Wheel sizes as per standard

Hiya, newbie, so please be gentle.
Does anyone know what the original wheel size was for the 1986 Cabrio GTi?
 

Hello and welcome.

It really depends when your Golf was made. the quartet option came out after the Summer of 86 - when the 87 model year cars come out.

So if you have one of those - colours were white, red ,Blue and silver/Blue with red, white grey or blue seat/ roof combinations then wheels were 6jx14 with 185/60 tyres.  I seem to remember that early 86 cars were in short supply but like the 85 cars came with 5.5j X 13 Tarrantula wheels with 175/70 tyres.

It's always difficult to be exact as in the 80s VW changed the spec often - and many cars came in as personal or armed forces imports.

Welcome to the club first of all.

Richard is absolutely spot on with his information as I was selling them back.

But why do you ask?
What do you have and can you post up some pictures?
What are your concerns?

We are here to help! 👍🏼

RichardHall said

Hello and welcome.

It really depends when your Golf was made. the quartet option came out after the Summer of 86 - when the 87 model year cars come out.

So if you have one of those - colours were white, red ,Blue and silver/Blue with red, white grey or blue seat/ roof combinations then wheels were 6jx14 with 185/60 tyres.  I seem to remember that early 86 cars were in short supply but like the 85 cars came with 5.5j X 13 Tarrantula wheels with 175/70 tyres.

It's always difficult to be exact as in the 80s VW changed the spec often - and many cars came in as personal or armed forces imports.

I'm restoring an 86 registered Cabrio GTi and it came with way oversized rims (235 X 15). As I'll be re- registering the car here in Spain it needs to have the exact wheel dimensions as stated on the original homologation. Pics will follow in the fullness……

Take Richard's dimensions as they as are exactly what was approved in the homologation tests.

He also mentioned the specification changes in the 80's.
So you'll find that Sportline has 15's but only that model from the factory, now I don't know if VW ever got them homologated? 🤔

Useless piece of information.
But I know for a fact that Datsun UK (sole EU importer) refused to give 5 x 280 ZX Targa sports cars up for homologation.

What happened was Japan had changed the door mirrors from manual to electric but in doing so invalidated the cars EU approval.
Basically Datsun UK said bügger that for a game of soldiers we're not wasting another 5 cars so we'll stick to manual mirrors for now! 😉

Sent from my Smartphone 📱

Everything  you ever wanted to know about wheel sizes and the Rabbit/Golf/Cabriolet



Original on my 81 Golf/rabbit was 155sr13 I went up to 185 sr13 and was pleasantly surprised on the handling improvement.

On my Cabbies It was 175sr14 which I too have changed to 185's….

 

1981 Volkswagen Golf - Wheel & Tire Sizes, PCD, Offset and Rims specs | Wheel-Size.com

A link showing the different size rims and tyres originally fitted to the mk1 golf.

Ian

Thank you for all the info - I found a complete set of correct size original P slot rims - look beautiful!

bobclements said

Hiya, newbie, so please be gentle.
Does anyone know what the original wheel size was for the 1986 Cabrio GTi?
 

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. VW gave me a full list of all the available sizes for the 1st half of the '86 model year - 185's - so I got a set of refurbished P slots of the correct dimensions.