[PSM_360]

In May 2009, Maruti Suzuki launched Ritz, also known at that time 'the practical swift'. I was eagerly waiting for its launch as me & my dad had already made our mind to buy it as soon as it launches. Though I was a bit disappointed because of the change of its name for Indian domestic market (IDM !) from Splash to Ritz. But anyways, the car was here and It was standing in showroom at Stan Autos, Ludhiana in its pearl blue blaze colour which was its marketing colour. Earlier we wanted silver colour but it was unavailable at that time. Then we checked out the blue car standing on display. It was super clean and shiny unlike some dust covered cars we saw in store yards (dark colour gets credit here). So we finalised that blue colour being blue my favourite colour. We didn't experienced any booking hassles, waiting periods etc. unlike swift diesel, took the car home with 4 hours.
These are pictures when our Ritz VDi was brand new. But this 'weak' look lasted for just three months.

UPDATE #0:

Wheels: OEM stamped steel wheels, Size: 5"X14" ET=~50
Tyres: JKTyre Tornado, Size: 165/80R14











After three months & through research on in-car entertainment stuff, I went for ICE & seat cover installation with my cousin. At that time, I had no plans for changing tyres and alloy wheels. There we saw a Ritz with after-market alloy wheels & my cousin said,"why don't you install these on your car?" I said," I have already drove these tyres 5000 kms. Now I won't get a decent exchange rate for the old tyres." But from inside, I was very much attracted by them as they gave the car a bold look. Continuously I was looking at my car and then at that car one by one. Then ultimately made my mind to visit a tyre shop. While doing ICE, seats were out for seat cover fitting & it was already 9 pm. We hurried to nearby known tyre shop (drove car with no seats, sitting on floor!) to check out some options and decided the following alloy wheels. Note: this whole idea was instantaneous, no research was done for tyres and alloy wheels unlike what I did for ICE stuff. It was a bad idea and resulted in many problems faced during next 4/5 years. Of course, I had to spend much more money for new tyres as old OEM JKTyres had already covered 5000 kms, so didn't got good exchange rate.

UPDATE #1:

Wheels: Plati RV 416 Chrome, Size: 6"X14" ET25
Tyres: Ceat Milaze, Size: 185/70R14 (made in Sri Lanka)

Explanation on alloy wheels: As everything was done hurriedly with no personal research, I opted for these as this design was new and uncommon at that time. Went for 14" (same as OEM) because of couple of reasons. Firstly, It was a quick decision so obviously went wrong, I could have gone for 15" easily, also tyre shop owner didn't suggested either. Later on I thought It to be a wise decision considering bad roads of our Ludhiana city (also known as Manchester of India!). So it became the second reason. Thirdly, If someone is to upsize the wheel diameter for this tyre diameter, why not to go for 16". Though 16" would be quite vulnerable on our roads, 14"s were good to go. Intermediate stuff doesn't do anything for me.

Explanation on tyres: I had many options in this size. But dealer said it is cheapest tyre plus it had some kind of damage warranty for some years (don't remember now). Also, I was not much concerned with how much tyre quality matters.













Detailing alloy wheels one by one.





UPDATE #2:

Tyres only: Ceat Milaze, Size: 185/70R14 (made in India)

At ~55000kms, all four tyres were replaced by the same Ceat Milaze tyres but this time ones were made in India.
Reason for opting for same tyres: I was on my Thailand trip and back in India my father went to same tyre dealer for wheel alignment and balancing. Tyres were due for replacement. Both dealer and my father felt necessity to replace tyres as just ~25% of tread was left. This time again he suggested same tyres describing same damage warranty thing to my father. When I came back after my trip, I was sad to see same Ceat tyres as this time I wanted to go for better tyres. But nothing could be done at this point of time, so I was OKish with it and anyways, any new tyre is good in its own.

Big Problem & its solution:

Problem: The day I got these Plati alloy wheels fitted, few problems arose.
Problem #1. On high speed highway drives, rear tyre started scraping with wheel arches when car fully loaded with five passengers. This made very weird and annoying khhachh-khhachh noises, disturbing & ruining whole driving experience. The fear of tyre burst was even more disturbing, forcing to drive at slow speeds.
Problem #2. Tyres were bulging out too much of my liking, gave the car SUVish kind of look which I never wanted.
Again the whole problematic credit goes to that unplanned alloy wheels and tyres installation detailed in UPDATE #1.

Solutions: Since the alloy wheels installation in 2009, I was finding a solution for above problem.
Solution #1: In 2013, our every time mechanic suggested my father a solution by increasing ground clearance. He replaced OEM rubber pads/spacers above rear coil springs of suspensions system with thicker ones. That change increased car's height from rear by ~0.8", front remaining the same since there was no tyre scraping from front. This change in rear suspension system changed the whole geometry of suspension system. Car started behaving differently, more inclined towards front. Already average handling became bad. Interesting thing was that even after increasing car height from rear, tyres kept on scraping on highway drives when fully loaded. So solution #1 didn't worked.



Hunt for another solution started.
Then upon some serious research on engineering of tyres and wheels, I came out with a term named 'wheel offset'. The solution lied behind this term.



The offset on those Plati wheels was just rubbish for normal cars. It was ET25. Stock alloy wheels on Ritz ZXi/ZDi cars have ET50 offset, which upon calculation came with this result:" Compared to your existing wheel, this new wheel will have an inner rim which is 18.7mm further away from the suspension strut. The outer rim will poke out 31.4mm more than before."



Solutions to implement this solution:
#1. Roll out the wheel arches. This is done a lot by professional automotive tuners and body shops to widen the wheel track. But this stuff was not for me. I didn't wanted to do any kind of body work just to accommodate unsuitable offset of alloy wheels.
#2. Machining of inner face of alloy wheels. This would change offset towards positive value but some limitations were there. Machining the inner face (facing) will reduce thickness of lug nut wall area, reducing holding strength of wheel to brake drums. Straight NO to risky jobs.
#3. Drilling now lug Holes: Machining the inner face of wheel to make offset suitable (~ET40), ignoring earlier holes and drilling a new set of holes with respect to new back face. This is very possible solution on some wheels but not all including mine as unwanted material in back face area is already removed for weight/material saving by wheel designers. Nothing could be done on these set of wheels.



So, ultimate solution was to let these Plati wheels go and find another set of wheels.
I was on hunt for some OEM wheels (because of their extra safe offset) as at this point, I didn't cared about aesthetics or looks of the car as well as of the wheels. Solution to that scraping problem was most important thing to think.

UPDATE #3:

One day during a scheduled service, I asked the mechanic to remove those thick generic rubber spacers and replace them with OEM part to make suspension system as per factory configuration. After that job, to my surprise, the car started to behave and handle properly. Next immediate step was to find OEM alloy wheels and for these, I was not limited to Suzuki OEM alloy wheels. Any set of OEM wheels but with proper specs was OK for me. So, I went to a well known to me tyre dealer, made him understand the whole story and concept. He showed me a set of old Verna's OEM alloy wheels which were in good shape and colour. I read the specification numbers on their back & they were good to go. On fitting on existing Ceat tyres, they gave the car a bit different and understated looks, but I was OK with them and for Hyundai logo on wheel caps, I had some plans. Sold Plati Chrome wheels for Rs 9000 to shop and guess how the deal was settled? How much extra I paid for Hyundai wheels? Nothing, instead he gave me Rs3500 and Hyundai wheels. I was surprised with such a deal.

Wheels: Hyundai Verna OEM, Size: 5.5"X14", ET46

[PSM_360]

UPDATE #4:

After alloy wheels change I attained a kind of peace of mind although people had mixed views for the OEM Hyundai wheels. After few months, It was the time for tyre change. This time I researched a lot on internet about tyres. Shortlisted some brands and their respective tyres and narrowed down to Michelin XM2 tyres. I chose these because this time I wanted to go for better/best ones in the market. I had tested Michelin XM2s in my cousin's swift and I was amazed with their performance. Also, I thought that if I was to spend more money why not to go for the best and already tested stuff, so I enquired about them from tyre shops. I got quotes between Rs 5000 to Rs 5500 per tyre. Then I checked on online stores and found Snapdeal to be better for their well organized and abundant verity of tyres. So I went ahead and ordered a set of 4 Michelin XM2 185/70R14 tyres for Rs ~17000. (Mounting, wheel balancing, alignment was additional. Total Rs ~17500, still a lot cheaper compared to tyre shops.)

I then went for mounting tyres and getting everything done at same tyre shop from where I got Hyundai wheels. I was a bit puzzled for those Hyundai OEM wheels, like whether to put new Michelin tyre on them or try out something else. There I found a nice set of 'Apollo Acelere Wheelz' alloy wheels. They were gloss black with red lip around circumference and their 'JDM' kind of design appealed to me. The OEM for these wheels is YHI CORPORATION, SINGAPORE, who also manufactures alloy wheels for some of world famous brands like Advanti racing, Yokohama wheel, ENKEI, OZ, Sparco & Breyton. The best thing of them was their absolutely proper offset i.e. ET38. They are very lightweight compared to Hyundai wheels. In addition to that, they had 100+108 PCD holes, so, these were compatible with TATA and Ford cars also. I asked the dealer for settlement of exchange of wheels and old tyres. He accepted to exchange value of old Ceat tyres with these black acelere alloy wheels. So new Michelin tyres were fitted on new apollo acelere wheelz. Fitment was the best part of this upgrade, fits nicely within the body lines. With ET38 offset, these alloy wheels gave a properly tuned kind of car look like we see in movies. Plus- No old weird wheel arch scraping issue at all.

Wheels: Apollo Acelere Wheelz SH81 Gloss Black with red lip, Size: 6"X14" ET38
Tyres: Michelin Energy XM2 185/70 R14 (made in Thailand)

Tyres delievered at home by Snapdeal.


Took them to tyre shop for mounting/fitting.












UPDATE #5:

After using these wheels for one year I found stone scuffs and gutter rashes on one wheel and others had minor scratches. But all these imperfections were directly visible as as black powder coating comes off, white primer layer became visible at that spot. It may have happened due to bad roads of Ludhiana & Faridabad where I used the car during this period. So I thought of getting them painted.

Options were:
1. Sanding and spray painting
2. Chemical paint striping & powder coating.

Obviously powder coating was a better option for durability. On asking I got quotes of Rs 1500 to Rs 10000 from several painters and powder coaters. People charging Rs 10000 or so were the so called detailers who usually bluff luxury car owners to fill up their pockets. Rs 1500 were asked by an industrial powder coating shop for silver colour but demanded 3-4 days for which I was not comfortable with. Removal of all tyres, doing rebalancing and everything again was not considerable as just recently I had got it done. Plus it needed 3-4 days for the process of chemical striping of original powder coating. So postponed this proper refinishing job for some time & thought of painting them with rattle cans myself at home as of now. BTW I love becoming a DIYer. So I thought it would be a good opportunity for that. The colour I chose this time was matt black as a good matt finish is pretty easy to attained. Also if any touch-up is needed in future it would be easy with matt finish to maintain uniformity. Process was to take off tyres from car, wash wheels, sanding down uneven surfaces while making good rough surface for paint to stick well, then masking & covering the tyres with masking tape and newspaper, and finally doing two coats of paint precisely. Material required: newspapers, sandpapers (150 grit, 320 grit), masking tape, 4 cans of matt black paint, hot water or hair dryer/heat gun for heating up rattle cans to get nice and even paint flow (pressure inside cans rises with temperature).

Results are following:







Comparison of all looks till now. 2nd ones look dashing and I am still missing them. I wish they had correct offset to eliminate all the trouble I had.



But now I am happy with the car. Nothing more to do in any area. No unnecessary money wasting as its already 6 years old, 1,21,000 kms done, having poor resale value compared to swift diesel of same age. Though mechanically it still feels like new as every thing has been taken care of in time. I have made my mind to use it as long as possible, maybe another 5-6 years or another 1 lakh kms.

Happy driving.

[GTO]

Gosh, you are truly a wheel shop owner's dream come true . Talk about a return customer. The latest rims look the best, so I guess it was worth it!

I usually change rims only once in the car's lifetime. But I spend a lot (read = LOT) of time before finalising on the design. A good set of alloys can really make the car.

[MaheshY1]

I like good looking rims but don't like spending them. I'm more of a function over form person.

And I have to admit, the result is really good. I liked the last one more than the second rims. Hope you stick to this set.

Can you please post a picture of complete side profile of the car in bright daylight?

[Zinda]

@PSM_360 Good taste of alloys I must say! Appreciate the detailing too.

Originally Posted by GTO

A good set of alloys can really make the car.

Completely agree with GTO. My first car was Maruti Estilo Lxi (Black). As in all other areas with Estilo, its looks were average at best. 145 section tyres shod on steel wheels too were utilitarian. After running 22k-odd kms, I replaced the OEM wheels with NEO Alloys and Yokohama A-Drive 165 section tyres.
Not only the dynamics improved a lot, but also the car started looking different in a nicer way (in it's segment of course).

[PSM_360]

Thanks to moderators for publishing it in hot threads on home page. I am really surprised since I joined team-bhp like last week and its my first post, first thread. Thanks a lot to everyone who hit thanks button on my posts.
I really appreciate your kindness.

[RacerByHeart]

The last set of wheels look the best.
I noticed that you are using the align key type nuts. Please make sure they are of good quality, and check for rust on them. They are highly unreliable. On my swift, these nuts, bloomed like a flower when I tried to open. Had to weld a nut on top of the chrome nut to take it out. The welding left scars on the alloys.

My 2 cents would be to use the normal OE nuts. But the OE toolkit spanner would not go inside the lug nut hole. Buy a replacement spanner that will go inside the hole. This would make your wheels more reliable.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by RacerByHeart

.....
My 2 cents would be to use the normal OE nuts. But the OE toolkit spanner would not go inside the lug nut hole. Buy a replacement spanner that will go inside the hole. This would make your wheels more reliable.

OEM nuts won't fit either, the holes are too narrow on most aftermarket alloys. Best option is to use good quality closed-ended lug nuts. Allen-key types are prone to rusting and can be a nightmare to remove.

[shk 8896]

Man... I'm in love with your current wheel setup. Especially after the powder coat. Me too have a 2009 Ritz VDi in Baker's Chocolate with similar tyre setup - 185/70R14 Michelin XM2. I really loved the last setup. Also you've maintained the car in excellent shape (y). Attaching a pic of my car's alloys (A slightly old pic)
Regards
Sreehari

PS: It seems that you've experimented even more with the number plate styles. :P

[Kumar R]

Hi Prabhjot, This a great story on perseverence! The latest alloys are by far the best and the new paint scheme is .

I have noticed that different car models have different alloy designs that suit them. For the Ritz, I find both yours and Sreehari's (pictured above) aesthetic whereas the same design on a different car model would perhaps not look so good.

I also find certain types of wheel covers are often as good if not better than mediocre alloy designs. In a few cases (such as a particular batch of VW Polo covers, the plastic covers are bolt on and looks quite good - better than some of the stock alloys IMO), Sadly I didn't get that lot but that's going off-topic!

[VeluM]

Hey, good choice painting over the red lip in the last iteration of the alloys for your Ritz.

To tickle your upgrade bone, I saw a white coloured Ritz with gunmetal grey 15" alloys recently that looked stunning as a combination. I'm not sure whether the tyres scraped anywhere, but you might think about 15" as your next upgrade once these set of tyres run out of tread

[Lobogris]

The rims look really nice and your car looks great.
It might be more prudent to use the money spent on things like ICE, rims etc. on the ZXI variant that provides airbags and ABS. Nothing wrong in spending on rims but in my view safety comes first.

[PSM_360]

Originally Posted by GTO

Gosh, you are truly a wheel shop owner's dream come true . Talk about a return customer. The latest rims look the best, so I guess it was worth it!

I usually change rims only once in the car's lifetime. But I spend a lot (read = LOT) of time before finalising on the design. A good set of alloys can really make the car.

@GTO: Yes, you are right. Research makes all the difference. I missed that and you can see the results above.
Wheel shop owner might have taken me as his dream come true but I didn't invested a single penny for changing alloy wheels. I 'earned' Rs 3500 when got Hyundai wheels and made that money go back to him when exchanged them with black ones. And Spray painting in last ones was done for just Rs 300 for whole set. DIY rocks!

Originally Posted by MaheshY1

I like good looking rims but don't like spending them. I'm more of a function over form person.
And I have to admit, the result is really good. I liked the last one more than the second rims. Hope you stick to this set.
Can you please post a picture of complete side profile of the car in bright daylight?

@MaheshY1: I will post a side picture someday, but black wheels look great on dark body shades.

Originally Posted by shk 8896

Man... I'm in love with your current wheel setup. Especially after the powder coat. Me too have a 2009 Ritz VDi in Baker's Chocolate with similar tyre setup - 185/70R14 Michelin XM2. I really loved the last setup. Also you've maintained the car in excellent shape (y). Attaching a pic of my car's alloys (A slightly old pic)
Regards
Sreehari

@shk8896: PS: It seems that you've experimented even more with the number plate styles. :P

Man, Thanks for saying that. For number plates, this is the 4th & final set because this time they put rivets Actually, I guess number 4 works for this car, currently it's on 4th wheels, 4th tyres & you guessed-4th number plates.

Originally Posted by Kumar R

Hi Prabhjot, This a great story on perseverence! The latest alloys are by far the best and the new paint scheme is .

I have noticed that different car models have different alloy designs that suit them. For the Ritz, I find both yours and Sreehari's (pictured above) aesthetic whereas the same design on a different car model would perhaps not look so good.

I also find certain types of wheel covers are often as good if not better than mediocre alloy designs. In a few cases (such as a particular batch of VW Polo covers, the plastic covers are bolt on and looks quite good - better than some of the stock alloys IMO), Sadly I didn't get that lot but that's going off-topic!

@Kumar R: Thanks for the complement, you are right about wheel covers. Look at a Hyundai EON wheel covers, at first sight you will say they are alloy wheels. Polo 15" wheel covers . But about new S-Cross, it's the opposite!

Originally Posted by VeluM

Hey, good choice painting over the red lip in the last iteration of the alloys for your Ritz.

To tickle your upgrade bone, I saw a white coloured Ritz with gunmetal grey 15" alloys recently that looked stunning as a combination. I'm not sure whether the tyres scraped anywhere, but you might think about 15" as your next upgrade once these set of tyres run out of tread

@VeluM, you got it right. I never wanted that red lip, it made already huge sidewalls look even more huge. I will stick to this setup, at least till these tyres last.

Originally Posted by RacerByHeart

The last set of wheels look the best.
I noticed that you are using the align key type nuts. Please make sure they are of good quality, and check for rust on them. They are highly unreliable. On my swift, these nuts, bloomed like a flower when I tried to open. Had to weld a nut on top of the chrome nut to take it out. The welding left scars on the alloys.

My 2 cents would be to use the normal OE nuts. But the OE toolkit spanner would not go inside the lug nut hole. Buy a replacement spanner that will go inside the hole. This would make your wheels more reliable.

@RacerByHeart: Thanks for suggestion. Rust has started building up inside the nuts, I will do something soon.

[nadim_90210]

I own a 2012,Maruti Ritz(Vxi). I have run 30000 kms on my standard fit Apollo Amazer tyres provided with the new car. However I am not happy with the tyre performance there is lot of noise also the Mumbai roads filled with potholes has taken its toll on the tyre and already has few punctures on the tyres.

I am planning to upgrade my tyre to 185/70 R14 88H and have narrowed down between Bridgestone and Michelin. Could some expert suggest which tyre should I go with from the below options

Brigdestone A290
Bridgestone Turanza ER60
Bridgestone Potenza GIII
Michelin Energy XM2

I am looking for tyres which could handle the rough roads of Mumbai filled with potholes.

[nareshov]

I'm running Michelin Energy XM2 tyres on my Getz for nearly 15k km now, does its job very well in the pothole capital of the country.