New rims/ light weight or aero?

[Leinaad]

I recently got a new car and am thinking about what to do about the rims for winter/summer tires.
The car came with those rims (Skoda Alcatraz), I found a weight of 10.2 kg for them.



My first intention was to use the Alcatraz rims for the winter tires and get new rims for the summer. Skoda offers the Lepus wheels which were used on the greenline eco model and seem to be optimised aero wise. Weight is about the same at 10.1 kg.



Alternative would be keeping the summer wheels as is and using after market rims (ATS Streetrallye) for the winter tires. They weigh "only" 8.4 kg but still have a reasonable price.



I´m not sure how the benefits of the lighter rim would be. I had light Rims on my previous car for about 2 month and couldn´t see a difference in fuel despite changing from winter tires to summer tires. But that observation is only based on 2 tanks each since I moved here so not really representative.

My commute is 18 km each with a bit of city driving and mostly country roads with some elevations and an average speed of about 45 km/h (max. 100 km/h).



Using aero covers for the lighter rims isn´t an option unfortunately.

What do you recon are there any benefits in getting the lighter rims over the aero rims?

I kinda like the idea of the aero rims with the LRR Summer tires to get good results while highway driving.
BTW this isn´t about saving money, I´m just interested in what the car is capable of with little mods. And I need to get another set of rims anyway.

[Daox]

Sorry for the wait on approving the post. Bumping for you now!

[California98Civic]

The question is harder to answer than you might imagine. Aero wheels do not perform the same in every application, and weight reductions depend upon your driving conditions for their best benefits. Weight reduction is not as valuable for steady state highway driving, but in those same conditions aero drag reductions are more valuable.

[Fat Charlie]

You can add pizza pans, but you can't add lightness.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Unless you are drastically reducing the weight of your wheel and tire setup, you most likely won't notice a difference. More aerodynamic wheels will improve mileage slightly, but it will be hard to see the difference unless you perform testing. On my Civic, it took wheels that were seven pounds lighter (11lb ea. vs. 18lb ea.), narrower tires, and smooth wheel covers just to get ~2 MPG increase. Switching to a low rolling resistance tire would probably be able to do all of that by itself.

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

... On my Civic, it took wheels that were seven pounds lighter (11lb ea. vs. 18lb ea.), narrower tires, and smooth wheel covers just to get ~2 MPG increase. Switching to a low rolling resistance tire would probably be able to do all of that by itself.

...yes but a REAL ecomodder gets the LRR tires AND does all of that!

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

...yes but a REAL ecomodder gets the LRR tires AND does all of that!

Definitely, but if I'm being completely honest here back when I made that swap I didn't realize how much of an effect tires had on efficiency. I think the tires I used were rated for lower rolling resistance than the ones I had, but either way they definitely weren't LRR.

[Fat Charlie]

Every mod does not need to be a blockbuster, it simply needs to work with other mods (and the driver, don't forget the driver) to contribute to overall FE.

Remember War_Wagon? His last post was over a year ago. I like to think he gets email notifications of posts to threads he's subscribed to.

His sig was:
"Don't look for one place to lose 100 pounds, look for 1600 places to lose an ounce." - Tony DeFeo

It applies here.

[GreenTDI]

Originally Posted by Leinaad

I recently got a new car

Congrats! That's a nice one, with already good aerodynamics btw.

To answer your question: light weight or aero, I would say: both!
But it seems that's not an option with the rims you show.

With good LLR tires on the greenline rims you will probably get a good result.

Originally Posted by Leinaad

I´m just interested in what the car is capable of with little mods. And I need to get another set of rims anyway.

What I did: lightweight & aerodynamic forged Audi rims with a taller tire that has a smaller tread and LLR. That has to be the holy grail to succes ON PAPER. However, I have no practical experience with them yet because I still have to change them. But it was much cheaper than a set of new Skoda rims with standard tire size.

Here you have the whole range of lightweight audi rims that you can find second hand:
https://www.original-felgen.com/gewicht

[Leinaad]

Thanks everyone.
The rims would be the only weight saving and since I´m thinking about adding a spare tire I probably wouldn´t save anything. Only benefit would the lower rotational mass.
To bad the after market isn´t interested in aero wheels

The car came with Dunlop Sport Bluresponse tires (205/55 R16), which seems to be quite good fe wise, so it´s not worth changing. I have to run 16" due to the front brakes, so I can´t go any smaller.

Originally Posted by GreenTDI

Congrats! That's a nice one, with already good aerodynamics btw.

Thanks. Cd is 0.315, my Passat had 0.32 not that much improvement for 15 years age difference.
I got a different lower grill yesterday which is partially closed that should help a tiny bit, will install when it gets a bit cooler.
The greenline spoiler would be nice too, but it´s expensive and technically I´m not allowed to fit it. (TÜV says no )

Originally Posted by GreenTDI

Here you have the whole range of lightweight audi rims that you can find second hand:

I probably spent a few hours on the site to find rims for my previous car
Unfortunately neither Audi nor VW seems to have a forged Aero wheel that fits my car.
Audi offers a forged rim with a cap for the A4 that would combine aero and lightness. Unfortunately the dimensions a wrong and they are ugly.

Did a little trip after work today and got the consumption down to 4.3 l/100km at an average speed of 66 km/h (top speed 110 on the highway)