Crikey....21KG per corner wheel weight ! Is this normal ?

[ExPat2B]

I know my V70 phase 2 is a heavy old hector.

However, I was not expecting the wheels to weigh 21KG a corner. I just swopped over to the 16" winter steel wheels from the summer 17" alloy wheels, and I have some heavyweight digital scales so I thought I would weigh them....

The 17" alloy's weigh 21kg with 225/45/17 Goodyear Eagle Asymmetric tyres

The 16" steel wheels weigh 17KG with 205/55/16 Nokian WR A3 tyres.

Unsuprisingly the ride is absolutely transformed. Seriously considering getting some lightweight 16" alloys to replace the summer tyres.. however I do worry that as the V70 D5 185bhp puts down 400nm and weigh 1500KG it will bend anything light enough to make a difference.

[BritishRacinGrin]

That's progress to think alloys used to be all about the weight advantage...

[Toaster Pilot]

If the ride is transformed why not just keep the steels with summer tyres? Did a base model come with trims so you can keep the oem look?

Sell the alloys

[ExPat2B]

Just looked up the tyre weights,

9K for the Goodyears.

8.3KG for the Nokians.

So the alloys weigh 3.3 KG more.....

[kambites]

Crap isn't it, but what buyers seem to want is big wheels; they couldn't care less that they weigh half a tonne and completely ruin the handling.

[Scuffers]

ExPat2B said:

I know my V70 phase 2 is a heavy old hector.

However, I was not expecting the wheels to weigh 21KG a corner. I just swopped over to the 16" winter steel wheels from the summer 17" alloy wheels, and I have some heavyweight digital scales so I thought I would weigh them....

The 17" alloy's weigh 21kg with 225/45/17 Goodyear Eagle Asymmetric tyres

The 16" steel wheels weigh 17KG with 205/55/16 Nokian WR A3 tyres.

Unsuprisingly the ride is absolutely transformed. Seriously considering getting some lightweight 16" alloys to replace the summer tyres.. however I do worry that as the V70 D5 185bhp puts down 400nm and weigh 1500KG it will bend anything light enough to make a difference.

if you were really bothered about weight, you would just run cheap tin rimms and appropriate tyres.

as for wheel strength, whatever power you think your engine can put out, it pales into insignificants compared to suspension loads.

Oh, and whilst we are talking un-sprung weights, consider the wheel&tyre account for only about half of it.

[krallicious]

The 17s weigh 12kg? Wow, my 19s are 9kg front and 10.9kg rear.

[mizx]

krallicious said:

The 17s weigh 12kg? Wow, my 19s are 9kg front and 10.9kg rear.

Probably because it's just cast and quite a dense casting, they're probably pretty tough though.

My aftermarket 17x9"s on my MX5 are 7.1kg, flow-formed or forged wheels like ours (the 911 I assume?) aren't cheap if you want strength and lightness.

Edited by mizx on Monday 1st December 14:52

[Black_S3]

Same choice of tyres as me:

225/45/17 F1 asym as summer tyres
225/50/17 D3 as winters


I've noticed similar on the ride/comfort side of things, so you're probably seeing the improvement from a larger profile + a tyre with a softer sidewall.

[2stis]

ExPat2B said:

however I do worry that as the V70 D5 185bhp puts down 400nm and weigh 1500KG it will bend anything light enough to make a difference.

You should be fine - although my car is slightly lighter than a D5 it also has more torque and I have had a set of 17" cast wheels on it that weigh less than 7kg each and haven't had any bending, even with tracking it regularly.

[shoestring7]

kambites said:

Crap isn't it, but what buyers seem to want is big wheels; they couldn't care less that they weigh half a tonne and completely ruin the handling.

Agreed. I looked up the weights for the strong as fk forged alloys on my car.

The fronts (15x7) are 12lbs (5.4kgs), the rears (15x8) are 14lbs (6.4kgs).

Now that's a light weight alloy.

SS7

[Kawasicki]

kambites said:

Crap isn't it, but what buyers seem to want is big wheels; they couldn't care less that they weigh half a tonne and completely ruin the handling.

They don't completely ruin the handling. There are some handling advantages (agility/yaw damping) to reducing the profile from 60 to 40.

[Scuffers]

Kawasicki said:

kambites said:

Crap isn't it, but what buyers seem to want is big wheels; they couldn't care less that they weigh half a tonne and completely ruin the handling.

They don't completely ruin the handling. There are some handling advantages (agility/yaw damping) to reducing the profile from 60 to 40.

in the bigger picture, it's all pretty meaningless going on about wheel weights, the tyres often exceed the weight of the wheels - do you buy your tyres on how much they weigh in at?

quite apart from that, for a road car, whatever the wheels/tyres weight is only part of the un-sprung mass, so making a 5Kg's change is pretty insignificant.

Most OEM wheels are very cheaply made low-pressure die cast stuff, they normally don't even bother to heat treat them, hence they are usually pretty heavy (over-engineered) and relatively soft (so they bend on impacts rather than shatter).

to compare this with proper forged (and I mean press-forged not 'flow-formed' or the like) is like comparing a gold rolex watch with a swatch, apart from both telling the time, they have bugger all in common.

[kambites]

Kawasicki said:

kambites said:

Crap isn't it, but what buyers seem to want is big wheels; they couldn't care less that they weigh half a tonne and completely ruin the handling.

They don't completely ruin the handling. There are some handling advantages (agility/yaw damping) to reducing the profile from 60 to 40.

Reducing the tyre profile obviously has advantages. Increasing unsprung mass to ridiculous levels, in my experience, does not.