Quick value question - Epsilon wheels

Looking at a set of wheels- 2 16x7 and 2 16x8 Epsilon mesh wheels for the Celica. They look like they're in good shape, but the centers are painted poorly. Barrels look to be in good shape.

Basically, I'l need to take them apart, media blast the centers and paint them. Not a huge deal and they'll look great if I do that. But I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure out what they're really worth. They really don't seem to come up in 16" sizes very often (exaclty as the seller told me) and the few that I can find any reference to in 16" do seem to go for a premium.

Seller is asking $800, which may be fair. I'm just not sure. I found one set of 4 16x8 withtout the paint issues asking $1,200. But who knows - people ask too much for stuff all the time.

Any idea?

I was very close to spending $600 on XXR wheels. I'd rather spend a little more and get someting "real". Just don't want to pay more than I should.

The number of decent 16" tires halved in the time it took me to post this response.

(And for cereal, there's zipp out there for staggered 16's. Ask the Porsche guys, they'll tell you)

Tire rack shows a good bit (7 pages) for 225/50 16. That's why I was looking at 16" wheels. 15" has next to nothing and I don't really want to go any bigger than 16". It'll just look wrong.

If you're comfortable with same tires on staggered wheels, then go for it. I'd either make sure I could get the staggered tires to match or get a set of four identical wheels.

No JDM wheel experts here?

That seems to be a bit much for Epsilons in my opinion. At least... i wouldn't pay that much for them.

Epsilons are carrying the OG wheel tax right now... I think the price is high, but he'll get it. They'd look nuts on a hachi- which is where I would put them. Your call. It's a stiff price for legit wheels but I can honestly say i've never seen a set in staggered, or in 16. I guess it really depends on what kind of cake you're gonna spend on the refresh.

Are these 16s?

http://www.stanceworks.com/2012/05/the-parts-list-joseph-dales-mazda-626-2/

To be honest, since the market for stuff like that is continuing to shrink to the uber-hardcore old school guys, they aren't worth nearly that IMHO.

In reality, they are worth what you feel comfortable paying......do you really want old wheels that bad you'd be willing to pay $200/wheel for stuff you likely can't replace, etc?

The last time I paid $800 for a set of wheels was a set of 15x8 BBS RS that needed a bit of work......ended up trading them for another set of RS that I sold for $1300.

I wouldn't buy them unless you are VERY confident you can get your money back.

Thanks guys. I'm going to sleep on it. Dunno. Maybe I should just get over it, but I've been so close to pulling the trigger on "fake" wheels several times and just can't quite do it. But, I can get new, fake wheels for less money and not have another project that I don't have time for.

It wouldn't cost me much more than my time to clean them up. The shop I use has a blast cabinet. Shoot they have a power coating oven now, so I could do that, but I'd probably just paint them. I have acid etch primer sitting around, even.

z31maniac wrote: I wouldn't buy them unless you are VERY confident you can get your money back.

That may be the way to look at it right there. Right now, I'm not. Dunno. I was thinking closer to $550 or $600. I may make him an offer like that. Worst case he says no and probably saves me a lot of heartache.

FWIW, it took me over a year to sell off a set of Hayashi Street II's, and they were "the" wheel for the SA/FB RX-7. OG JDM stuff isn't as hot as it used to be. Economy is still down.

Damn, there's a set of Hayashi Streets on my local Craigslist for $600. I'd be all over them, but they're 15s and I'd really like to be able to get a decent tire. They look great on these Celicas though.

I'd but some reps and be done with it.

I've got some Konigs on my car that are blatant copies of some Rays Engineering. They even say Ravs on the casting.

But 15x8, 12lbs, $99 each.

Eddie, you just looking for some OG street swag for Tom Celica?

Let mndsm and i look around for you. You can do better than a set of Epsilons.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Eddie, you just looking for some OG street swag for Tom Celica? Let mndsm and i look around for you. You can do better than a set of Epsilons.

Yeah - I have the 14" Konig Rewinds on it and they look great but the tires are shot. But I'd like to get a 16" wheel around 8" wide that looks good so I can get some decent sumer tires. If you see anything I'd appreciate it.

I keep coming back to these XXR 532s:

For $400 a set, might be hard to beat. They would look cool on Tom Celica, I think. I just have to get over the whole replica thing. Those are a good example- XXR lately seems to be doing knock offs, but adding a spoke. They did it with their fake Volks, and they did it with these.

That is an SSR Mk2. But even if I wanted to spend the crazy money to get something like that, they didn't make them in any sizes you can actually get tires for. When I look at it objectively, the cheap new wheels make a lot of sense.

What's the bolt pattern and ballpark offset?

I'm feelin' these, but are you looking for staggered or not?

http://www.vrwheels.com/panasport-g7-4x1143-p-4473.html

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

Oooh. Me likeie! I will look at those much closer in just a bit (going into a meeting).

4x114.3 bolt pattern. My race wheels are 15x10 with 5" backspace. In a 16x7 or 8 something in the ball park of 0 shoud do the job. Not particularly looking for staggered wheels. All the same would be better, really, just so I can rotate tires.

I don't have a rain tire set up for the car, so hoping to get tires "good enough" to run in the rain in a pinch.

I'm pretty sure you could easily have those rebarrelled as well... i think they're true 3-piece wheels. So... another hundo or two gets you a full set of awesome 16x8s.

I did send the guy a note and tell him I was passing on the Epsilon. Thanks guys. I'd have regretted putting that kind of money into those wheels. Not saying they're not worth it to the right person, but I would have kicked myself for it. Appreciate you guys talking me down.

Those Panasports look to have too much negative offset, don't they?

16x7+32= roughly 4.5in backspacing, 16x8+35 is even more, so... yes. But a place like Memoryfab can hook em up to whatever you want.

In reply to mndsm:

Huh, Memoryfab. I looked at their website. They look great.

Is that, uh, really expensive? I do dig those wheels.

Yeah there's quite a lot of places that will re-barrel wheels. You MAY even be able to just buy new barrel from Panasport depending on how they're constructed.

Re-barreling isn't terribly cheap, no...

Have you thought about running a bolt on hub adapter to open your choices up to 5x114? That's where most of the great wheels are going to be. It'll also give you a little more play in what specs on the wheels you need.

Are you sure those Panasports have too much negative offset? They're not aggressive at all, i could fit them on the MX6, and i think you should have way more room on the Celica.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Are you sure those Panasports have too much negative offset? They're not aggressive at all, i could fit them on the MX6, and i think you should have way more room on the Celica.

I'm just comparing to what I have now using this:

http://www.rimsntires.com/specs.jsp

According to that, the 16x7 +32 is a 5.3" backspace. That's more than my 15x10 race wheels and probably wouldn't clear the struts (the Spinwerkes push it about as far as it can be pushed). The 16x8 +35 is even more. Is that calculator wrong? Those are different numbers than mndsm had. And, if I unerstand the parlance correctly, "agressive" means, um, they stick out a lot, right? If so, I can get real agressive. The fenders are cut quite a bit. I use the 275/35 15 Hoosiers and have to clear them. They don't tuck into the fenders, so the cut is pretty significant by street car standards.

For the record, I think I said "negative" when I meant "positive". I can never keep that stuff straight.

Ah ok, so they're too much positive offset. That makes more sense.

I think you should seriously think about some 5x114 hub adapters if you've got all that space to fill up.