Quote:
Originally Posted by HydroJim
A lot of this depends on your driving. If you mainly do highway, focus on Aero and tire height. If you do a lot of in town driving, focus on reducing weight.
If you can do both at the same time, go for it.
Do make sure that 15" wheels will fit around your brakes. The corolla and matrix share a lot, so they'll probably fit. But just make sure first. I'd personally save my money and just go for taller LRR tires with the same tread width.
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I do a fair amount of both hwy and city. The 15 inchers will fit, no problem, it seems. I took a peek under my car, and there's a lot of gap between the drums/rotors and the wheel.
It's looking like I'm going to go w/ my original plan. I found some 15" Corolla factory steel wheels WITH tires with decent tread on them, for a decent price. Only thing is that it's got 195/60R15 instead of the 195/65R15 that I want.
I'll probably just run them for a while to extract my $ worth, then change them out for the right size.
I believe the change from 16" to 15" factory steels will net me 3-4 lbs weight savings per wheel, and 10mm in tire width. I'm hoping this'll show up in fuel economy #s.
The local pick-a-part yard wants $49/ea for 16" aluminum, and $43 for 16" steel, and 15" aluminum for $44, 15" steel for $39.
With whatever I end up getting, I'll be sure to weigh & A-B test them.
Sidenote: When I originally purchased my car, I was test driving the '07 Corolla vs the '07 Matrix. I noticed how much smoother the ride was in the Corolla. It occurred to me the other day that
perhaps part of the reason the ride was much smoother in the Corolla was that it was equipped with 15" wheels vs 16"? (15" is standard on the Corolla, vs 16" on the Matrix). Hmmm.