There’s appeal and attraction of a wide, mean and aggressive stance of a car and unfortunately that isn’t usually how the average car looks from the factory. There’s something attractive and extra appealing about a wide, low stance and it can transform a car making it look faster and more aggressive. The simple touch of a wider look will cause more heads to turn and add value to the appearance of your car. If done properly, can even improve the handling of your car.
How do you make a car look wider? Here are 7 budget friendly ideas to get you transforming the look of your car.
1. Add Wider Wheels
Wider wheels is the number one way to make your car look wider. It will transform the way your car sits on the road and will make it feel bigger, wider, and meaner.
Inspect your wheels for the indication of the tire size. This will tell you how big your wheel is, both tall and wide. Also inspect the wheel well to determine the amount of extra room you have without modification. Any modification is possibly, but the goal is the biggest adjustment with the least amount of work and expense.
By taking your car in to a tire shop, the mechanics will easily and for no charge be able to inspect your car and wheels to give a suggestion of how much room you have to add wider wheels.
Pro Tip: You can order wheels from home! Skip the trip to the tire shop, check the tire size yourself, and check out this tire size calculator then order some wider tires! Click here to use a very good tire size calculator. Or check out some wheels for your car! Discount tire often has the lowest prices on wheels So click here to open a tab at Discount tire.
The trouble with adding wider wheels is, often wider wheels won’t have enough room under the wheel well or may rub the fender. There are a few options to overcome this and the easiest, cheapest solution is to add fender flares.
2. Add Wheels with Less Offset
Start by looking up the factory specifications for your car wheels. Determine what the factory wheel offset was, and then shop for wheels with less wheel offset.
Wheel offset is the amount that the inside of the wheel is offset from the wheel hub. To install a wheel that sits wider than the original wheels, install a wheel with less offset. Likewise a wheel that sits narrower, will have more offset.
Take your car to a tire center and ask them to help you measure inside the wheel well if you need, but it is something you can do yourself. In fact, click here and this site allows you to enter your car and they will tell you what size wheel you need.
Determine inner wheel clearance
Determining inner wheel clearance is simply done by getting under the vehicle whether it is on your back or with the car on jack stands or on a lift, and then measuring between the wheel and tire to the closest part of your car. Generally you need a minimum of 3/4″ clearance for your tire to account for slight movement of the tire.
Do Not Use Wheel Spacers to offset your car
Many attempt to spend very little money to push their tires out wider. The problem with this tactic is that many don’t but a good quality spacer. Better than using spacers is buying different wheels but if that is just not in the budget and you insist on tire spacers then get the best set that you can find.
The best set of wheel spacers for the money and at the highest quality are these Rough Country Wheel Spacers Pair. Click to go to Rough Country and check them out. 1 pair for $99
Advisory: By using a wheel spacer setting the wheel out further from the hub, it changes the geometry of the suspension and can have adverse effects. Be careful not to radically change the setup of your car in a way that will compromise safety.
Radical changes such as large spacers can make steering effort harder, steering less responsive, cause more tire wear, and more wheel bearing wear. Be conservative when making changes like adding wheel spacers.
3. Add Fender Flares/ Over-Fenders
Fender Flares are the same as over-flares. They simply bolt on to the existing fenders of your car to make the fender wider. These generally require very little modification to the car since a fender flare is made specifically to match the body lines of your vehicle. This is the highest quality, most cost effective way to make your car wider.
Something to keep in mind is that unless your car is a standard color like black or white, you will need to paint or wrap the fenders to match the rest of your car. This can potentially add to the cost of the over-fender job significantly.
Head over in another tab to Bushwacker.com by clicking here to shop for top-of-the-line fender flares for your car.
4. Bend the Fenders Outward
Even cheaper and easier, in fact this mod is free. To make your fender wider or if your wheel is rubbing the fender this is a free easy mod. Add some spacers to your fender from around the top of the wheel well and down the side of the fender behind the wheel.
Space out the fender along the bottom of the fender where it bolts to the car just in front of the door. By pulling out the bottom of the fender you can move your wheel well out up to 1″ giving the car a wider look, while providing better clearance and keeping the wheel from rubbing the fender. It will leave a slight gap where the door meets the fender but is only slightly noticeable and is the fastest way to widen your car for free.
5. Add Aero Pieces
Aero pieces are the small fiberglass body panels that sit in various locations on the car but the ones we are interested in to make the car wider are located in front or behind the wheel wells and impact the flow of air around your car making it more aerodynamic.
Aero pieces can be an inexpensive way to add to the sides of your car to make it look meaner, wider, sportier, more aerodynamic, and more aggressive. Aero pieces that can make your car look wider are canards which mount to the ends of front bumpers, and diffusers which fill in the rear bumper.
An excellent shop with high quality aero pieces is Evasive motorsports. Here is a link to their website.
6. Buy a wide body kit
A wide body kit is more involved and can be very costly but will ultimately achieve the look of a wide, mean, aggressive car. Have a wide body kit installed or install it yourself. Finding a high quality kit is most important because that will be the largest factor determining fitment and the final result of the kit installed.
A wide body kit provides new fenders for the car requiring you to remove the old fenders and manually fit the new fenders to replace them. This gives your car the ultimate wide, mean, aggressive look.
This often leads to the need to upgrade the wheels and suspension to match. Don’t take the idea of swapping wheels off the list because you will be most content with the combination of both.
If you have upgraded your wheels and suspension and want to make your car wider, then a wide body kit is the solution for you. Check out the go-to company for all your wide body kits and fender modification needs. Click here to head over to Fitment Industries.
7. Lower the car
By lowering your car you can achieve the appearance of a wider car since the car is closer to the ground. Some methods of lowering a vehicle have more potential to cause damage to parts of the car. Choosing the right method to lower your vehicle depends on: previous modification to the car, the type of car, and what the car is used for.
4 Popular Inexpensive Ways to Lower a Car
- Cut the Coil Springs – cutting a rung can lower your car an inch or two without adverse effects.
- Adjust the Torsion Bars – Cars with torsion bars have bolts for very easy adjustment
- Remove a Leaf Spring. Removing a leaf spring will to the same as cutting a rung off coil springs.
- Install drop spindles. Drop spindles lower the vehicle but put reduce the clearance of the suspension components.
Have your Car Realigned to Make up for Adjustments in the Suspension
Take your car in for an alignment after any adjustment but especially after a modification to the suspension system. An improperly aligned vehicle will result in poor driving performance, and uneven tire wear.
8. Add a Wide Racing Stripe
Racing stripes can actually make your car appear wider. If the racing stripes are wide themselves, it creates the illusion that the car sits lower and is wider than it actually is. These can be an amazingly transformative addition to your car and are even fairly easy to apply yourself.
The only key tricks are to wash the car well, work in the shade, buy the proper tools (which don’t cost much), and take your time. Amazon sells a few complete wide racing stripe kits but here is one for under 30$ and will definitely make your car look wider.
