I just bought an 02 saturn SL1 and need opinions
 

Hi everyone thanks for reading me post. I am new to the forum and am looking forward to reading through more of the mods driving techniques in the forum!!

I do have one question that I have searched for but I haven't been able to find an answer to fully help in my situation.

So here's some background info.
I just bought a 02 Saturn Sl1, it has power windows locks, and from what I can tell pretty much every option for the car. High milage but runs very strong, suspension, clutch, engine, tranny all feel very tight and smooth still.
the tires are 185/65-14's, 2 are fairly new, the other 2 I will have to change out before next winter.

I also own a 04 Saturn Ion that I put a very nice set of michelin defenders (I am new it won't let me post a link) that have less than 2000 miles on them now I am now going to sell the
Ion
tire size 195/60-15
and keep the
Sl1
tire size 185/65-14

My question is if a swap the michelins that are on the Ion for the tires on my Sl1 before I sell the Ion what is it going to cost me in real world ramifications e.g. gas millage, speedo/mileage reading changes, handling, final gear ratios, etc.?

AND

What is your opinion on whether it is worth it to change tire and wheel sizes for the Sl1 but not have to worry about tires for a long time vs. biting the bullet and sticking to stock size and have to replace the tires next year?

If you can give me real world data on what the changes will be that would be great, otherwise what is your opinion what would you do if you were me?

thanks in advance guys I know it is a long first post but any impute would be very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any advise!

From my understanding here on the ecomodder forums, Taller tires are better for Highway /freeway cruising, but can hurt city driving quite a bit. So if your commute is 80% Highway/freeway and 20% city you might see a gain. If it's vise versa, it will hurt your mpg. I can vouch for that. I'm 2 sizes bigger on my insight (not by choice) and I struggle to maintain 55mpg in the city when most hypermilers can get ~65-70.

Looks like the Ion's tires are about 3% larger. http://tire-size-conversion.com/tire-size-comparison/
Like Balto said, that would likely help your highway mileage. Another thing to consider is that you'll be giving the Ion's new owner smaller than stock tires. Shouldn't really matter to most buyers, but I would be sure it doesn't hurt the handling and notify the buyer of the different size.

You might want to double check on that tire size because I'm pretty sure SL1's run a 185/70r14, not a 65; the PO may have put the wrong size on it. My 02 SL2 runs 185/65r15's and I've confirmed that it is indeed the stock size. 185/70r14 would be roughly the same overall height as my 15's.

**nevermind. a quick Google search shows that the 185/65r14 is indeed the correct size. Seems strange though as that's a full 1" shorter than my 02 SL2 and would, presumably, require a speedo recalibration on Saturn's behalf between different versions of the same car. :confused:
Seems like it would be simpler just to keep the overall dia the same across the different trim levels.

Yea I have checked, double checked, and checked again to make sure I was putting the right tire size info in the forum. And if it helps any the tire size recommended by tirerack for an SL1 with a 15 in rim is the same size tire that is on my ion, most of my daily drive is low speed and hilly so, from what I have read elsewhere in the forum I'm guessing the larger tires will hurt more than help, but do you think they will hurt enough to part ways with a nice set of $600 tires with very low miles on them?

Unless you can get $600 more for the car by keeping them on the one you're selling, I'd keep em.

that is what I am leaning towards as well, I just wanted to check with people that know more about this type of thing than I do and make sure there isn't a huge reason to keep the stock size tire. thanks for the opinion!

as has already been said, it depends on how much it hurts the resale value of the ion. My guess is that a 10 year old Ion ain't worth all that much to start with and that it won't affect the price that much.

no im not concerned about the resale, the car is only worth about 2500 to or so to begin with; with "very good" (which it isn't) being about 2800.

I was just more concerned in general that the 3% difference in dia. and 5% difference in width wouldn't make a huge and/or detrimental difference in some way on my SL1 since I plan on driving that car for a long time.

Just keep it in mind when you're driving. 3% is 1.5 mph at 55, so compensate accordingly. You can also compensate on your odometer too when you do your fill ups to get your real mpg.