told me that I couldn't get 98x4 wheels, so I'd need 100x4 with "wobble bolts". This didn't sound right to me!
Anyway, assuming I find the right wheels, can anyone recommend a lowering kit? Nothing too radical, maybe 30-35mm?

Mine is on 15x7 OZ's with wobble nuts BUT make sure you get the correct locating ring in the centre of the wheelhave fun.

i've never heard of wobble nuts, that sounds like a load of rubbish tbh!!

4x98 wheels are not as common as 4x100, they mean they can't be arsed to look and see if there are any available for you. It's easier to say No than to actually go and find out.

Wobbly bolts have a loose collar on the head so they will sit in the right place in the wheels:
If you are using 4x100 you should use wobbly bolts.

I think I'll wait and get the 98s, I don't like the look of the wobble bolts.

I can highly recommend the Eibach Pro kit for the lowering of the car. Cornering agility becomes quite amazing, the ride is firm and comfy, and really suits the standard dampers. Novitec do some good ones too.

Don't be put off by the wobbly bolts, have used them many times without problems.

I used powells performance in cornwall to get me the 4x98 pcd 15" wheels for my panda..and here she is ..and here's alink to the site

http://www.powellsperformance.co.uk/#1X0

Thanks folks. Just looked up the price of the eibach pro kit, much cheaper than I thought it would be, so it looks like I'll be getting the kit on order sooner than I thought! Can anyone recommend a garage to fit them in the west midlands or shropshire?

I was thinking of these wheels... What do you think? (btw, the car is a mellow yellow colour)

Those Wolfrace wheels look the business! They will definately suit the car.

By the way what offset are they? I'm thinking of doing exactly the same (subtle lowering and swapping 13" steels for 14"/15" alloys) and I want to make sure the offset on my new wheels are similar to the recommended figure.

Another issue is the warranty on my car, if I were to throw on aftermarket alloys and some lowered springs will Fiat get funny if I need to to claim? Obviously the insurers will need to know about the wheels, but I've always done these mods to cars well beyond their warranty dates.

This is the info from the wheel suppliers website...

Make - Fiat Model - Panda 03> Year - 03> PCD - 4x98 Offset - 30 to 40 Bore - 58.1
Recommended fitments, 14" 1856014 15" 1955015 16" 1954516 17" 2054017.

I hadn't considered the warranty issues with making modifications, although unless fiats service has improved since we bought our multipla in 2002 then the warranty is worthless anyway!

On the Dezent wheels fitted to mine the offset is 28.. I think the standard fiat ones[15"] they use an off set of 30..