Here's my take on it. I also have IS300 wheels on my Camry LE ('00) which is essentially what you have. I agree - they look and handle great compared to stock.
I had to put 5 mm spacer in the back. I also changed my rear studs (the bolts that stick-out of the wheel hubs) with longer ones. In the back you can use OEM studs made for the front, which are about 5mm longer - enough to compensate for the 5 mm spacer. I bought the $60 H&R spacers, and they already come with new longer studs, but I did not use them - they were too long for the back and I did not need them in the front....
The other thing I noticed is that the wheels are no longer hub-centric once you put spacers. If you losen the lug nuts with the car off the ground (on a jack stand), you will see that you can mount the wheel off-center by as much as 2 mm. This is very noticeable at speed. Don't belive if someone tells you that the lug nuts center the wheel - they don't and I've seen it first hand.
My car does not pull to the side, but I had very good alignment done. Try the same in a good shop.
My fronts do not have specers and my driver's wheel slightly rubs the inside towards the engine compartment at extreme left turns - it rubbed-off the sound deadening coating there (I guess the sheetmetal was not welded where it was supposed to and sticks-out a bit too much).
My advice, lift the car, rotate each of the back wheels and see if they look off-center. If it does, losen the lug nuts just enough that you can slide it about by gently tapping it and try to center it. By doing this a few times I was able to get almost perfect centering. Tighten the nuts carefully in a "star" pattern to maintain the centered position. The vibrations in my case were greatly minimized. For instance, before I did this, my passenger seat vibrated badly b/w 50-75 mph. I got tired of this and one day, as I was driving a 200 mile stretch decided to fix it - stopped 2-3 times to repeat the above procedure; after this "centering" the seat does not vibrate any more.
I did this after balancing the wheels a few times with stick-on weights and road-force machine and getting no good results at all, even with brand-new tires.
Also, try to use a torque wrench and don't go over 80 lb/ft. And I would not advise you to drive on only 4-5 threads, especially with the spacers (the rims no longer sit on the hub center, but hang only on the studs).
You were right to use lug nuts for alloy style Toyota/Lexus wheels, because the nuts for steel style wheels do not fit the Lexus/Toyota alloy wheels. This is what I have on mine and with the longer studs they fit just fine.
Quote:
Originally posted by le0331
I just installed the Lexus IS300 rims on my 1997 Camry. The rims are 50 offset and the Camry is 40 offset so the tire shop put on wheel spacers. Everything was looking sweet but when I drove my car, it pulled to the right and shook at 65 mph and on. Took it to the mechanic and he told me that the lug nuts are not long enough, which are the OEM Lexus Lug Nuts. The shank, or collar is not getting deep enough onto the stud and only 4-5 threads are on so the rim, spacer, and drum are not secured tightly with each other. First of all, is this possible? Anyway, I went to a couple of rim shops and they all told me that there is no lug nuts with a longer shank and told me to just take them off an buy new rims. When I bought these rim, I did research and everyone said that IS300 rims did fit on a 97 Camry. I'm going back to the guy that put on my rims later and maybe there will be a better solution but if anyone could help me out, that would be great.
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