For those of you with 18 inch wheels, is the ride quality sacrificed by the rim size- i.e. Is the ride bumpier or harsher than stock? IF so by how much and would going with 17 inchers be a better compromise?

Ash

 

get 18's, ride will be bumpier than stock ofcourse (even with 17's). 18s just look right on maxima.

 

If you live in a city or do big city driving I would say 17's. 18 do look really nice but then your riding on rubber bands, not tires

 

17's look too small with a maxima, 18s and 19s look just right imo..

 

yea i agree wit jkklim. if u gonna buy rims u need either 19 or 18.

 

Are you kidding? Normal driving will have you replacing 18s every 3-4 months AT LEAST Beyond that, just look at the tires... rubber bands, man. Fail to swerve even once and your tires and possibly rims are gone.. I say 17s... but that's what I'm wearing...

 

15, 16, 17, 18, none of these look right on the maxima.

19"s for LIFE !!!!

 

17s here...and my rims look just right.

 

It's all personal opinion, but I have 17's right now and I love them. Consider your road conditions and look at some pictures of maxima's with the different sizes.

 

my 18's look and feel just fine...no complaints here.

 

I've had 18's since I bought my car in 98. I would not go with 18's unless I had too much cash. They get banged up easily and ur out 150 bucks a rim to get them fixed. Tires are too much, very good tires cost around 250 bucks. I am looking to switch to 17's, or even 16's. 17's run for like 125-150 bucks and 16" tires run for around 80 bucks or so. This is a recurring cost, In my openion keeping it as low as possible is the way to go.

 

depends of the design of the wheel. If you have open wheels (like mine) your 17s will look bigger. if you are lowered your 17s will look bigger. of course 18s look better, but well.... where i am here (Quebec, Canada) there's no way you could drive 18s for 3 summers with same tires. roads are WAY too screwed up heh. I say look for 17s with open design

 

I have the stock 15" sawblades on my 95SE (5-speed). I can get some 16" wheels with near-new Falken 512s from a 98SE. Is that worth pursuing or would I be best advised to go to at least 17".

Apart from cosmetics and not being referred to as a 4x4 what operational benefits, if any, can one obtain from going up in wheel size. I don't intend to change the suspension anytime soon and it is still stock of course.

Will the car handler better? How will it peform in relative terms in the rain, which is a concern to me? What about ride? What about fuel economy - city and highway?

Thanks

 

17s are perfect. If I had a million dollars to spend on my car, I'd still choose 17s. Perfect compromise between increased handling but not adding too much horsepower-sapping weight and keeping a decent ride quality. And of course another beni. is the rims are cheaper as well as the tires. Forget looks, go for performance. 17s are lighter than 18s. Good luck.

 

18 does look better, but with more wheel you've got more rotational inertia to overcome, meaning your car is even slower than 17s, which are slower than 16s.

 

the only advantage you might get would be from a wider , not bigger rim. That advantage would only come to life with a wider tire. Going bigger rims only adds weight, which hampers acceleration. bigger rims are for looks only, not performance. To be more correct, its not the size of the rim , it is the wight that is the problem....a bigger rim will generaly weigh more.

 

This helps me somewhat. So I'm presently on the stock 15" sawblades and I don't know what width the wheel is. I'm not into the appearance aspect of the wheels, but I am interested in the handling characteristics and I want to stay with the stock suspension for the time being. So should I just buy new tires or consider changing my wheels to a wider wheel. It strikes me that there would be more resistance from the wider wheel and I wonder if my stock 215-60R-15s would be better in the rain than a wider wheel and tire? I suspect by gas mileage, particularly in the city, would be better with what I presently have, although I will probably switch from the Goodyear Eagle RSAs which will last at least 60,000 miles, despite being slammed repeatedly on the .org.

 

Your pretty wrong obviously since your riding on 17s. Your making 18s to sound like their some cumbersome 24's. You can have just as meaty a tire on 18s (245-40/18 for example). The ride isnt THAT much worse, if your on bigger tires. Also, if you fail to swerve even once with your 17s, your tires and rims can be just as gone


If your into speed/better ride quality - 17s

Into looks - 18s

A true pimp - 19s

Are crazy/have lots of money - 20s (and only ONE max that ive EVER seen has pulled off 20s, and they were NOT chrome. i forget his SN name, but he was a pretty nice guy.)



-eric

 

I want some 17' momo arrows, but I think theyre disconed..
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I know a kid with 20's on his 2002 Max and there chrome!

Anyways I have 18's and I hit stuff all the time and i haven't blown a tire yet. Also i've been riding on the same tires for 6 months and the roads out here suck and there is really not too much wear on them. I also noticed that I have somewhat better handling and the ride quality is not reduced all that much unless you lower your car.

What I'm trying to say is 18's and nothing less!

 

I went with 18's because I knew I would regret getting 17's down the road, plus the extra .5" in width cant hurt preformance.

They also sit farther out in the wheel well which ties the whole car together much better.

 

I've got 18's wrapped with 245/45 and the grip is awsome. It has not failed me once. The amount of grip I have is crazy, but the tread wear is insane. Tires go bald too quick. If I use harder rubber, then the car feels like its on ice but the tread-wear is very good, so they last longer. But the whole point is to get better handeling, so you have to go with soft tires. A while back, there were some 5-stars from a R32 skyline for 250 bucks. They were 16x8. U can fit 235/240 series tire easily. Maybe even 245 but the sidewall might stick out which can be damaged easily. This is the setup that I want to get. Cheap/Light rims on cheap tires and I can drive however I want, burn out when I want, fishtail whatever floats ur boat. Like I said, the grip comes from the amount of surface area that makes contact with the pavement. This surface area is the cross sectional area, which can only be increased with the rim/tire width. So If you want my advice, go with 16x8 or 16x8.5 if you can find em and wrap some nice rubber on it.

Yes, If you mean resistance to the engine trying to spin the tire, then you are right. However, this added resistance is much much less than what would be added by the bigger rim (bigger, not wider). Think of the mechanical advantage you get with a lever. Hold a 2 foot bar from the end and spin it like a tire. Now take a 3 foot long bar and do the same thing. Much more power is required to get the longer bar moving. A larger rim therefore requires more power to turn whereas a wider rim of the same size requires just a little more power because of the added weight from the increase in width. Your stock tires will never be as good as a wider tire designed to handle in wet conditions. The opposite is true as well, your stock tires may perform better than wider tires which are designed to handle on dry pavement. But these days you cat get rubber which will out perform the stock rubber on ur wheels. What is the rating of the stock wheels? H or something? I've got ZR rated tires, even though u dont need ZR. Do some reasearch, there is a lot of information out there.

 

about how often do you have to buy tires for your 17s or 18s???

I'm looking at getting some 17 inch BSA 259 with the polished lip, but was curious as to how many times per year you buy tires...

 

Thanks for responses guys. I decided to go with 18s- Specifically new 2004 Murano 5 spoke 18x7.5 which I got for $300 off of ebay. The price was right and I like the design plus the 7.5 inch width allows for wider tire. Probably run 245/40-18s on it .

 

I bet those weigh at least 25 pounds each....have fun with those...

 

Would you please do us all a favour and weigh these rims and post back? They look really good on our cars IMHO.

 

245s on a 7.5?? I wonder how much the tire will stick out..

 

Can we fit 245s on our cars? Why did I think 235 was the widest before we start to rub?

 

I just got 17s put on and I'm perfectly happy with them. I personally think 18s look a little too big plus they add extra weight and cost.

 

I've had 245 for a long time.. The only rubbing I saw was with the little plastic piece on the inside of the tirewell on the front passanger side.....very minor..

 

I could not help but notice you have 245s- are they 245/45-18 ? and I didn't understand your question about how much the tire will stick out. Do you mean out of the fender? I doubt it, the offset is either 35 or 38mm. Do you think 245/40-18 will rub significantly on turning?

Also the Murano rim weight is 22 +/-2 lbs, I read the scale incorrectly. Sorry

 

When he says 'stick out', he means the "buldge" you get when putting a wide tire on a skinny rim. I personally like a little buldge (that didn't come out very well, did it?) because it helps protect the edge of the rim and I think it looks better.

 

i've had cheap 21lb ADR 18" wheels on my car for the past 3 years with 235 40 18 rubber bands, and they haven't given me any problems. I do a lot of driving on the crappy streets near uc berkeley and in pot hole ridden san francisco.. i'm an advocate for 18s. I do think oem 17"s off 2k-2k1 maxes look nice on 4th gens too.

 

r u talkin about speedy gonzalez?

http://www.cardomain.com/id/speedygonzalez

 

18's do look good, but if you get a nice looking open spaced rim like KLiNkER said then it will all be good. mille miglias have the best looking rims and their rims look bigger than they acually are.

just think that if you got bigger the chance of crap happening is greater and so i the cost to fix it. if you want to maybe spend the money, go for the gold and get them bigger. i personally choose 17;s.

 

17" axis reverbs...yeahhh!!! whatcha think??
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