juaijao

I am curious about light weight wheel options for our cars and have been doing some research online... mainly searching forged wheels. So far I have not found good resources on wheel options, sizes and weight. If you have a good resource/ website, please do share.

Also, if you have light weight wheels, please share your wheel brand, model, specs, weight, cost, impression on performance with lower rotational inertia and/ or other relevant info when considering purchase...

Thank you in advance!

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

I believe lightweight wheels are probably in the top three best upgrades for a car. It was the first thing I did to my TL after I purchased it. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most expensive.

Tirerack is a great resource because it gives you the weight information on each wheel, shows you the compatible wheels for the car based on caliper clearance and offset, and also has a simulator that shows the wheels on your specific car (even down to the color of the car). They're relatively competitive on price but you may be able to find a better deal once you pinpoint the specific wheel you want. They also allow you to specifically sort the wheels by weight.

I was a little extreme with my wheel purchase. I claim to be the only 4G owner who purchased 17" aftermarket wheels. I've caught some flak for this but I'm more of a function over form sort of person Most would say 18" is the minimum with 19" or 20" being optimal. The smaller the wheel diameter, the lighter it is. Some would argue that the tire sidewall is larger with a smaller wheel, offsetting the decreased size of the wheel but this simply isn't true. The reason for this is that the road surface portion of the tire makes up the bulk of the tire weight. The sidewall is relatively insignificant. You can check out tire weights on Tirerack to confirm. For example, a Continental DWS06 in 245/50 17 is 25lbs. A 245/45 18 is also.....25lbs. The 245/40 19 drops down to 24lbs. But at that point, your wheel weight has likely increased by about 10lbs which needless to say, offsets the tire weight savings by 10X.

Regardless of the size you go with, you can reduce the wheel weight significantly going with an OZ, Enkei or BBS wheel (BBS is forged and will cost you a pretty penny). I went with the OZ Alleggerita HTL @ 17.2 LBS. The stock 17's are about 24 LBS which dropped about 8 LBS per corner off. Considering the tire, this was about a 20% decrease in the overall weight of the tire/wheel combo. Even though it was only 20%, it felt like I went from Doc Martin boots to running shoes.

Best of luck on your search.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

even tho, I have an aluminium forged wheel, the size of them and my tire choice makes them just as heavy, or a tiny bit less than OEM.

while i do want to go fast, it was a compromise between looking good and absolute minimal weight...

HeartTLs

iTrader: (5)

Agreed. Also keep in mind the tire brand and model. You wouldn't believe how many people spend a extra 1-3k to shave off a few lbs off from wheels by getting one piece forged instead of cast and then get a heavy tire from bridgestone.

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

For sure. I found tire weight fluctuations up to 5 lbs. when I purchased tires. The continental DWS06's were 24lbs. Tirerack also provides weight for nearly every size of tire they sell. And since that weight is on the outer area of the spinning force, the centripical force is greatest which has a higher impact.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

I fancy my wide sticky tires tho!

HeartTLs

iTrader: (5)

245/40/19 Conti Extreme Contact Sport is 24lbs and so is the new Mich 4S. Outgoing Mich PSS is 25 and goodyear has some crappy tire in the same category that only weights 22lbs. Comparable bridgestones are 28-29lbs.