A wheel dilema...

Its coming up to the point where I'd like to get the wheels swapped. For me its one of the biggest modifications to make; they say 'the wheels maketh the car' and I certainly believe the right (or wrong) wheel choice can affect the appearance of the whole vehicle.

As a regular reader you'll know the van is already lowered by 40mm, not only has the sharpened the handling up a little, it has also removed the big gap between arch and wheel (as in the picture above - no photoshop job here!)

First consideration is proportion. The right wheel size will be determined by the final rolling diameter - this is important so as not to throw the speedo out of kilter - for example: 16" steel wheels with a 205/65 tyre have approximately the same overall diameter as a 20" alloy wheel with a 245/35 tyre. To make sense of all this take a look at this handy tyre calculator. More wheel, less tyre...

But its a fine balance. Too little sidewall is a compromise on ride quality. Too much sidewall means a smaller wheel - not worth the upgrade. Some vans look okay with 17 and 18 inch wheels, but they're not for me. 19 inch tyres seem to be ridiculously expensive; I think thats because they're not fitted to many modern cars - some website deals show 19" wheel and tyre packages dearer than 20"!!! Ideally I'd like to fill the arches with a 20 inch wheel running a 40 section tyre.

All sounding straightforward so far, isn't it?

So what else is there to consider? Well, its a van, so load-ratings should be taken into account. As our van is a T30 it has a 3000kg load capacity which equates to 750kg per corner - this is what the wheel has to carry. As our camper-conversion will be nowhere near that weight I'm a little unsure as to whether load-rating might be overkill. Naturally most alloy wheel retailers won't sell you a wheel that isn't spec'd for a T5 due to potential liability issues.
Load rating on the tyre will be taken into account though, enough to cope with the van's kerb-weight.

Tyre width - this usually varies between 8.5J and 10J for a 20" wheel, ideally I'd like to keep it nearer the 8.5 or 9J mark, a 10 inch wide front tyre starts to get a bit hefty.

Standard PCD or adaptors? Our old T3 ran Porsche Design 90's which had a PCD (Pitch Circle Diameter - the distance between the bolts) of 5x130. These needed adaptors to fit to the T3's PCD of 5x112. Great until you have a puncture and need to fit a standard spare - wheel off, adaptors off, wheel on...
This time I'd like to fit direct to the T5's PCD of 5x120. This is the same as BMW, Range Rover and Land Rover. I've started to see a lot of 'tarted-up' T5s running these wheels and for that reason, I won't be fitting wheels from any of these vehicles.

So, after scouring the v-dub shows and surf-spot car parks, I finally found the perfect wheel. It is listed on a major alloy wheel retailer's website as being ideal for the T5 - so I inquired about maybe changing the tyre profile only to be told the wheel isn't suitable due to it not being load rated and shouldn't have been listed on their site.

Annoying to say the least.
Everything was right and now I'm back to square-one. Even more annoying is that I have seen this wheel on the internet fitted to T5s and Touaregs so surely it can handle the weight of our barely-laden van?!?!

Here's the wheel in question:

TSW Montage in Black with polished rim. If you've seen them fitted to a T5 could you let me know, likewise if you know of an alternative I'd be most grateful if you could point me in the right direction, thanks.