Ride vs wheel size?

Z

Z4WAM

Member
 Denver CO
Hello, I have a question about wheel size vs. ride. I didn’t see this in a search of the forum. My 2004 Z4 3.0i came stock with 18 inch Ellipsoid styling 202 wheels. Will smaller wheels/thicker tires give a softer ride on city streets. I know I'm supposed to "feel the road", and that’s great in the summertime, When I can hit any road in the Rocky Mountains and play with more curves than Hugh Heffner. But I live in Denver Colorado where the streets crack and pothole every winter. I notice that BMW's OEM winter tire is a smaller wheel, both 17 and 16 for this car. Will I feel a difference in ride with a smaller wheel? And what’s the winter advantage of a smaller wheel? Thanks for all feed back in advance.
 
Smaller wheels/taller sidewalls will give you a more comfortable ride. But if you have 18" wheels, you're probably gonna be okay with just replacing the POS run-flat tires with regular ones without needing to downsize. But do do a research first and see which non-run flat tires have stiffer sidewalls and which have softer sidewalls.

If you decide to downsize, 16" wheels won't clear your 3.0i's brakes.
 
Thank you GP20, I will resaerch that, doing away with run flats sounds risky But I honestly dont remember the last time I had a flat tire on the road side, usually a slow leak from a nail or screw.
 
There isn't, apparently, much difference from the 17's to 18's when using the OEM RFT's... the difference may well be more noticeable when using non-RFT's across this size change though.

I'd run some winter 17's with all-season tyres, and then keep the 18's for summer use :)
 
From experiance 16" with run flats - hard, horrible and tramlining bitches

18" with regular tyres - all fine and dandy

Winter tyres are usually narrow to get more friction at the contact point as more pressure per inch
 
AJZ4London said:
I have the same wheels. They look amazing, my advice is to buy a pillow and put up with it :D !
Click to expand...

I guess I'm getting old. I dont like the huge rims with a black rubber band look. I'm even considering posting an add in Craigs List to trade straight across for smaller z4 wheels. Do you think anyone would go for it?
 
Probably but think about re-sale on your own Z4, the vast majority prefer at least the standad rims or larger items.
 
Z4WAM said:
AJZ4London said:
I have the same wheels. They look amazing, my advice is to buy a pillow and put up with it :D !
Click to expand...

I guess I'm getting old. I dont like the huge rims with a black rubber band look. I'm even considering posting an add in Craigs List to trade straight across for smaller z4 wheels. Do you think anyone would go for it?
Click to expand...

i'd trade you some 16's :D
 
Ditch the RFT's sounds like the way to solve the problem.

I've sat in both oem rft/non-rft back to back on bumpy roads and the difference is definately noticeable and worthwhile in ride and jitteryness/control feedback...

16" rft > 18" non-rft appears to be an improvement, so going to 16" sounds pointless unless you ditch rft, in which case rft in 18" are probably worth a try first :D

Dave
 
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