When I bought my car (1997 Civic Ex Coupe) it came with 17 inch rims, the two front have 215/45/17 tires and 215/55/17 in the back.

The guy let me know that on large dips the back fenders may cut the tires, and he showed me the cuts that happened when he was driving.

So he let me know that I should get smaller tires or raise my ride.
Well raising my ride is not something I would like to do, I'm actually wanting to lower it because it is too high. So I'm thinking about smaller tires.
When he said smaller tires did he mean get the 45's on the back too? or would that not make a difference.

He probably meant the actual width like to get 190/55/17 tire right?

I would like to keep the width I have now, so I did some research and heard about fender rolling. Is this something I should be looking into? If i get this done will this let me lower my car a bit? One of my friends told me he has a buddy that can roll all my fenders for $60. Is that a good price? He uses an eastwood fender roller...I think that was the name... which is suppose to be the best out there.?

If I had the money I would totally just invest into some new 15 inch rims..

So new tires, fender rolling, ........... or ....... ride height ?

 

Sounds like you have a myriad of issues going on.

The rear tires, for one, are waaaaaay too big (height wise, anyway). The diameter alone is 3" more than it should be. For a 17" wheel on your '97, a 205/40-17 is perfect. Use this to play with tire sizes.

The rear wheels, in a 17" size, should be okay. But do you know the offset? Your stock one is probably around 40, so if the offset is a lower number than that, you may start running into issues when you lower the car. Others on here have more experience with Hondas and offset wheels, so I'll let them fill in the info for that.

The third issue is the suspension. What's on it? If it's on stock shocks, it's possible the shocks are bad, which means it's not controlling the soft springs, and allowing that boat anchor of a wheel/tire to bounce all over the place (including into the wheel well).

Long story short, I'd get the properly sized 15" wheels/tires you want and need before doing anything else with this car. Anything else you do (new tires, fender rolling, etc.) will just be throwing good money at bad investments.

 

Thats a pretty cool tool. it made it really obvious how much a difference there would be if i got the 40s in the back.

How do I find the offset? and what does that mean exactly.

When I bought the car it was already on coilovers. not sure what brand, still need to check that. im not sure if there bad brand but when i'm driving its really bumpy and i'm not sure if that's how there suppose to feel?
I think the car is already lowered but not to a noticeable point.

I would like to stay with these wheels if it's possible to still go lower on them.

 

I'd start by removing one of the rear wheels, and start looking for numbers stamped or molded into the wheels. They're usually on the rim part, or are sometimes stamped into the back side of one of the spokes.

Offset, simply, refers to where the hub of the wheel is in reference to the centerline of the wheel's rim. So if you stare at the front of your car, assume that the stock wheels are like 40.

Then imagine the wheels being pushed ouf of the fenders (but not getting any wider). It's exaggerated, but that would be something like an offset of 10. This is an extreme example:



So if your wheels had an offset of, say, 50, you'd get that "tucked" look.

 

ohh so with a lesser of a number the more fender rolling I would need?
thank you that makes so much sense.

 

Essentially, yes. But I would save fender-rolling as a very, very, very last resort.

The other thing to keep in mind with wheel offset is that if you start to lower the car on those coilovers, it'll start to change the suspension geometry. If you have a wheel with a high offset number, you could run into issues with it coming into contact with suspension components.

Seriously consider those 15's. For the price you'll pay for four new 17" tires, you'll be kissing the lower price point for a set of 15" wheels and tires (especially if you can find a good set used). You can always sell the 17s to help recoup the cost, too.