So I bought a car from a relative because I could afford that, they bought a fancy boutique version of this car (Chevy Cruze) that has, by default, 18 inch rims. I live in a shitty midwestern USian city and of course this thing can’t handle potholes and the tires leak if you look at them funny. I’ve been limping along as long as I can but a pothole destroyed another one and replacing these stupid 18 inch tires is expensive. I’ve had to replace them twice in the last year, it’s absurd, and they’re of course way more expensive than a normal person tire.
So I’m looking at replacing the entire wheel set so that I can get a 17 or 16 inch wheel with more reasonable and cheaper tires. Is there any reason to be afraid of a certain size or wary of downsizing at all? I go on some site like Tirerack and it looks like I can get a set for a few hundred. My mechanic said this isn’t a problem, that the chassis is identical to the less boutique options, but I’m not a car person so I would love a second opinion on this before I spend a bunch of money again. Things to look out for, free wheels (lol), any helpful advice is appreciated.
You must log in or register to comment.
One thing to add, if you do downsize your wheels and tires (and brake disc clearance isn’t an issue, etc., e.g., if you grab a set from a junkyard) you do need your speedometer recalibrated for the change in wheel profile, particularly if the rim size + tire sidewall ratio doesn’t equal the same overall diameter as the original wheels.
yeah this is a good point. for a normal every day car you really do want to just try and replicate the same overall rolling diameter as close as possible so you don’t have to worry too much about it.
I have found just using the speedo on a GPS to be more reliable and accurate than even all OEM / factory installed everything. Though, if you do a lot of dense city commuting this might not be practical.
Edit: also, maintaining that same overall tyre diameter by increasing the sidewall will generally lead to a more comfortable ride than 18s on low profile tyres. The trend towards big wheels with sporty looking tyres is a pretty crap design choice that puts aesthetics and fashion over practicality.
I fucking hate that my relative did this. They didn’t even need the supposed extra performance shit it was supposed to give them, they literally just splurged on a more expensive version of the car for no reason.
I’m a car guy. I know, car bad etc. But I sorta “get it” or whatever.
But yeah I know. If you’re not in it for the love of the game there is zero benefit to doing anything that isn’t the most economical option. Except getting good tyres, those are really worth not cheaping out on from a safety perspective.
Edit: Don’t become a car guy, yall. It’s a dead end hobby and a money and time sink. If you’re just curious or whatever, stop. Get a better hobby. This is biased advice and I know there will always be people like me who love working on the things and feel empowered swinging spanners and nerding out tweaking things. But yeah, keep em bone stock, get the economy shit, just use the tool for the job and enjoy the rest of your life not worrying about your precious planet destroying machine.
Is that something a repair shop can do for me? Or would I need to do this myself somehow?
You get a repair shop to do that usually.
But one which is very familiar with your car so you know they’re doing it the efficient and correct way for your car.
Check is the same year Cruze you own came with 16 or 17" wheels. Oem is almost always the best bet in situations like this, and if they made the same car with a different wheel, you could get a used set cheap that’s “made for your car” already
Tire size calculator Put in your current tire size and you can get a list of sizes with a different rim but similar overall diameter. If you keep that fairly close than your speedometer will be accurate enough without reprogramming.
I personally try to get a tire size slightly wider than stock (e.g. 195 instead of 185) but you’d probably have to do some digging to figure out if that’s a safe option without any rubbing on the suspension bits. It opens up more size options, potentially saving some money if a wider tire is more common or something.
Edit: if the 18s are OEM rims from the dealer and not some aftermarket deal, than just look up the stock 16 or 17 tire sizes. Manufacturers generally keep overall size the same between rim sizes to avoid any clearance issues.
I’ll tell ya what not to buy- 15" discontinued JDM wheels 10.5" wide. lol. fucking nightmare.
Your mechanic’s advice sounds reasonable to me, you just want to make sure the bolt pattern is the same, and that the width and offset of the wheels is the same or very similar to what your car came with. I don’t think there’s a current risk of 16 or 17 inch tyres becoming hard to source unlike smaller wheels. Basically getting wheels from the same manufacturer (ie grab some OEM wheels that someone else is getting rid of because they’re putting fancy wheels on) in the same model of vehicle but a bit older, is usually a good bet. You attempt to find them cheap on the second hand market or a car wrecker.
Enthusiast forums or communities on facebook specific to your car are the most straight forward way to get good advice specific to your car and also to potentially find reasonable deals from people who just want to get rid of their old wheels because they take up space.
In the ideal scenario you have a mechanic you can trust who is honest and will not gouge you on sourcing parts. If you let them on-sell your 18s it might keep the cost down. Idk dealing with mechanics is very vibes based in my experience until you’ve been with them long enough to know they are legit.
Again though, enthusiasts for your make and model can be encyclopedias of knowledge and they tend to be open to providing good advice.
The mechanic is the person who suggested I downsize in the first place, I trust him (to the extent you trust any business owner in a capitalist economy obvs.) because he could sell me stock parts but the 18 inch wheels are apparently also far more expensive to replace.
I’m not sure I can use craigslist/marketplace, unless I can go back a generation on this car because I kinda have to get this fixed within a week. I’m driving on the spare which I really don’t want to do longer than necessary, and I can find wheels for sale within a few states of my location, but I can’t swing a roadtrip for wheels because of me and my partner’s alternating schedules. Is it a terrible idea to buy ‘new wheels’ in general?
I’ll try to find a chevrolet cruze enthusiast I guess. They apparently exist on a cursory search.
I’ll try to find a chevrolet cruze enthusiast I guess. They apparently exist on a cursory search.
Haha yeah there’s a type of sicko for almost everything on the road.
Is it a terrible idea to buy ‘new wheels’ in general?
That’s such a complex question. If you mean like, in your case, finding a brand new thing to put on the car to replace what you’ve got, you could look at plain jane steel wheels- over here we call them “steelies” and they are quite affordable. They will probably be heavier than what you have on there now, so that’s going to effect fuel economy a little bit and make the car work a little bit harder, but since you’ve got the performance pack and presumably an engine tuned to be abused a bit, it will handle it.
A nice benefit of steel wheels (I’m just assuming you have alloy wheels) is if you hit a pothole your wheel will bend, not break, and the wheel can be repaired rather than replaced in future. And another nice benefit is they are generally very cheap compared to aftermarket alloy wheels. There are usually local manufacturers making them still, I believe. If you can find a place that sells them and it’s within budget and looks reasonable compared to whatever you see on the second hand market (ie cheaper) then that business will be able to sell you wheels that will fit your car, matching the base model specs etc.
I’m a bit worried that there’s a chance because you got a sportier package that it might have bigger brakes than the cheaper versions. You’d have to research to be sure, but this can be a clearance issue. Still your mechanic suggested the swap so I assume he can see that the brake discs and calipers are not HUEG beasts of things intended for track days and stuff. It’s something you could consider asking the mechanic about.
We often like steelies for beater cars even on the track since they’re cheap, you can fuck them up and then just roll the dents out and keep going with minimal hassle. It’s not pretty but it does the job even if it’s not the optimal choice in a performance sense. It’s the fancy wheels that are often the most vulnerable to failing in a way that can’t be repaired.
Yeah he specifically mentioned that the brakes are the same as on the base versions of the car, apparently for the cruze they just made a bigger wheeled version without really changing anything else that you theoretically could to get extra braking power etc. from the space. So I think a smaller rim will work, I’ll see what kind of cheap steel options I can get sent to me quickly.
Yeah that site you linked in the DM are a known quantity in the scene for getting budget stuff shipped to your house. I can at least vouch for that much.
I sort of figured the big wheel package was probably a purely aesthetic option, but it pays to be safe so that’s good you’ve got the info from the mechanic regarding brake size. You are probably good to go. Again tho see my reply to your DM for covering my butt in case I’m steering you towards more frustration by mistake.
I DM’d you about the things I was looking at, technically they’re smaller than factory diameter but getting 17"s is like twice as expensive and the other trims can use 16s. Got a very noisy replacement tire on the old wheel for the interim, takes a lot of pressure off while I weigh options.
Ye I gotchu. And good call just running the old wheel with a shit tyre as a temporary measure to get you some breathing room so you don’t have to rush any decisions.
I bought a car once that had absurd wheels (19s I think) that could only fit tyres made for fucking porsches so it was like $200+ per corner to replace them and being low profile on shitty roads meant I had several punctures that really stung financially.
Also yeah get off that spare ASAP if it’s a space saver wheel (aka a pizza cutter) those things are for getting you home and to a workshop, not for daily use.
I actually just put 16" Chevy Cruze wheels on my car, they look like this:
"There’s a couple different designs that Chevy used for 16" and 17" wheels over the years that would also fit. The Cruze is a bit of an oddball in that it uses a 5x105 bolt pattern that’s only shared with a few General Motors brands, so your selection is somewhat limited.
However, there are a lot of Cruzes in junkyards, so you should be able to find a set pretty easily (not sure what this says about the reliability of the Cruze, but that’s another conversation). I paid about $250 for four wheels at a junkyard, but I had to find the car, unbolt the wheels, take them to the front where they have a tire machine, and pay $5 each to get the old tires taken off. You might be able to find someone on craigslist or facebook marketplace selling a full set for cheaper, or you can buy wheels on eBay for about $100 each plus shipping. You’ll also need new tire pressure (TPMS) sensors which are about $30 for a set of four on Amazon (make sure you get the ones that are compatible with your year of Chevy Cruze). You can ask the tire shop to install them on the wheels and connect them with your car’s computer; they shouldn’t charge much extra for that.
As others have said, you can get new tires that match the diameter of your old tires so the speedometer is still accurate, or you can get smaller (usually cheaper) tires and get the speedometer recalibrated. Larger tires will have more “cushion” against potholes and bumps, but you might not like the floaty balloon ride.
The podcast weighs in! I think I forgot you were hanging out around here.
I’m looking at just getting steel wheels, looking for wheels in my vicinity is making it seem like it’d be most of a day driving somewhere to get something similar to what you’ve got there, and I can’t make that work with having to watch the kiddo and alternate shifts with my partner. I’m a boring person with a family, I don’t need an exceptionally high performing ride or anything, I just want to run this car into the ground without having to buy boutique tires every year. Looks like the 16s are a bit narrower than what I’ve got currently but I can’t imagine that’s a huge issue?
Yeah we’ve been taking a break from the show but we’re coming back soon. And I sometimes lurk around here.
No, narrower steel wheels are fine as long as they don’t touch the brakes. You can ask the seller if you can test-fit one of the wheels on the front, you’ll just have to jack up the car and unbolt the factory wheel. But any wheels that came on a Cruze, Sonic, or Trax should fit yours. You can also buy brand-new steel wheels from a tire shop, but they’re more expensive. I’d suggest buying your own TPMS sensors because tire shops charge a big markup on them.
For tires, I’ve heard good things about the Michelin CrossClimate2 if you live in a snowy place. You can go on tire shops’ websites to find what else is available to fit your wheels (put in the information for the vehicle that you got the wheels from). I’d suggest dropping off the wheels at the shop and going to pick them up later, so you don’t have to wait as long.
