I realized that there is no car in the market that meets the versatility of my Avant for a reasonable price. Since I will be keeping Betty for years to come, I went out and got some wheels to make her look prettier. Being a cheapskate, I was able to find a nice set of B7 S4 BBS CH with used tires for a decent price. (Thanks Hues)

The issue with the S4 CHs compared to the aftermarket Motorsport wheels is that they have different width and offset. According to Tirerack, 18" BBS CH that fits my car is 8.5 inches wide and has 35mm offset. The S4 CH is 8 inches wide with 43mm offset. I figured I would need some spacers.

I poked around the web as usual and realized that there were basically 4 brands of hubcentric spacers that would work on our cars. ECS, H&R, Eibach, and Ebay. (Yes I consider Ebay a brand.) If you think about the nature of the spacers, they are pieces of aluminum. As long as they are machined, it would be hard to screw them up. Again, being a cheapskate, I went with the ebay brand that stated that their pieces were made using CNC machine. Here is a link to the 10mm spacers I got.

Ebay 10mm spacer from macprostore

The rear were 15 mm. Here are some pics.

Front view


Back view


Detail at lip


As you can see, I was pretty impressed with the quality of the spacers.

Anyways, onto the car shots.

Here are some before shots.



Wheel gap


And here is a shot of the new wheels installed without any spacers.


Rear fit was okay but the front was rubbing against the bearing housing.

Fitment of the spacers to the hub was top notch as shown below.



However, the front ball seat bolts supplied with the spacers were too long by about 2 mm. The bolt actually touched the surface behind the hub and the car wouldn't move at all. Instead of waiting for replacements for a week, I decided to grind the bolts down. I ground one down and used it as a reference. All of the front bolts were ground down to the same length. The rear ones were fine.

After all that, here are some pictures of Betty.





And wheel gaps...





Now I am looking at what-seems-to-be-perceived wheel gaps. I kind sorta want to drop the car. If that is the case, then I may need to either reduce the spacer thickness by a couple of millimeters or get 225 series tires instead of the 235s that are on there. Anyways, things to think about...

What do you guys think?

 

I think it looks great!

I don't even think you need a drop on the C5 Avant

But here's a little photoshop action anyway.

Before:

After:


I swear, every Avant and 4.2 wide body I see makes me regret not knowing much about the trim options before I got my 2.8 Sedan :/

 

Thanks for the chopshop action. That gives me a good idea.

You are right about the fact that it doesn't seem like a huge difference. Although, my shocks are pretty much dead after 139K miles...