VW T6 tyre rubbing on arch liner fix with lowered springs

The Problem

The front inner arch liners rubbed against the tyres when the suspension was fully compressed over fast undulations or during camber changes while cornering, after fitting lowering springs. The owner was running 40-profile tyres on 20-inch wheels and the rubbing occurred at speed.

Solution

1. Remove the top inner wheel arch plastic retaining clip to gain a small amount of additional clearance between the tyre and liner.
   • Removing this single top clip does not compromise how securely the liner is held — the liner remains retained by its remaining clips and stays seated at motorway speeds. However, the upper edge of the arch is where road spray collects, so leaving the clip out can allow water and grit to work behind the liner over time. Refit the clip if you notice the liner edge lifting, or seal the gap, to avoid water ingress into the arch and accelerated corrosion.
2. Replace the 40-profile tyres with 35-profile tyres on the same 20-inch rims — a 255/35/20 fitment is specifically recommended for SoLow Lows.
   • The lower-profile tyre reduces sidewall bulge under compression, pulling the contact point away from the liner.
   • Be aware that going from 255/40/20 to 255/35/20 reduces the overall tyre diameter by roughly 25mm. This means the wheel turns slightly faster for a given road speed, so the speedometer will under-read (showing a lower speed than you are actually doing). Most factory speedos already read slightly fast, so a small reduction is usually still within the legal margin, but if the combined error pushes the indicated reading more than 10% away from true speed, a DVSA MOT tester may flag the discrepancy. Check the speedo against a GPS app after fitting and have it corrected if it falls outside the 10% tolerance.
3. Test by driving over fast undulations and through camber changes — confirm there is zero rubbing after making these two changes.
   • This fix was validated on a road-driven T6 over several hundred miles of mixed motorway and B-road use, including the fast undulations and cornering camber changes that originally caused the rubbing, with no recurrence reported.