I recently bought an 89 Trans Am and noticed that the the front tires on it were 245's and the rear ones were 225's. I think I have 16X8 wheels. I also thought that these cars were supposed to have 245's all the way around. I went to switch the front and back wheels and tires, in order to have the wider ones on the back, and discovered that the front wheels now rubbed on some part of the steering components and the car could not be driven like that. I had to switch the wheels back to the way they were. It seems like this problem is because the distance between the mounting surface and the outer edge of the wheel is different on the front and the back. Are the front and back wheels not interchangeable?? Is this normal???

 

They should be. Mine do, anyway... but they are 15x7 I believe.

 

The tires should be the same size but it doesn't really matter. The 16" wheels have different fronts and backs, they are marked on them. There will be interference issues if you try to switch them.

 

I concur with ME Leigh. I have a set of GTA wheels on my Formula, and they are wider wheels in the rear. I had to caution the guys mounting my tires about it.

 

Yep. Different offsets from front to back. When you get them rotated you have to break the tires off the rims, and switch tires, and leave the rims in the same place. Strangely, the wheels that look more dish (deeper) go in front. This seems to throw the boys at Discount Tire for a loop every time they rotate for me.

 

Thanks guys

 

So are the 15x7 wheels the same way? I don't notice any problems with them but it seems like the front wheels look bigger than the rear wheels after having a rotation.

 

My T/A originally had the 15x7's and they were the same front to back. I switched to the Formula 16 inch wheels and they are marked inside the wheel for front or back.

 

factory 16X8 rims will fit fine on any 82-92 camoro or firebird, cirtain ones (most notably the "GTA" onws) have a 16mm offste on them, but this is for looks only, with the proper tires on them they will fit front or back of any camaro/firebird (I'm not 100% sure about the 1LE preformance package, though) the 16mm offset is supposed to be on the rear, and the "0" offest is supposted to be on the front. just my $0.02