Ride with 18"wheels hard - how to soften ride a little?

[gareth_oau]

Lesson 3: no rubber, great feeling! :p

and a great fireworks display

[dave_r]

and a great fireworks display

what a woman!

[Johnbu]

18s, look great, unfortunately unless you drive on smooth roads, the 17s will be much more comfortable. Over time it will mean less rattles on your car also.

While the larger wheels look sportier, the 17s will be faster around a track. In the real world it will be even faster as you don't have to slow down as much as the road gets worst.

Other than the profile of tyres, a heavier wheel will also crash into bumps harder than a lighter wheel.

Not always a good idea to get the largest wheels that can be optioned/fit.

[pologti18t]

You may find the ride improves as you put kms on it.

Otherwise... have a looks at some luxo barges and see what tyres they use. You could change your Dunlops (stiff sidewall) for another brand in the same size and get an improvement in ride.

For instance... the ride on mu 2006 Polo GTI was acceptable on the original Continentals. On the replacement Michelin Precedas the ride is noticeably firmer.

[brad]

car has Dunlop 225/40 ZR18s.

AdamD, one of my options is to get 17s (same as car I test drove). Of course, I don't know whether I just didn't notice it then or whether it is the 17"- 18". This was the reason for the original question - of how much the lower profile compared to springs / shocks contributed to the ride. I like the look of the 18s a lot, so would prefer to adjust springs /shocks, but will wait until what VW say.

Thanks for all the comments everyone!

If it was me I'd look at the following....

1. try lowering tyre pressures down to 36F/34R. You can't go much lower than that because of the short sidewall.
2. switch to a tyre with a more compliant sidewall such as the Bridgestone RE001 Adrenaline. This will be at the expense of some steering responsiveness at turn-in.
3. change shock aborbers to something like a Koni FSD
4. switch to 17" rims with 45 series tyres

[nat225]

...........
[*] switch to a tyre with a more compliant sidewall such as the Bridgestone RE001 Adrenaline. This will be at the expense of some steering responsiveness at turn-in.
......

I thought the RE001 is even less comfortable than RE050A??

Kumho KU23 has the softest sidewall I ever seen. I could only stand using them for 1 week a few years ago, then threw them away at 1/2 price, cos the car felt like it was floating on the water altough it was 225 40 18, and the psi was 38!

[brad]

I thought the RE001 is even less comfortable than RE050A??

Not from the experience of the half-dozen users on the other forum I'm involved in but there are a few on VWwc that have a differing opinion.

The people I know have tried both RE050A & RE001. Some liked the added ride comfort & were willing to forego the turn-in response, others preferred the slightly sharper handling of the RE050A. One guy I know hated the extra compliance of the RE001 so much he planted potatoes in them after 10,000km.

[schoona]

18s, look great, unfortunately unless you drive on smooth roads, the 17s will be much more comfortable. Over time it will mean less rattles on your car also.

While the larger wheels look sportier, the 17s will be faster around a track. In the real world it will be even faster as you don't have to slow down as much as the road gets worst.

Other than the profile of tyres, a heavier wheel will also crash into bumps harder than a lighter wheel.

Not always a good idea to get the largest wheels that can be optioned/fit.

18s are plenty comfortable. I'm not sure the root cause of rattles (or number of, can be directly attributed to 17 or 18" wheels). By that logic my car on 15" front and 16" rears should have 0 rattles. :S

17s faster round the racetrack. If said owner is serious about racetrack, and being fast, owner will have coilovers. It's a moot point. Does not compute....

[MikeB]

as an update I went to visit VW today. They were quite helpful, checked the suspension out and went for a ride with me.

Mechanic said this was a normal ride for the GTIs with the 18" wheels. In fact he thought it was fine (though he said he had one with 19" wheels.... so relatively this rode fine). He thought the suspension looked different underneath to standard GTIs.... but then chatted to Sales who said it should be the same (?).

Anyway, I am going to try and get used to it for a few more weeks and see how it is then. Then, options are the 17" (but like these wheels too much) or suspension. Lets hope I get used to it. Mechanic said suspension might soften up with use..... not sure if that was wishful thinking. (Thanks Brad and others for the good suggestions list).

Quite separately, regarding alloy rim protection, somewhere in the forum I saw a protective tape strip for edge of rims.... with this video showing wheel grinding into curb without damage. Can't find it now - anyone know the name of it?

[Corey_R]

One of those products is called Rim Skins