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which handles better?? GTI STOCK 17's or 18's

B

bubba_sideways

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Toronto
Sorry, you guys aren't going to notice a difference between the 17s and 18s, unless the tire is SIGNIFICANTLY different in construction. Perhaps at the track, you might notice a difference, but I don't suspect that anyone here is going to have the opportunity to drive the same set up on the same car with the same track conditions.

Buy the 18s if you want rice it up.

Buy the 17s if you're a driver.
 
dmclone

dmclone

Oval Champion
Location
Iowa
I think the 17's look a lot better then the 18's. I would have paid more for them. It does look like the 18's would be easier to clean though.
 
B

budgy

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Red Deer, Alberta
The smaller the diameter and the lighter the better from a performance aspect. If i was buying a set of rims for the track id get 16's with some damn sticky tires.

But I dont track my car, I just like too drive fast once in a while and have a good understanding of how extra unsprung weight can ruin a cars handling/braking performance. But at the same time its hard too ignore how good 18's look on the GTI. I will probably get some 18" OZ Ultraleggera's with Kumho MX tires, and end up around 40.5 pounds a corner thats 8.5 less a corner than the stock 17's and 14.5 less than the stock 18's id say thats a good compromise on speed/looks/price.
 
loccusst

loccusst

FIA GT Champion
Location
IA
Car(s)
MKV GTI
Don't forget rotational mass robs HP. Lighter tire better HP. The best would be a light rim wrapped in a light sticky tire that clears the brakes. How well do your guys summer performance tires handle in the rain? I have the all season performance and they actually do all right in the rain.....dry traction not as good as they should.
 
dwl137

dwl137

Touring Car Champion
Location
Pennsylvania
Quick question, I know that if you get the 18"s from factory they have the bump stops in them, but if you get the 17"s from factory and want to put the 18"s on later, am I gonna need to get the bump stops put in since I got the factory 17"s? Or are the stops in there no matter what.
 
S

Scotaku

FIA World Rally Car Champion
Location
.
AJChenMPH said:
The only thing you might really notice is the relative lack of sidewall flex on the 18's vs. the 17's. Even then, with summer performance tires, there will be very little sidewall flex with the 17's. From a pure performance standpoint, I'd stick with the 17's.

Then again, I'm seriously planning on carrying over my 16's from my Passat for snow tires, and then getting really lightweight 17's (~18 lbs) with really good summer tires.
Click to expand...

What Andy said... :p

I'm keeping my snows on steelies and my ASA EM9 17's that have been on the Passat. That leaves me in need of a set of oems though to sell with the Passat and with a set of oems from the GTI. There's also a set of Gatorbacks for the Cobra already in the garage. My wife is going to kill me. :nervous:
 
G

GTT

Touring Car Champion
Location
US, Chicago
Will your girlfriend notice if your penis is 6 or 7 inches?
Will she notice if it's 2" wide or 2.5" wide?

Some guys are just obsessed with size. But, there it is. :)

I'd say go for the 20's and no one will notice the size of you "other" parts.

T
 
W

Wantagti

insufficient funds
Location
Apex, NC
Car(s)
Chevy Suburban Z71
I wonder how much a decent set of 17's would run? I really like
Rota's but haven't seen the right bolt pattern. I'd like to find a 17" set for about $700 or less if they are lighter than the OE 17"s.
 
D

dopalacz

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Poznan / POLAND
18 !! !!

IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE YOUR RIDE TO PROFESSIONALL TRACK AND AS FAR AS YOU'RE GOOD DRIVER U WON'T FEEL THE DIFFERENCE !!
18 LOOKS WAY BETTER
 
T

tydale3

Rally Car Champion
Location
Indiana
bigger is for looks only. 17s are lighter and give you a slight lower final gear ratio. the car is faster with 17s higher top end with 18s. I thinks the 17s look better, the 18s look cheesy to me. The reason the car is higher in the usa is not because of bumper height restrictions. Its because our roads suck compaired to Germany and most other countrys.
 
DBCPerformance

DBCPerformance

OEM & AFTERMARKET PARTS
Location
T E X A S
Car(s)
An Imaginary GT2
I got my car with 18s, because i liked the way they looked. My previous car was an 05 Mini Cooper S and it had 17" rims with runflat tires, the minute i changed them to smaller and lighter rims with nice sticky (Good Year F1 GS-D3) I noticed quite difference in braking and just a little better acceleration. As far as handling is concerned like others said above, unless you do track days and auto-cross, it is hard to tell the difference. On the other side, if the 18s are 29+ibs like claimed in previous posts, that is a lot of weight. For now, my car is in breake-in mode, after the 1500th mile i will consider my options on the wheels, which will definetely be lighter 18s. BTW, 18s have nothing to do with "ricer". Misconfusion on that:biggrin:
 
D

dopalacz

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Poznan / POLAND
tydale3 you're so wrong !!!
have u ever been to europe ? AUTOBAHN's in Germany are the best,there are no speed limits mostly , but in my country ( Poland ) roads are way worse than in USA. I've visited Vermont and NY and you have very wide and good roads . I have very narrow roads , often roads between major cities are 1 line each side of the road , can u imagine that ???
 
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