What?!?!??!

are you serious?

 

I test drove a journey with sport and one without back to back and I just did not like the sport. I'm looking for a city cruiser since I almost always have a passenger or two (my kids) and the sport wheels were just to rough of a ride for my tastes.

I think that the 17" wheels look great too. If I wanted to race around I would have kept my WRX, but I'm past that stage of life. I'm an old fart now.

 

Qujo, well then im glad you got to do that and u can make a good decision about the car you want and ur life style.
thats what other people need to do, test drive them back to back

 

I'm almost 30, drive primarily through lebanon...er...hollywood (most bombed out streets this side of detroit), and am coming from an STi. the sport was about as mushy as I could handle, haha...

you can't reference the stagger as a performance factor, as the fatter rear tires only help reduce a tendency to oversteer. going with 245 or 255 all around actually makes a lot more sense, but also should make the car a bit more edgy.

you can get the 17's package, a sway bar package, and some sticky tires (think azenis rt615's as a baseline and go up from there), but you'll quickly see that there's not a huge difference in price doing that vs. just getting the sport package and buying tires for the 18's.

in the end, you're really splitting hairs. 17's with stiff sidewalls will ride pretty similar to the 18's with stiff (enough) sidewalls. cost difference won't be hugely different.

IMO there isn't much of a point to putting a more agressive tire package on the auto, but maybe i'm just old school like that. it's nice, but jeez, it's still auto--which felt so disconnected to me that I almost didn't bother buying a G.

 

For MSRP of $400, get it! The 18 inch sport rim looks 1000 times better than the stock 17 incher. The rear rim is wider with 245 tires, this car has a lot of power and with the 245 I can spin out very easy and the VDC inddicator kicks in often. Then you can change to 255 or 265 later if you want. The rear stock 225 on the 17incher is too narrow for this car.

Dont worry about the tire rotation, RWD cars have much better wear balance than front wheel drive cars.
_________________
2008 g35 journey ivory/stone+prem&sportpkg.

 

I agree 100%, the look of the car is much more aggressive with the 18's, of course, the Sport front bumper also helps with that look!

 

I got the performance tires for 365 (i think that is invoice on it and i paid invoice for my car) ...just think of it this way, if you are going to upgrade your wheels later down the road dont do it, but if you are not going to and keep the car stock like me.... GET THE WHEELS (YES I AM YELLING!!) it is that great of a deal... i kinda wish I had gotten the sport packaging... PADDLE SHIFTERS ;( ... honestly, if you can afford 400 get the wheels, if you can afford a bit more... SPORT PACKAGE!! i honestly think it is worth it....

 

bigger wheels = curb rash

stick with 17s if you're not the world's best parallel parker

 

^+1 my girl friend needs tens.
she hits every thing.

is a good point. curbs are worse with bigger wheels

 

you realize you still get curb rash with the stock 225/55/17 right? most curbs are 6" (152.8 mm) high.

you need a truck tire if you don't want curb rash.

 

yeah, i just don't see the value in daily driving. but hey, if it's a significant difference, i'd like to know by how much (non anecdotal)

if you think it looks better that's different.

 

I think if you want to go with 17's go with it, but do not say that the oem 225/55 Goodyear is gonna out perform the oem 245/40 Potenzas tires.

A vehicle's performance on a surface will totally be dependant on the coeficient of friction between the tire and road surface. That's why there is so much tire tweaking in any race. Traction will be better with the Potenza's stickier compound and larger footprint and lateral support will be better with the stiffer sidewalls. I would glad buy another set when this weras out. These are byfar the stickiest street tires I have used, and is excellent on wet surfaces (I live in Florida).

The oem Goodyear are crap, I had loaners with the stock 17s and they do not drive as nice or grip as well as the stock tires of the 18's. I also drove them back to back when I was shopping for my car. Even had a rental with 17's - never liked them.

That said, if you like a softer ride, and live where the temps frequently droppes below 40 degrees, go with the 17's.

 

i don't think anyone would say that.

my thoughts are on long term cost vs real life performance. if the performance is significantly higher and the cost is minimally higher, then yes, it's worth it. if the performance is marginally better and the costs are much higher, then no, not worth it to me.

i honestly don't know how much real performance you get (breaking is how much shorter, slalom is how much faster, etc.), i can figure out what the cost difference would be.

 

Exactly that's why I am struggling to make my mind.
You really did pin point the issue here. Thank you.

Well, considering these is it worth to get the performance wheel / tire package??

 

Yes. A quick search at tirerack:

set of oem Goodyear RSA - $157 = $628
set of oem Potenza (F/R) - $187/$206 = $786

Difference = $158 or less.

non-oem 18's are as low as $122 and some even have wear rating of 400, all for below oem pricing.

Again, I think if you don't drive hard you may get away with the narrower and softer 17's. If you want more performance, looks (subjective) and SAFETY, go with the larger tire.