More practical or less practical to get new wheels?

[boog]

I may be a new yaris liftback owner sometime soon...i test drove the car yesterday and i was surprised by how slow it was(i was impressed with the overall 'feel' of the car tho) and i was thinking about getting some 15" maybe 16" lightwieght wheels but i just can't see the justification in such a small car with so little power...what do you guys think? even if i auto-x'ed it, i think i would just go to www.vulcantire.com and order some Falken Ziex tires for the 14" steelies. That would get more desirable traction and then i could just get TRD suspension upgrades and be done with performance mods until an engine swap kit fro hasport or someone comes out......sure, new wheels would be a little wider for better traction/handling but it seems like the car would suffer too much from the added wieght of the wheels...how do you guys feel about this, are the steelies heavy?

here's a pic of my car right now...the little rotary motor runs great but the rest of the car has run it's course and it's time to get a cheap/reliable car: ; )

[eTiMaGo]

classic car you got there!

Anyway, after having big heavy 18" rims on mine since I got it, I'm quite sure there would be much advantage to smaller lighter rims. Like you said, it is a low-powered car, so every little bit helps.

Apparently there are a lot of 15/16" aftermarket rims which are lighter than the stock steel wheels, so it's definitely worth looking into.

A lightened crank pulley also sounds like an inexpensive way to improve things power and acceleration-wise, can't wait to get mine

Drop and stiffen the suspension a bit, and you'll really improve the handling, especially with wider tires.

[Yaris TTE JWRC]

To me i think my 5 spd Yaris HB is pretty quick (no mods), it kept up with a Tundra V8 (sure was an Auto), smoked a Saturn Vue V6 just by a few inches (sure was an Auto), and smoked a Scion Xa big time(sure was an Auto with some ricey exhaust), did u test drive a 5spd, auto, sedan, or HB? and BTW you have to be able to shift quick to really get it going.

[largeorangefont]

If you really want lightweight wheels and tires on the cheap, some good tires on the OEM 14s or 15s (depending on what your car has) will be your best route.

You can get some really light Konig Heliums in 15X6.5 (10.6 lbs per wheel) for a little over $300 and run even a bit wider tires. This is about a wash compared to stock.

I have 16X7 heliums with 205 50 16 and they are a couple (2-3) pounds heavier per corner than the stock 15s. I didn't notice a performance difference, but the handling difference of just the tires is huge.

[boog]

yeah, so i was reading an older post about the wieght of the stock steelies and the lowest lb. reading someone got without a tire was 16 lb. That was a lot more than i expected so maybe i will get some new wheels when i get the car!!! You can get kosie's at tirerack that are the same exact size but only wiegh 10 lb.'s!!...I test drove a 5speed liftback by the way...I was looking at discounttire.com and they had "MB wheels" that looked pretty cool and were fairly cheap in 15x7/15x6.5 but thier wieght isn't listed anywhere so i am sure they are heavy compared to competitor's wheels but does anyone know for sure?..the konig helium wheels are cool too, i didnt know you could get em that cheap..

By the way, would someone mind starting a thread in here just for a list of all known suspension goodies for the yaris(With no discussions: just listings with price) It sure would be nice to have all of that in one place: springs, dampers, coil-overs, stress bars, underbody stiffeners, etc.....whaddya think?

thanks for the compliment on my little mazda too!! she's my baby!!...lol