Sure sounds like the right and left wheels are not the same ...

Damn.
I hope not.
I think I must phone the tyre place where I bought them and find out.
Just to make sure this weekend I will also swap the front rim with the rear rim and see if it does something.

Will let you guys know.

Just an update.
I inspected my diff last night.
Through inspection I saw that the whole diff in the back cannot be missaligned by accident.
on the sides , where the shock absorber is bolted to the diff, and where the U joints are put over the diff, I saw there is brackets that are whelded onto the diff so that the U joints are put over them and bolted tight.
The U bolts fits nicely into grooves on these brackets.
So there is no way it can be off centre except if it came from the factory that way.

I think I am just going to test my rim to see if it does'nt have a different offset.
If this is fine, then there is only one solution.
I must build out my wheel arches.

Just wanted to let you guys know.

I hope I am not repeating what has allready been said but, Swap one BACK wheel with the other BACK wheel That should tell if the rims are the same offset.

Or for half the work, you could place a straight edge [ruler] asross the back of the rims & measure down to the wheel mounting face.

Thanks for all the advice.
I am going to check it out this weekend.
Will let you guys know what the story is about the offset.
But I have an idea that it is not the rims.
I bought them as a set of 4.
I also phoned the place where I bought them and they informed me that all the rims they sell as a set, the whole set will have the same offset.

It is just strange to me that this fault can be made at the factory.
The car was not in a accident and I checked everything to make sure about this.
Everything is spot on.
Those brackets that are whelded onto the diff looks like they are not correctly placed causing the diff to be offcentre by about 1cm to the right.(Looking at the back of the car).

It is not a major problem in town.(Low speed)
Just that I want to drive my datsun on the highway soon and now I cannot.
Our roads here have sometimes dips in them and at 100 to 120km/h the tyre will go into the body and either shred my tyre to pieces or destroy my wheel arch where it is scraping.

I have 185/60-13 on mine too. I rolled the lip up but they still rubbed. I found that the tires were rubbing inside the fender above the lip. There is this feature in the sheet metal that bulges out a bit.

Here's something to think about, is the diff offset? or are the edges of the fenders/gaurds offset from center?

1200GXman, anything is possible. It could have come from the factory with a default (new cars have an average of 20 defects). Or your shop could have mismatched one of the four wheels, or their supplier did it to them.

When a problem arises, it can cause problems making assumptions, best to test the easiest things, then the most likely things, then proceed to more difficult tests ... until the cause of the problem is found of course.

what does the term "offset" actually mean, "fwd offset, rwd offset why do offsets matter, does it refer to how far in or out the central mounting hub on the inside of the wheel sits? having tht bit shorter would mean the wheels sit closer to the end of the axle, so that it would almost seem like you have a longer axle type thing, right or am i talking about that one time when a donkey consumed a nuclear bomb?

See our Suspension article.

Also see


Wheel Offset and Backspace Diagram