jac430

Some time ago there was a question about the weight of the 17 or 18" wheels.

Today I cleaned my front brakes, so the wheels were off and I put one on a scale for reference:





So with a Goodyear eagle F1 245/45R18 100Y asymmetric with about 5.5mm profile on it, the complete wheel (still including brake dust on the photo) weighs 25.1 kg or 55.3 lbs.
Rims are (standard) mat chrome.

BTW, after cleaning, the wheels look marvelous:



Jac

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Nice to see the stock 18 set-up weight. Thanks!

Jabberwock

55lbs - wow - no wonder my back was sore after dismounting and remounting my front tires to check my brake pads..yikes

Milan

iTrader: (5)

Love those wheels, thanks for the weigh in. I'll try to do the same with my stock '02 17" wheels and perhaps we can keep this thread updated with other wheel weights for those people that care about such things as rotational mass and unsprung weight.

Jabberwock

Coincidentally, I just bought a new Arcan 3.5ton floor jack at Costco last night. I'll pull a wheel on the LS this weekend and weigh it. Its got stock OEM 17" wheel and stock sized Michelin Primacy tire on it so it will make a good comparison weight.

Jabberwock

Weighed my 17" stock non chrome wheel with Michelin Primacy (less than 6k miles on it) this am and it weighed almost exactly 50 lbs...maybe 50.5 lbs at the max

Also checked front brake pads and pad still had approx 60% of material on it at 32k miles.

CarGuy89

Thanks for the info jac and jabberwock! Beautiful rim you have there jac.

jac430

Thanks Jabberwock for your measurement.
So there is only a 10% difference between 17" and 18" in weight. That is not too bad by all means.

Thanks CarGuy89.
The rims are 100% stock (at least in this country. There was no choice. This was it.)
I can imagine that some people spend (serious) money on special rims, but with these beautiful stock rims, it seems superfluous to do that.
At least to my taste.
In my opinion the money is better spent on driving our fantastic LS430 or taking a (short) holiday (with our beloved in the LS430 ).

Jac

thinkin

Thanks very much for taking the time to weigh them! I have the same rims and really like the look; I agree they look better on this car than any aftermarket rims I've seen.

For your reference those are not chrome - they're usually just called "silver". The factory/dealer chrome versions are ultra-shiny.

Tirerack lists that tire at 28 lbs ( http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....1AXL&tab=Specs ), making the rim around 27.3 lbs.

jac430

Thank you thinkin for correcting me on the color-name of the rims.
I only have the Dutch brochure and they are not specified further.
"silver" indeed sounds right to me.

The link to the weight of the tire is also much appreciated!
My tires weigh a bit less than new (the tread depth is about 65% of new), so they will be a bit less than the specified 28 lbs, leaving a bit more than 27.3 lbs for the rim.

Summarizing roughly it seams that both tire and rim are about 50% of the total weight for my 18" wheels.

They sure are quite heavy. I have some back problems, and they are too heavy to lift for me without serious risks. I had to use a tire-iron as a lever....

The cleaning of the brake pads and shim plates was a piece of cake. Much easier than I thought it would be.
The major (and heaviest) work is jacking up the car and handling the wheels.

When I wanted to rise the car again to remove the stands, my floor jack refused service (after about 25 years). So I had to buy a replacement in a hurry.
I experienced that the 2-ton jacks do not rise high enough (or only just), so I suppose I will have to treat myself to a 3 ton jack, which seems to rise a lot higher.

Jac

CarGuy89

I couldn't agree more! These rims suit the 430 so well, there really isn't any reason to change them. Maybe this is why I am having such a hard time finding a set of OEM 18s....lol