[X] My Assistant

Man, the HID lights in my bimmer are so damn blue when they first strikenuntil they warm up. 4100K when warm, which is a quite nice color.
mulling over the idea of getting 15" wheels and finding an A/T tire with M+S rating that'll fit it for this winter.
i don't wanna have to swap tires on and off wheels, and 225/55R16 is a bastard size- firestone doesn't even make anything that size, nor can their store order it.

Alpine edir: I could get another set of 16" wheels or reuse my current ones- and General Grabber AT/X tires in 215/65R16. That would be retarded and awesome imo.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Oct 26 2020, 14:02

Man, the HID lights in my bimmer are so damn blue when they first strikenuntil they warm up. 4100K when warm, which is a quite nice color.
mulling over the idea of getting 15" wheels and finding an A/T tire with M+S rating that'll fit it for this winter.
i don't wanna have to swap tires on and off wheels, and 225/55R16 is a bastard size- firestone doesn't even make anything that size, nor can their store order it.

Alpine edir: I could get another set of 16" wheels or reuse my current ones- and General Grabber AT/X tires in 215/65R16. That would be retarded and awesome imo.

I'm having trouble finding 14" snow tires, myself. i've started using 15" steelies from a 940 on my 240 during the winter so I can get snows on it. My 14" Alloys have become summer wheels only.

I had to get 15" wheels for my ranger, as I couldn't source decent 14" tires for it.

Australia rocks as I can just run summer / semi slicks always.

I did a rally event as a joke once, it took a year to clean out all the mud and nature.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Oct 27 2020, 03:17

I had to get 15" wheels for my ranger, as I couldn't source decent 14" tires for it.

Here I can get some michelins and firestones for summer, last I checked. For how much longer though, I don't know. I really hope they don't just totally disappear because I really like my alloys (they aren't in perfect shape but they're so light and they match the car well; I also have a fifth wheel that holds air but is a little warped that works as a spare tire. My car can hold a full-size spare).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 27 2020, 20:20

I should clarify I meant 'all terrain tires in my my brand of choice, firestone'.
Yokohoma has some 14" AT tires, but they're rather spendy and small. LT235/75R15 and 31x10.50R15LT look and perform quite nice on the ranger and dakota respectively, even if they rub near steering lock.
I always carry a full size/full duty spare myself, all 3 vehicles currently in my name came with a dry-rotted OEM spare (full size, but 'temporary' service) that'd never been used.

Trailer has 13" ford pinto wheels, complete with hubcaps. I coildn't find anything for it after the junkyard honda civic tires dry rotted off of it, save for autocross tires. Turns out trailer tires fit automotive rims just fine, and in all honesty are better that application.

shit nowadays has too large of wheels. I get that it allows larger brake rotors and stiffer sidewalls, but it's a dumb styling trend- let the sidewall deal with curbs and take the brunt of potholes.

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Oct 28 2020, 13:18

Yokohama ad08r master race.

shit nowadays has too large of wheels. I get that it allows larger brake rotors and stiffer sidewalls, but it's a dumb styling trend- let the sidewall deal with curbs and take the brunt of potholes.

Long ago, when I moved up to larger 14-inch tires from tiny OEM 13-inch ones, the econo-car performed better for steering, understeer, braking, and potholes. With 13-inchers, there was a sharp curve in the road that I had to drive at approx 13mph because I could notice the front wheels slipping at approx 16 mph. Moving up to 14-inchers on that car with the same rims got rid of that slipping. It's not like I needed all that clearance for tire chains anyways. The next car had 15-inchers and those gripped the road better. The next car had 16-inchers and those gave me a smoother ride over the same bumpy roads than the tiny 14-inchers did; the larger tires handled semi-potholes far better.

So, have having experienced the range of tire sizes, I prefer the larger tires and won't use something smaller than 16-inch nowadays. But all the best high-end performance tires (michelin pilot,continental extremecontact, etc) have 17-inch as their minimum size. That means I will get OEM 17-inch wheels in the next car in order to be able to use all those interesting super-grippy tires and treads.

Currently, I use Continental ProContact (grand touring all season) 16-inch and those are pretty good on dry roads. Their tread and material formulation makes them great at highway speeds though. I had tried Dunlops before which had AA traction, but prefer the conti procontacts for better overall understeer performance. The Dunlops were more predictable though as I could feel the understeer increase with greater speeds but the contis would grip and grip until they finally totally let go and I get a lot of understeer suddenly appearing. Very different personalities.

Whatever the tire, I want them as quiet as I can get. Some tires are really loud and transmit all the road noise and vibration into the chassis. The conti procontacts have been quieter than the loud dunlops. But with Covid going around stopping all the car road trip get-togethers, I don't have any "need" for better performance tires. Still, I want to try both the Conti ExtremeContact DWS all seasons along with the Pirelli Zero Nero but those are all 17-inch or bigger tires the last I checked. And what kind of name is Zero Nero anyways? If they came with a logo of Fate Zero Nero on them, as a loyal anime game consumer, I'd have to buy them. Consumer Reports liked the Zero Nero for lower noise, but that's because Pirelli uses some special noise-dampener inside those tires.

Firestone Destination AT has been my favorite tire so far, especially the LT rated ones. As for highway tread tires, I don't have much experience there- when I went to the firestone store to get a new spare for the bimmer, they didn't have and couldn't order anything in the proper size. I got one from a tire shop in town instead, I just requested something cheap and non-directional. The tires on it are all matched and have decent tread left, so haven't looked further into what tire I'll go with next- won't be anything goodyear though.
The only goodyear tires I've tried, Wrangler Radial, had good traction and treadwear for the budget price, but damn they had sloppy sidewalls. Mid tier tires with a whole inch more of sidewall either side of the rim were much stiffer.


I just looked on tirerack, and they actually have firestones and bridgestones in the right size. Wut?I may have had a not very bright sales person, or just one that's too lazy to special order something.

Whatever the tire, I want them as quiet as I can get.

14's do a pretty good job of that by virtue of air cushioning, and weigh less so I get probably better fuel economy as well.
And I have Michelins (not pilots, though).

As I've never felt out-of-control, even in a 27-year-old RWD car, I guess it just comes down to "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

And if you switched wheel sizes when you switched cars it's probable that the ones with a "smoother ride" just had better suspension system designs rather than all being attributable to the wheel sizes.

My car uses macpherson struts on the front and pretty normal shocks in the back.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Oct 29 2020, 05:33

I ended up getting 15" wheels and a set of Yokohama Geolandar A/T in P225/70R15 for it. I'll stick em on when the weather gets worse, as I sispect they have worse dry traction and stiffness than my current tires.

First snow of the year, though none has stuck yet. Hedging my bets on wether to put winters on this weekend.

17 is optimum for track times.

17 is optimum for track times.

good thing I'm not driving a naturally aspirated ~114hp automatic transmission volvo on a track with my 14's, then.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 19 2020, 12:55

good thing I'm not driving a naturally aspirated ~114hp automatic transmission volvo on a track with my 14's, then.

The more tire you have the smoother it will feel but you trade cornering speed.


Luckily I am not driving a {redacted} with {redacted} hp.


Though not driving much at the moment due to covid 19.

I got a massive flat on one of my almost-brand-new winters today.
And I was a complete fucking retard and used the wrong point to jack the car up; punched a plug or something out of the underside of my car and now there's a perfectly circular hole in the floor. Fuck my life.

At least it wasn't metal, I hope. The circle wasn't from the shape of the jack, which has a rectangular top.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 20 2020, 03:19

Turns out I just punched in some metal disc that was installed as a sort of plug by the factory; I've sealed it back up again and now it's good to go, no permanent harm done.

Also, my rim had rusted away and wasn't forming a seal. Got another secondhand 15" steelie to replace it and I'm back in business.

The bead seat on my trailer's spare rusted out and I had to replace that wheel. Still not a fan of steelies, though they fail with more grace than alloys.

Bimmer is acting like a chicktopus when cold, I need to pull the codes and see if it gives me any clue as to why. Sputtering, stalling, and no throttle response. Still runs great once it's warm.

Still not a fan of steelies, though they fail with more grace than alloys.

Good quality alloys will fail the same or even absorb more shock.... that being said...

Poor quality and repo alloys can fail spectacularly. Some of the repo alloys from China have had catastrophic failures that i have seen.

A basic failure would be a cracked rim, where as the catastrophic failures are where the wheel self destructs and the wheel flys off the hub

a bent steel rim is probably easier to repair.

The bead seat on my trailer's spare rusted out and I had to replace that wheel. Still not a fan of steelies, though they fail with more grace than alloys.

Bimmer is acting like a chicktopus when cold, I need to pull the codes and see if it gives me any clue as to why. Sputtering, stalling, and no throttle response. Still runs great once it's warm.

I don't love steelies, either, but that's exactly why I'm using them for my winter tires.

Volvo never even made a 15" rim specifically for my car, and they use a somewhat uncommon 5-point bolt pattern (ever so slightly different from the Saab 5-point spacing), so it's a lot easier for me to just get 15" steels from a 940 (the successor model to the successor model for my car's series, despite it being in production during the same year as mine). And the reason for my using 15's is that no one seems to make good snows anymore for 14" rims. My summers are 14" aluminums that were meant for the 740 GLE. Given that my car is RWD, I really can use any extra traction I can get.

I'm not a fan of the rusting, either, but I can't argue against cheap. This secondhand steel rim was around $40 and the guy helped me pop my tyre off the old wheel and put it on the new one. Despite my desires for my car to be perfect, it's never going to be show-grade and probably doesn't have more than 10-15 more years in it at maximum (and probably less than that before it starts getting corrosion-holes in the floor or the rocker panels reach the point of no return). Such is the life of a midwestern car that sees snowfall and road salt. At the end of the day, I'm probably going to end up getting another one from Arizona or its neighbors, if I ever want (read: can afford) one with an immaculate body.

As an aside, someone makes trunk lids for the sedan version of my car in carbon fiber. Wish they made a wagon tailgate out of something like that (or maybe aluminum would be even better), too; the tailgate in mine is steel, and the tailgate design is prone to rusting.

a bent steel rim is probably easier to repair.

I have a fifth aluminum wheel that I use as a full-size spare because it's somewhat warped. Seems to still hold air, but I don't think it's likely justifiable to try to fix it.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Nov 24 2020, 10:10