hidewai

i wanna get a set of 17'" rims.....but ppl told me that you have to concern the weight of those rims....so what mean too heavy???????

kmcaprice14

I love the grammer in this thread... but on to the question. 17s are deffinitly not too heavy. This does not mean that all 17s are feather light, but there are 17s out there that offer a great combination of light weight, strength, and style. As you are posting in the accord forum, I'm assuming you drive an accord. This car has tons of other performance hindering issues aside from wheel weight. Accords are heavy by nature. I love them, but they are just pretty heavy. In addition they are front wheel drive, and aren't really designed to minimize yaw like some of the more sporty sedans out there (IS 300, etc). You really don't have to worry about weight too much. Granted unsprung weight will hinder handling, but 3 or 4 pounds won't matter a ton when you are driving a family sedan. Assuming you don't buy chrome, you really can't do too much harm. Just look for a decent lightweight wheel that you like, and go with it. If you want to race, save the wheel money for a car payment for something designed to be raced.

dresden_k

kmcaprice, you really ought not point out the gentleman's "grammer" when his work "deffinitly" wasn't as bad as yours was.

However, to offer an answer to your question, Hidewai, and not tell you that your car is too much of anything, I wouldn't buy a 17" rim that weighed more than 20lbs. The lightest rim I've seen in that size was 13lbs, and I'm sure there might be lighter rims out there, but they're probably either impractically expensive or weak. I don't mean to assume what kind of money you can spend, but if you're like me, you're stuck with your Accord because you try to drive a nice car but can't afford an R34.

Unsprung weight is one factor to consider, the other that I might add is that a heavier wheel adds rolling resistance. Sport Compact Car did an article a few years ago on wheel weights and acceleration, and while my memory is blunted from the time passed, they claimed something like "shaving a pound from a wheel's weight is like cutting 50lbs from the car's weight" as far as acceleration is concerned. I'm not sure if I believe it, but someone out there does.

BMW020987

id have to agree with dre on this one....assuming your trim, you may have the steel wheels (correct me if im wrong) covered by hub caps instead of an actual stock rim.

I dont think you could go wrong trading off of that steel wheel/factory rim (if you infact do have that) granted the larger you go, the heavier the rim will be, but like what KM said, the accord is heavy by nature, its probably a stretch to say that you will feel the difference in driving. my buddy has a 6th gen accord with non stock rims compared to me with stock...cant feel any difference in driving. If your looking for better preformance, theres alot of other cheap minor things you can do to reduce weight and such.

dresden_k

Well yeah, if the conversation roamed to the applicability of the Accord as a platform to become a fast car, yeah it's heavy, FWD, and limited in engine choice. The H22A is popular and has a plethora of upgrade options, but is a mere 2.2L. Some people think that 2.2L is big enough, and most of the time it is. I'm sure if someone was interested enough in making their *car* go faster to the point where they were discriminating against rims that weighed more than X amount, they wouldn't have started with an Accord in the first place. That being said, the 4th Gen Accord, the one I'm most familiar with, is under 3000lbs, and with a built H22A is no worse than most other cars that people will spend tens of thousands on.

However, to stay on topic, the gentleman only asked about rims.

I think that 20lbs is too much for me, my Accord and what I'm going for. Sure, I wouldn't *notice* it if I had 21lbs rims, or maybe even 25lb rims (which I think is what the 15" steelies are that come with some of the Accords..)... but if you compared numbers - say, the second decimal place of your quarter mile time, or the third decimal place on your lateral skidpad rating, lighter rims would show numbers. (EG-> 1/4mi from 14.25 to 14.22... or a lateral skidpad from 0.843 to 0.847.) Guesstimates, but you get my point.

[edit: I will concede, so that I don't sound like a flaming prick, that yes, reducing the weight of your car in general will yield more than reducing the weight of your rims. Try gutting your trunk... spare tire, carpet... Rear seats, passenger seat... radio.. :P ]

jschmid

Actually the unsprung weight (wheels, tires, brakes, hubs and spindles, etc) affect the handling of the car proportionally GREATER than unsprung weight (stuff in your trunk for example).

And yes, you would definately feel a difference between 20lbs and 25lbs wheels.

A good guideline is that if your wheels are the same or less in lbs as they are in diameter, it can be considered "light weight".

My 18x7.5 wheels weigh 19lbs each, that's light enough for me.