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Hey! I've recently bought a CLS from 2014 and it has the standard 18 inch rims om. They look awful. So I've been looking for another pair of rims but I'm not sure when it comes to ET number (I think it's called offset in the US).
My car has the AMG package with the 350 Petrol engine. So the rear rims are wider.
Rear 48
Front 34,5
So I've found a pair that has ET 35 on all four. That's makes me unsure if they fit but also if having the same ET on all four wheels will somehow affect the driving? One guy at the Mercedes dealership said I'd might affect since it was originally developed to have different sizes front and back.
The ET (offset) is the distance from the place where the rim is mounted on the car to the center of the rim itself. Usually you'll see it with a "+" sign, which means that the mounting side of the rim is +35mm (or any other distance) from the center of the rim. There are rims with negative offset as well, but very rare and for specific cars. The attached picture shows exactly what offset is - the distance between the center (red) line and the offset (blue) line. The picture is a section of a wheel.
Now to the 2nd part of question:
The only thing that you need to check is if the suspension parts come in contact with the wheel with a smaller offset. Usually all makes and models have safe margin for the offsets that fit the car. Sometimes you can find that information on the internet, from the manufacturer itself, or of various websites that help you check wheel fitment. If you're not sure about the fitment, you can always just try it on the car (if the seller will agree). I will try to look up some information about that online and post here, since there's not that much to do because of the lockdown
Usually the offset doesn't affect the driving experience. Contrary, the wheel width, tire model and size are the factors that will impact your driving experience. Especially since all that the rear tires do is put power to the ground. And the staggered setup (narrow front and wide rear wheels) don't have that much of performance impact for a daily driver. In races - yes, it makes a difference. I'd say easy 90% of cars on market don't have staggered wheels.
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