I changed to 17 on MY99 with standard suspension three months ago.
The ride difference has changed very little. The only time i can really tell any diffrence over the 16's is when going over the small painted speed lines going into roundabouts and my girlfirnd says she cant notice any diffrence

Andy H

Could anyone with standard suspension (preferably UK car, but WRX is better than nothing) who has changed from 16" to 17" wheels give me some idea of how much harder the ride is with the 17 inchers?

For example, 17" wheels might give a ride equivalent in harshness to pumping 16" up to 36 psi all round, maybe more. Anyone care to have a stab using this metric? Then it's one I could test with my 16" to see if I could live with it every day.

Many thanks,
Paul

Paul,
I bought my MY97 new in August 97 with 16" (SuperT's) wheels fitted with 205x50x16 P Zero Asymetrico's. Regretted not going for the 17"s purely on aesthetic grounds, so six months later upgraded to 17" versions of the same wheel with 215x40x17 Yoko A510's. I honestly didn't notice any differance in ride or handing. I had been warned to expect a deterioration in ride quality and suffer from tramlining and camber hunting but this didn't happen. Having said that when these tyres were wearing low the car started to tramline quite a lot. Donington last week finished off the Yoko's and the new set of Goodyear Eagle F1's fitted since seem to have banished the tramlining again.

Mark

Paul

Having driven a friends MY99 with std 16"s and my MY99 with 17"s, i can hardly say i noticed any increased harshness on my setup.

Go for it!!

Sunil

Mark,

It's interesting to hear you noticed no handling benefits on 17". I'm only interested in improving the handling, in particular the body roll, which stiffer sidewalls should help with.

Andy, Sunil (and anyone else), did you notice much difference in handling between the two sizes?

Thanks,
Paul

IMO - difference is negligable.

Plus sides - turn in sharper, looks far better, also have 215s so wider tyres increase grip slightly

Minus sides - none really, no real difference in ride quality except over cats eyes where they do 'slap n thud' more.

I noticed a bigger difference between 2 different tyre brands on 17", than 16" Vs 17"

FYI I run 17" SO2s at 36psi

Hmmm, I noticed a small improvement, along with the downsides of crashing over potholes because the sidewalls are lower. You definitely feel better on corners though, it doesnt feel quite so wallowy, although its not a massive amount. They wont make as much difference on there own, as they would with better suspension though, then they come into there own, less sidewall flex fromt he tyres, and less body roll from the suspension, means a much better feel round the bends, sorry this may not help much, but is what i noticed when i changed mine, and then went in Pete's car after that.

It's odd but I thought that the ride got better. I concluded that it must be the change in tyres from the original Bridgestones to P zeroes.

I strongly recommend it, the car rolls less, turns in better and generally handles better. I got the garage to change the suspension to Prodrive settings at the same time.

Back in September '99 I changed the 16 inch wheels and standard STi5 tyres for S02PP on 17 inch OZ Super T Evolution wheels. For just a few days the car was driven on standard suspension and that was absolutely dreadful! An already jittery and bumpy ride became worse and any benefits in steering precision, turn-in, etc. were overshadowed by the ride.
The moment Leda B package was fitted which meant completely different set of conditions, it was a different world. I briefly went back to my 16" package with the new suspension to do an A/B comparison and 17" combination was vastly superior in all the aspects other members have already praised it.
Some months ago I said the same thing and (as is usually the case with my posts anyway)
many objected, but here it is again: I would never change from 16 to 17 inch unless complete suspension or at least some parts of it were "adjusted" to a totally different set of circumstances.

I am not surprised at all that some members found changing tyres and wheels to bring a "negligible or no difference at all" . Makes sense to me.

q.

Handling seems improved to me. Better turn in feel at roundabouts, greater cornernig speed, and more precise positioning.

No noticable decrease in ride quality. WRX is gonna be bad either way.

Handling was wallowy before by comparison.

Overall improvement in every area except comfort which relatively unchanged.

New tyres prone to understeer massively, worse in wet.

Toyo proxes, in my opinion avoid, goodyear f1s for me next time.

Most people when changing to 17 inch wheels, either do it when the car is brand new (nothing to compare with), or when they have worn out a set of 15 or 16 inch tyres.

I found that the ride quality on new 17 inch tyres was better than worn 16 inch tyres, but worn 17 inch ones give a firmer/harsher ride as you would expect (standard suspension).

They don't make a huge difference to handling or cornering speeds, but

a) the car responds better/faster to steering inputs, giving more feel back through the wheel

b) Looks better http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/smile.gif

I'm happy with my 17 inch wheels

There is an argument that a car on 16's will handle better than the same car on 17's, ceterus paribus....It certainly used to apply to Golf Gti's but not sure about the Scooby and i know all you girles will get your knickers in a twist so i'll keep my mouth shut http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/wink.gif

PS...i only bought 17's for the visual impact.

Laters

Strong,
I fitted 17" oz super t`s, so2 pp 215/40 tyres. The ride is a little harsher,but the turn in and feel is better. I think a lot of the improvement is a better tyre, not the size? Grip in the wet is much better.

Cheers

Ian


[This message has been edited by EvoZero (edited 17-03-2000).]