Wheel noob - 19" / 18" performance change questions -

ayau

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Honda put 20s primarily for aesthetic reasons. Let’s not kid ourselves. If the base hatch gets 18s, then the FK8 would have to one up it.

You can get 18 tires with stiffer sidewalls. Most are just soft for comfort reasons. You can also run a slightly stretched tire and that will stiffen the sidewall. For example, run 245 tires on 9.5 width wheels.
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Florence_NC

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So with respect to going to a 19 or an 18, is there a setup of a 19 or 18 that feels essentially stock, has the same performance, or is it always a step down when you go down from the stock 20 to something else?

I'm intrigued by the different sizes but I am loathe to give up performance for a bit better ability to handle a bump. Just curious if that's realistic or if there is always some tradeoff.

If there are tradeoffs - what are they, and are they worse 18 vs 19? (would assume so)

If the 19 is not that big of a step, but still maintains stock driving characteristics, what's the most aggressive size / tire size for a 19 setup?

Thanks all!
Where do you live/What is your winter weather?
 
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NapalmEnema

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Where do you live/What is your winter weather?
Houston - so it gets a brisk 70 and we shut down the city for a few months and weather it, then come back out when it's 70+ lol.

Very mild / hot and humid
 

Florence_NC

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Houston - so it gets a brisk 70 and we shut down the city for a few months and weather it, then come back out when it's 70+ lol.

Very mild / hot and humid
I am familiar with Houston. I live in Charlotte, a bit cooler, but no real winter.

My advice: If you like the stock wheels, and the way the car drives, get a set of PS4s and drive them year round. You will never regret the decision. 30K lifespan, great wet and dry, in any temps down to the low 30's. Certainly good in anything you will ever see.

I am similar to you, I like the aggressive way the car drives. I don't mind the ride of the 20" wheels, and I don't get all the complaints about them. So what if putting a set of 18"s makes it ride like an Accord. If I wanted an Accord ride, I would have bought an Accord. This car is a Corvette with 4 doors and a hatchback. I both expect and want it to ride like a Corvette.

Anyway, back the PS4s. These tires are the real deal. The single-best thing you can do to your car if you daily drive and want 20" wheels.

And as to the fear of bending the stock wheels, I put 43K on my 2018 CTR, and have almost 12K on my 2019, all with OEM wheels. Haven't bent one yet. There is a reason they are so heavy, it takes lots of metal to make a strong wheel. You will not likely find an aftermarket 20" that will hold up under true daily driving.
 
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NapalmEnema

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I am familiar with Houston. I live in Charlotte, a bit cooler, but no real winter.

My advice: If you like the stock wheels, and the way the car drives, get a set of PS4s and drive them year round. You will never regret the decision. 30K lifespan, great wet and dry, in any temps down to the low 30's. Certainly good in anything you will ever see.

I am similar to you, I like the aggressive way the car drives. I don't mind the ride of the 20" wheels, and I don't get all the complaints about them. So what if putting a set of 18"s makes it ride like an Accord. If I wanted an Accord ride, I would have bought an Accord. This car is a Corvette with 4 doors and a hatchback. I both expect and want it to ride like a Corvette.

Anyway, back the PS4s. These tires are the real deal. The single-best thing you can do to your car if you daily drive and want 20" wheels.

And as to the fear of bending the stock wheels, I put 43K on my 2018 CTR, and have almost 12K on my 2019, all with OEM wheels. Haven't bent one yet. There is a reason they are so heavy, it takes lots of metal to make a strong wheel. You will not likely find an aftermarket 20" that will hold up under true daily driving.
Thanks - Found them - had to refresh then put in my car again weird -

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tire...Year=2019&autoModel=Civic Type R&autoModClar=

Appreciate the feedback this is what I will go with next and hope to get more miles out of them than stock!
 
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SBD47

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I am familiar with Houston. I live in Charlotte, a bit cooler, but no real winter.

My advice: If you like the stock wheels, and the way the car drives, get a set of PS4s and drive them year round. You will never regret the decision. 30K lifespan, great wet and dry, in any temps down to the low 30's. Certainly good in anything you will ever see.

I am similar to you, I like the aggressive way the car drives. I don't mind the ride of the 20" wheels, and I don't get all the complaints about them. So what if putting a set of 18"s makes it ride like an Accord. If I wanted an Accord ride, I would have bought an Accord. This car is a Corvette with 4 doors and a hatchback. I both expect and want it to ride like a Corvette.

Anyway, back the PS4s. These tires are the real deal. The single-best thing you can do to your car if you daily drive and want 20" wheels.

And as to the fear of bending the stock wheels, I put 43K on my 2018 CTR, and have almost 12K on my 2019, all with OEM wheels. Haven't bent one yet. There is a reason they are so heavy, it takes lots of metal to make a strong wheel. You will not likely find an aftermarket 20" that will hold up under true daily driving.
I’m glad you like the 20” setup, but I disagree with some of your points. The Type-R isn’t using 20” wheels because of some performance benefit, it’s purely aesthetic. The 20s that Honda uses are very heavy for their size, and still bend fairly easily. Putting 18” wheels on this car doesn’t make it ride like an Accord. The two cars have completely different suspension setups. If the Type-R needed 20” wheels to perform at its peak, why does the Civic Type-R TCR race car come with 18”x10” wheels?
 

Florence_NC

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I’m glad you like the 20” setup, but I disagree with some of your points.
Much of what I stated here is my personal preference. You can't really "disagree' with my personal preference. You can have a different personal preference. You can not like my personal preference. You can think I am a fool for my personal preference. But you can't "disagree" with it. It is what it is, and it is mine. There is nothing about it for you to disagree with.

You saying that you disagree with my personal preference is like you saying you "disagree" with the sun rising in the east every morning. You might prefer the sun rise in the north, you might prefer the sun to only rise every other day, you might even prefer it not rise at all. But you can't "disagree" with it rising as it does. It is a fact, and your preferences or opinions have nothing to do with the reality of that fact.


The Type-R isn’t using 20” wheels because of some performance benefit, it’s purely aesthetic.
As I suspect you have no evidence to support this statement, that makes this is primarily your opinion. But my four decades of racing experience, plus just a little mechanical understanding and application of logic would tell you that if you change the sidewall height of a tire, the performance and response of that tire will be different. If you keep the same model of tire but change the setup to a taller sidewall, there will be, in almost every situation, a reduction in turn-in responsiveness. I have witnessed that myself on other cars. These very forums are filled with people that have put 18"s on their CTR that say something to the effect of:

"The ride is much smoother, but the turn-in and sharpness is diminished".

So despite your statement about aesthetics, I can provide mountains of evidence to demonstrate that there is, in fact, a performance difference when changing wheel/tire sizes. (OK, not actual MOUNTAINS, more on that later. Don't go sideways on the "mountains" thing until you read the rest of this post.)

And even if it is true, maybe I prefer the aesthetics of the 20s. Once again, my preference that you can't "disagree" with.

The 20s that Honda uses are very heavy for their size,
I already said this, but thanks for agreeing with me.

and still bend fairly easily.
What is "easy"? And after you define "easy", do you have any evidence to substantiate that claim? Because I have 55k bend-free miles of empirical evidence that says otherwise.

Putting 18” wheels on this car doesn’t make it ride like an Accord. The two cars have completely different suspension setups.
Wow, somebody always misses the point. My statement here is hyperbole.

hy·per·bo·le
/hīˈpərbəlē/
noun
noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles
  1. exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
  2. a figure of speech that uses extreme exaggeration to make a point or show emphasis

I didn't mean that 18's would LITERALLY make the car drive like an Accord, I meant in a hyperbolic fashion that...

You know what, nevermind. It is absolutely amazing to me how people in the internet age just don't get things. If I were to say that "my grandfather is older than dirt", would you think that I literally meant the dirt we were standing on was born AFTER my grandfather? "Older than dirt" & "mountains of evidence" are statements of hyperbole, not to be taken at literal face value. Your lesson for the day, no charge.

If the Type-R needed 20” wheels to perform at its peak, why does the Civic Type-R TCR race car come with 18”x10” wheels?
The TCR is a race car, completely irrelevant to this discussion. It is also running slicks, not DOT tires. And looking at the pictures, the overall tire diameter is a lot smaller than the OEM tires, so the actual sidewall height is not that much different from the OEM setup. But once again, event that fact is irrelevant.
 

SBD47

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Much of what I stated here is my personal preference. You can't really "disagree' with my personal preference. You can have a different personal preference. You can not like my personal preference. You can think I am a fool for my personal preference. But you can't "disagree" with it. It is what it is, and it is mine. There is nothing about it for you to disagree with.

You saying that you disagree with my personal preference is like you saying you "disagree" with the sun rising in the east every morning. You might prefer the sun rise in the north, you might prefer the sun to only rise every other day, you might even prefer it not rise at all. But you can't "disagree" with it rising as it does. It is a fact, and your preferences or opinions have nothing to do with the reality of that fact.



As I suspect you have no evidence to support this statement, that makes this is primarily your opinion. But my four decades of racing experience, plus just a little mechanical understanding and application of logic would tell you that if you change the sidewall height of a tire, the performance and response of that tire will be different. If you keep the same model of tire but change the setup to a taller sidewall, there will be, in almost every situation, a reduction in turn-in responsiveness. I have witnessed that myself on other cars. These very forums are filled with people that have put 18"s on their CTR that say something to the effect of:

"The ride is much smoother, but the turn-in and sharpness is diminished".

So despite your statement about aesthetics, I can provide mountains of evidence to demonstrate that there is, in fact, a performance difference when changing wheel/tire sizes. (OK, not actual MOUNTAINS, more on that later. Don't go sideways on the "mountains" thing until you read the rest of this post.)

And even if it is true, maybe I prefer the aesthetics of the 20s. Once again, my preference that you can't "disagree" with.


I already said this, but thanks for agreeing with me.


What is "easy"? And after you define "easy", do you have any evidence to substantiate that claim? Because I have 55k bend-free miles of empirical evidence that says otherwise.


Wow, somebody always misses the point. My statement here is hyperbole.

hy·per·bo·le
/hīˈpərbəlē/
noun
noun: hyperbole; plural noun: hyperboles
  1. exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
  2. a figure of speech that uses extreme exaggeration to make a point or show emphasis

I didn't mean that 18's would LITERALLY make the car drive like an Accord, I meant in a hyperbolic fashion that...

You know what, nevermind. It is absolutely amazing to me how people in the internet age just don't get things. If I were to say that "my grandfather is older than dirt", would you think that I literally meant the dirt we were standing on was born AFTER my grandfather? "Older than dirt" & "mountains of evidence" are statements of hyperbole, not to be taken at literal face value. Your lesson for the day, no charge.


The TCR is a race car, completely irrelevant to this discussion. It is also running slicks, not DOT tires. And looking at the pictures, the overall tire diameter is a lot smaller than the OEM tires, so the actual sidewall height is not that much different from the OEM setup. But once again, event that fact is irrelevant.
I disagree with your entire post. ?
 

ayau

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If the Type-R needed 20” wheels to perform at its peak, why does the Civic Type-R TCR race car come with 18”x10” wheels?
Pretty sure wheel/tire sizes are regulated, but I agree about your point of putting 20s for mainly for aesthetic reasons.

Reducing rotational mass is literally the best performance modification you can make to any car.
 
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ayau

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Other than aesthetics, I find very little reasons to keep riding on the 20s. Here are a few objective reasons to pick the 18s over 20s.

More tire options
Cheaper tires
Less rotational mass
More sidewall protection

The argument about reduced turn in response from 18s can be mitigated by running tires with stiffer sidewalls. Typically these are tires in the extreme summer category, e.g., RE71, Direzza ZIII, etc. You can also run slightly "stretched" tires, e.g., 18x9.5 on 245 width tire.
 


R-00401

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Should you care to experience the 18" ride feel, you can rip around town with me in the passenger seat. I've daily-driven on 18s through 40k miles in Boston, Austin, and Houston. I work in Montrose, so central-ish Houston.
 

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Fascinating discussion, though much of the technical stuff kind of swoops over my head. My knowledge of tires and wheels stops pretty much at "they're round, and they go on cars." Ok, maybe not quite that, but my main interest is really what I'm going to put on the car come winter. Which here means early November, when I swap to winter tires until early April. Yeah, that's at least five months a year on snow tires, because even though this summer is very warm, we had snow flurries beyond Mother's Day in May, and that's not unusual. I've been in large snowstorms starting the first week in November, too.

So, what I try to do normally is downsize for the winter. With my GTI, I went from 18 to 16" wheels. With the Golf R, I dropped to 17" wheels, because the 16" wouldn't clear the calipers. On my S5 I had the 18" wheels to begin with and said screw it, and just went with the same size Hakkapalitas. For this car, I definitely am NOT going to run 20" "snow tires," as that's pretty much an abomination (and a costly one). So, it'll be 18" wheels and whatever good snow tire I can find (right now, that seems to be Blizzaks, though I prefer the Michelin tires. I'm looking mostly at Tire Rack, where I always get my wheels/tires, and the packages they have start from around $1400 for wheels and tires, lowballing it, and can reach, well, sky's the limit for fancy stuff.

Looks are not unimportant, but mechanical function is my main interest. Given that nearly half the year is spent riding on these things, I can't imagine just winging it with a setup that would perform horribly, but the priority still has to be enabling my daily driver to get to where I need to go even when the white stuff is abundant (assuming my driveway gets plowed; no car I've owned can get out through 8" or more of snow given how low these things are). And yes, the CTR is my DD. I have one car, my wife has hers, and the garage holds only two. I'm also cheap, and unless the second car is a Porsche and I could afford a three-car garage (which I can't) it's gonna stay that way.

So this thread is interesting because, unlike many discussions of winter tires, I'm not thinking about a very brief interlude, but a substantial part of the year riding on downsized wheels/tires. I have zero scientific evidence about anything, but in the past, downsizing for winter has always worked well, and I have never had any issues as long as the sizes of the components balance out and hit the right tolerances.

Oh, and don't be fooled--if you live in the frozen wastelands, snow tires > all seasons by a country mile.
 
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NapalmEnema

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Should you care to experience the 18" ride feel, you can rip around town with me in the passenger seat. I've daily-driven on 18s through 40k miles in Boston, Austin, and Houston. I work in Montrose, so central-ish Houston.
Small world I live close to you I'm at ~Richmond and Shepherd myself. Do you park downtown on one of the city streets in your blue Type R? I pass one when I go to the office.

Definitely interested for a ridealong once this pandemic BS is past a bit :)
 

R-00401

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Small world I live close to you I'm at ~Richmond and Shepherd myself. Do you park downtown on one of the city streets in your blue Type R? I pass one when I go to the office.

Definitely interested for a ridealong once this pandemic BS is past a bit :)
I am usually parked out around Westheimer & Montrose. I commute in from Sugar Land. It's a great 22-mile drive on the freeway, but the local streets are less than smooth.
 

Dave B

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I think people think steering and handling are the same thing. They are not. My 2009 Mazda3 has wonderful steering but actually handles very poorly. Mr CTR doesn't steer as well even on 20 inch rims but clearly handles much better. The advantage of a short side wall on a 20 inch rim is good steering response but the costs both financial and performance wise are high. Few race cars use tires with such relatively low aspect ratios and yet they handle pretty well. If you are worried about losing steering feel with a smaller diameter rim then stock, just choose your tire well.
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