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, Mon, 1 Sep 2003 07:57:21
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A few rules of thumb:
Potholes will eat big wheels and low-profile tires much faster than they ate your OEM stuff.
Most of those 'designer' wheels are heavy and soft. Heavy wheels hurt ride quality and handling (more unsprung weight) and acceleration (more flywheel mass that has to be spun up to speed - and YES, it can make a BIG difference, adding 15lb per corner can take off 15+HP on the dyno.)
There's basically three types of aluminum wheel - castings, high-density or heat-treated castings, and forged.
Cast wheels are highly variable in quality, stuff from OE-quality manufacturers e.g. Ronal, BBS, etc. is usually reasonably durable, many aftermarket mfrs sell on cost alone and are crap. They range from medium-weight to unbelievably heavy.
There are various techniques for squeeze-casting, heat-treating, etc. aluminum wheels to produce a tougher casting, these are used by some of the better cast-wheel manufacturers but once again they're more expensive.
The top of the heap is the forged wheel, these are generally the lightest, far and away the strongest, and also the most expensive.
17in wheels on a 9000 is fairly drastic (the largest size ever used as OE on a 9000 was the 205/55-16 on the Aero - and even it doesn't have much sidewall height.) You'd be running something like a 215/45-17.
18in would mean a seriously rubber-band little tire - you will feel every pebble and if your current pothole experience is representative of your real-world driving conditions you'll be replacing two sets of wheels a year.
posted by 198.144.20...
, Mon, 1 Sep 2003 07:57:21, Tue, 2 Sep 2003 11:12:30
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