kidwonder

So, I've finally decided to move forward with ordering an aspec suspension and have my acura dealer install them. I'll obviously need to put rims on the car but I'm torn between 18's and 19's. I'm leaning towards the 19's since the aspec doesn't drop the car very much. Is there anything I should watch out for if I do decide to go with 19's?

Thanks as always!

Chas2

As mentioned frequently before in other posts, 19's look great, but have several potential downsides, which may be mitigated by where you live...

Not necessarily in order of importance....

1. Lack of tire choice
2. Lack of wheel style choice
3. Potentially heavier
4. More expensive, especially if you want to mitigate 3, above.

1. Lack of Tire Choice

Go to the Tire Rack website, not saying you should buy there, but they have the friendliest one around, and seem to have a good selection and probably set the floor in pricing.

Look at your choices in 245/45-18 vs 245/40-19 tires, V rated or better. Much greater choice in 18's. An alternate size in 19's is 255/40-19, a little larger in rolling diameter, and a little wider, but they are within acceptable limits if you keep all four tires the same size. Also look at the prices, 18's are much less expensive than 19's. Just to demonstrate this further, now look at 245/35-20 tires, and you will see you actually have more choice and better pricing in 20's. But 20 inch wheels have other problems, notably 3 and 4 above, as well as the much lower profile, 35 series, which can be a pothole nightmare waiting to happen.

2. Lack of Wheel Style Choice

Use the Tire Rack again, and see how many more 18's there are out there vs 19's for the RL. Also check out the pricing.

3. Potentially heavier

19's by definition will be heavier than 18's in the same style. Wheel and tire weight is unsprung weight, which is the worse kind of weight as far as suspension is concerned. Lower weight is better. You want to achieve the same weight than the OEM wheels in order to maintain a similar level of performance. If your sidewalls are shorter, which they will be with 18's or 19's vs the OEM 17's, your ride will be stiffer, and your handling sharper. However, weight affects other characteristics such as acceleration, braking and steering, lighter than OEM is better. One way to achieve lighter weight is to change wheel construction methods. Move away from the typical gravity or low pressure cast alloy wheels to forged or Enkei proprietary MAT technology constructed wheels. Here are some examples using the first two choices in the Tire Rack for the RL (for future searchers, these wheels are on closeout, so this info will probably not exist on the Tire Rack in a few months):

OEM 17x8=27lbs cast construction
ASA JH9 18x8=27.7lbs cast construction
ASA JH9 19x8=29.5lbs cast construction
BBS RE 18x8.5=21.0lbs forged construction
BBS RE 19x8.5=22.0lbs forged construction
and another not on Tire Rack, but popular with the Acura crowd
AME Tracers FS-01 19x8.5=22.0lbs Enkei MAT construction

The point is, bigger is heavier, forged construction is lighter weight than cast construction. Lighter than OEM is better.

I am like a broken record on this topic, but, switching out from PAX (75lbs per each tire wheel combo) to forged 19's, I dropped 92 lbs of unsprung weight, and the difference was dramatic, the car was truly lighter on its feet, accelerating dramatically faster, braking and turning was better.

4. Potentially more expensive

Look at the prices for above, and you will see exactly what I mean.

The ASA are on severe close out at $59-$99 Tire Rack discounting from $159 and $199, their original discounted price.

The BBS REs are similar closeout, $449 to $549, discounted from original $835 and $1070 asking price.

The same thing holds true for 20's, heavier and more expensive.

If you live in a place such as Southern California where there is no snow, choice of tires may not be a big deal. You get summer tires and away you go. Even if you live in area with snow, keep your OEMS and use the all seasons until the wear out, each winter, and then replace them with winter tires, you truly will have the best of both worlds. If you are forced into an all season solution, you will be limited in tire choice if you get 19's over 18's.

kidwonder

That information is absolutely superb! I was actually looking at the ASA JH9's because of the price and I think they will actually look fairly nice on the RL. I do appreciate you taking the time to break that down for me.

Thanks again!

kidwonder

Ok, so I just got off of the phone with my dealership and they told me that they're going to charge me $900 to install the suspension. This seems a little high to me. Any thoughts?

DandyG23

That does seem a little high to install the new suspension. Have you asked another dealership or another tire suspension place? Or do you have a friend who can do it?

kidwonder

Called a couple different dealerships and it looks like the lowest I'm getting is 549.50 which is supposed to include the alignment. Now all we do it wait.

Thanks for all the help!

neuronbob

$900 to install the suspension is way high.
I paid $330 for the install at my dealership, then a little extra (amount escapes me right now) for the alignment at the same time.

rtr

i have 17 18 and 19 . I found that the 17 suck 18 are good if you like to drive fast and 19 feels great but if you are very aggessive witch most RL drivers are not then 19 is best. I love my 19 and they arent to heavy didnt slow the car down neither. Good luck i have 38 offset

kidwonder

Thanks for everyone's thoughts. I think I'll have to call around a little bit more but the average seems to be in the 550-600 range for the installation. I'll probably order the rims and tires this weekend and get them on the car asap. Do you all think that I have to have the aspec suspension with the 19's or do you think the fender gap will be in "respectable" range?

Chas2

The fender gap should not change. The idea with a +2 installation (going from 17 to 19 inch wheels) is to keep the rolling diameter the same. The diameter of the 245/50-17 (676.65 mm) should be almost identical to that of 245/40-19 (678.43 mm). See the calculator below

http://www.1010tires.com/tiresizecalculator.asp

That being said, the amount of wheel offset could change the visual appearance...if you are moving the outside face of the wheel and tire closer to the fender edge, it could have a different visual impact. For example, the ASA JH9 19x8 wheels have a 45mm offset so you are moving the tire outboard 10 mm or slightly less than 1/2 inch closer to the edge of the fender opening.

http://www.1010tires.com/WheelOffsetCalculator.asp

But in reality I don't think the gap will appear to change much, if at all. See the thread, esp post # 27, which shows 19's with spacers. There is no before and after, but the gap looks what I would say is about the same.

https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-rl-tires-wheels-suspension-92/2009-acura-tl-rims-dont-fit-727782/

hawnr6

I think 19's are a bad idea if you are not going to lower it. 19's will actually make the car look more 4x4 ish(in my experience).

if you are going to go with the aspec suspension, I would stick with 18's.. and you can see how good they look from all the pics of members posted here..

peace