My visit to Tire Rack

I am not a fan of black wheels on a black car, so I’ve been searching around trying to find something to replace my PP wheels. None of my regular sites have anything listed for the ’15, so I called Tire Rack to find out why. Talking with the rep, he stated they haven’t been able to get a ’15 Mustang in to measure. I told them I just picked mine up and would they be interested in using it to measure. They were very interested, so we arranged a time, and I drove to their South Bend home office.

I hadn’t been to their location in over 20 years, and I was quite impressed. I checked in at their desk, and my contact Walt, directed me to drive my car through the first door, where they would give it a quick wash. My car was then driven into their photo studio, where they lined it up for a photo shoot.

If you’ve never been to the Tire Rack site, they have the ability to “install” your selected wheels on a picture of your model vehicle, to get an idea of what the new rims would look like on it. I was quite excited to think that my car was going to be the model for future Mustangers to help them pick their wheels. I met Micah, the photographer, and he showed me how they process the pictures for their site.

After the photo shoot was done, they moved my car to a rack, where they took off the wheels. I was introduced to Bob, who was going to do the measurements on the car. After verifying hub diameter and bolt circles, he then brought out a sophisticated looking “arm” that was attached to the rack. It was connected to a computer that had a program that looked kind of like a CAD/CAM drawing program. Bob began to move the tip of the arm, touching numerous points on the rotor, caliper, control arm, spring, inner fender and fender lip. This allowed the computer program to draw a 3-D rendering of the inside area with all the distances for clearance around the wheel. The whole procedure was repeated again on the rear.

While the measuring was going on, several of the sales people stopped by to look over my car – I was feeling like quite a VIP, getting asked numerous questions about specs, HP, etc. Everyone was very complimentary and you could tell I was talking to “car guys”. One of the guys asked to breakdown the existing wheel / tire, so they could look at the TPMS. I think they covered every aspect of the parts they deal with and I was quite impressed with everyone’s professionalism.

Walt told me that it is a very busy time for them, as there are several new ‘15s that need measuring, but he hoped to get the specs out on their site sometime during the week of 10/20. If you’re in the market for wheels and tires, I highly suggest you check out Tirerack.com.

So cool! Did they give you some kind of compensation for lending your car?

That was a great post. Ill bet your proud to be the 2015 Mustang for their site! Hopefully you get a discount atleast , if you buy from them. BTW I actually like the black on black.

Very cool!

Awesome! Thanks for letting tirerack measure your car. I've ordered lots of stuff from them and they have always been great.

Great writeup, thanks for sharing! Definitely a unique opportunity, and Tire Rack is a great company as well. Everyone I've dealt with from there has been very helpful, friendly and down-to-earth car people!

Real cool story and nice pics to go along with it!

The arm is called a CMM (coordinate measuring machine). I use the exact FARO CMM in my office but in 6 ft length instead of the 8 footer they were using.

Thanks for sharing, gave more insight into tire rack.

That's sweet! You also gave them the variant of the 2015 with the most aggressive fitment (6-piston brakes), which is great! I suppose they'd probably like to have a 4-piston and a standard brake variant to measure as well. Since those folks will potentially have a few more options that fit.

The size of those brembos :eyebulge:

So cool! I agree, those 6 pots are big!!

Thanks for doing this. Must have been a sweet experience! I've been waiting a long time for Tirerack to get the sizing!

Nice! I like and use Tire rack a lot.

This is a big help to S550 owners, thank you. As somebody that will probably replace my PP wheels and tires for a winter set ASAP when I get my car, I appreciate you doing this. Very cool that your car will be THE ONE that people see when using their fitment tool.

you let them measure and model your car? Thats awesome!!

thanks