18" Touareg Manhattan's on 944?

[zcacogp]

What about steering feel, dynamic response, ride quality and a hundred other things?

Big wheels are a fashion, little more. Adding big wheels to a car which was never intended to have them, without taking into account the change that different sidewall height and compliance has on the whole of the rest of the suspension system, is a recipe for disaster. I learned this the hard way when I was stupid enough to fit 16inch wheels on a Mk1 Golf GTi in my youth - a car that was originally designed to have 13inch wheels, but which the sales people fitted with 14inch P-slots. It ruined the way the car drove and rode, and I changed back to the P-slots soon enough when I came to my senses.

18inch wheels on a 944? Really, just don't. Ever.

Oli.

 

[Waylander]

folks have this misguided concept that big wheels provide more grip, possibly till it rains or gets a bit slippy and icy.

nothing like a good aquaplaning session to get your attention

 

[blade7]

What about steering feel, dynamic response, ride quality and a hundred other things?

Big wheels are a fashion, little more. Adding big wheels to a car which was never intended to have them, without taking into account the change that different sidewall height and compliance has on the whole of the rest of the suspension system, is a recipe for disaster.

How many properly setup 944/968's have you driven on 18" wheels. No disaster in the last 7 years here.

 

[blade7]

folks have this misguided concept that big wheels provide more grip, possibly till it rains or gets a bit slippy and icy.

nothing like a good aquaplaning session to get your attention

Don't drive my 944 in the wet or slippy, got an A4 quattro S line on 18's for that .

 

[edh]

folks have this misguided concept that big wheels provide more grip, possibly till it rains or gets a bit slippy and icy.

nothing like a good aquaplaning session to get your attention

Don't drive my 944 in the wet or slippy, got an A4 quattro S line on 18's for that .

Audi? I understand now...

 

[blade7]

Audi? I understand now...

Ha, and a BMW before that...

 

[Waylander]

I have an A4 Quattro to and I still would not put 18's on a 944,

the A4 was designed to have 17,18 or 19 inch rims, the A4 is some 300kg heavier for a start

1575kg

im sure there was one owner on here or tipec that found out how disastrous a big puddle can be at speed on big fat tyres

 

[blade7]

I have an A4 Quattro to and I still would not put 18's on a 944,

the A4 was designed to have 17,18 or 19 inch rims, the A4 is some 300kg heavier for a start

1575kg

im sure there was one owner on here or tipec that found out how disastrous a big puddle can be at speed on big fat tyres

That'll be an A4 quattro then. If that owner was driving a red 968 Sport on the A14 he was on standard wheels and tyres I believe. It amuses me that plenty of owners think 17" Cup 1/2's are the sweet spot but 18's will turn the car into a pig.

 

[Indi9xx]

I want a Cayman off roader now .

lol.. Cayenne of course.. Caymans on the brain at the moment )

 

[edh]

I have an A4 Quattro to and I still would not put 18's on a 944,

the A4 was designed to have 17,18 or 19 inch rims, the A4 is some 300kg heavier for a start

1575kg

im sure there was one owner on here or tipec that found out how disastrous a big puddle can be at speed on big fat tyres

That'll be an A4 quattro then. If that owner was driving a red 968 Sport on the A14 he was on standard wheels and tyres I believe. It amuses me that plenty of owners think 17" Cup 1/2's are the sweet spot but 18's will turn the car into a pig.

Yes, they are wrong as well....[] (see my earlier post).

Anyway, it's all a bit far from the OP's issue, as an '83 2.5 8V is really not going to get any benefit from 18" (or 17") wheels.

 

[Waylander]

I personally think the 16 cup ones are the nicest on a day to day use 944/968.

softer more comfortable ride, less tramlining altogether better

 

[blade7]

I personally think the 16 cup ones are the nicest on a day to day use 944/968.

softer more comfortable ride, less tramlining altogether better

I don't doubt it, apart from the tramlining. We replaced her indoors 05 Fiesta ST with a brand new Fiesta ST2 a year ago. It goes, stops and handles much better than the old car and all the roadtests rave about them, but the ride is very harsh in comparison. I think they both came on the same size wheels and tyres...

 

[white944]

I'm on staggered 17" Cups on the Lux. Suspension is standard except for 968 Sport anti roll bars. The ride is perfectly acceptable for a sports coupe and I personally prefer the steering with these, sharper with more feedback, although the payoff is a bit of tramlining on certain surfaces due to that pesky increased scrub radius. It makes the S2 feel decidedly dull in the twisties. Tyre wear is normal, grip is phenomenal and it looks good too.[]

 

[T3rra]

This really is becoming a chic and egg argument. Just fit what ever you want. There's opinions and there experience. Find your own. If you got early off set your need wide body wheels. With et max 40, so there's not a huge choice, without spacers.

 

[Monkeythree]

It's tyres that change vehicle dynamics, not wheels. (Bit of a generalism, but pretty accurate)

Whilst there seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence that 18's don't work well on 944's, I would bet my bottom dollar that is down to fitting wider tyres on the bigger rims and not the rims themselves. I would be interested to find out how one drives on 205/40R18 fronts and 225/35R18 rears. I'm not even sure that those tyre sizes exist but if they do, it would be good to know.

 

[blade7]

Tyres on the front of my 90 Turbo are 225/40-18, I'll claim that bottom dollar.

 

[Monkeythree]

Tyres on the front of my 90 Turbo are 225/40-18, I'll claim that bottom dollar.

Sounds like you've found a nice balance and you're happy with it which is great. I was of course making a fairly general observation based on a reasonable amount of experience (9 years with Pirelli). The thing with wheel and tyre selection is that there is a myriad of factors which all influence how a particular wheel and tyre combo works on a particular car. We sometimes had to re-engineer a different tyre for a "sport" model of a car i.e. Same chassis, same rims, same tyre size and pattern but perhaps different suspension bushes and different dampers meant that the 'base' tyre no longer worked to the satisfaction of the vehicle dynamics guys and they wanted a tyre tweak. Crazy thing is it's all very subjective and mainly based on the feedback from the test drivers.

I suppose that's somewhat similar to what's written in this thread.

 

[blade7]

Interesting you mention Pirelli, previously I had 265/35-18 Pirelli's on 10" rear wheels and the tyres looked stretched. I fitted new PS2's all round and on the same size tyres the tread looks wider.

 

[Monkeythree]

ETRTO allows for quite a large tolerance on width so one tyre makers 265 can end up quite different to another tyre makers 265 depending on how the manufacturer chooses to construct and mould the tyre. ETRTO also recognises that a tyre is potentially suitable to be fitted to a range of rim widths but one tyre maker might design their 265 to be optimised for a 9J rim and another might design theirs to be optimised for a 10J rim.

This is one of the reasons why OEM's ask tyre makers to mark their OE tyres with a specific designation (e.g. porsche N) to try to ensure the car retains optimum dynamics after a tyre change.

 

[Suffolk944]

My car has sat on 17 wheels with 968 Castor mounts for a number of years. It handles fine and personally I like the way the larger wheels fill out the arches better. That said I am toying with the idea of reverting back to 16's as I remember just how sweet the handling is with them. I assume the smaller tyres will be fine with my increased power over standard ?