Smoothride

Can anybody tell me the weight of factory 18" LS430 wheels. I'm looking to upgrade my wheels and know that wheel weight affects ride quality, I want to use the weight of the factory wheel as a benchmark. Accurate replys please, no guessing.

Thanks all...

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i don't know 100%, but judgnig from the weight of the stock gs 17s being 25lb (just the rim), i say the 18s would be beween 26 to at most 28lb?

Smoothride

Thanks ronimL,

that's kinda heavy, I was hoping that someone has a rim w/o tire and a scale to weigh it. What I might have to do is weigh my spare and then find out how much the tire weighs from one of the tire website and then do the math.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i thought around 25lb that's pretty "standard" for oem wheels?

Smoothride

Well, I have a Miata and Miata folks are REALLY **** about wheel weight. A lightweightwheel will wiegh about 1 pound per inch up to about 18" or so. Now the Lexus dish type might be heavier to get the strength needed from that particular style. Cheap wheels are generally heavier because of less CAD/CAM time, attention to detail and not being forged . The 15" on my Miata are 12 lbs and alot of those people go for 15's that weight under 10lbs.

I'm hoping to find something that weighs less than the factory 17's or 18's in a style that I like.

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

Smoothride,

I think you're going to find that the much heavier Lexus cars require a heavier wheel. I'm sure you're familiar with sites like

http://www.wheelweights.net/

that will give you some info. It's hard to find a good balance of lightweight wheel that will stand up to potholes with a heavy car like the LS without bending. Some lighter wheels that some of our members have are SSR Competitions and Volk TE-37. Neither of these IMO go well with the style of the LS.

Smoothride

Thanks Dave,

I was assuming that the manufacturer took into consideration the intended market by using wheel size, bolt pattern and offset, therefore making the wheel strong enough to take real world driving on a LS or Mercedes or whatever. I have seen the wheelweights site before, but I think it isn't really up to date and have all the high line wheels. I just need to find what I like at reasonable price at a reasonable weigh, not asking too much, am I? ;

rominl

iTrader: (4)

if you are getting 18s or 19s, and wide setup say around 8.5 or even 9 3 piece, then i think 25lb would be consider pretty light. if you get one piece you might get it lighter to around 24lb?

there are some very light 18s or so, like the te37, but those are very sporty and i think they would look horrible on the ls430. it's a vip car so it takes different wheels.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Just as some additional FYI.

Yesterday I weighed the stock 16's from my LS and it comes in at 21 pounds give take a bit for the accuracy of my scale. The Michelin MX4V mounted on the wheel is comes in at 48.XX pounds.

The LSportline M4 one pieces with tire weighs in at 52 pounds. My call to BFG about tire weight of the 245/40-18 TA-KDW-2 was 26.28 pounds.

DXC

Then our 19" 2-pc wheels = 18" OEM weight Thanks for the info

rominl

iTrader: (4)

my hre 20s have the same weight too, not too shabby

seriously, aftermarket wheels look big, but they can be light too, that's why they are worth the money

DXC

A lot of people say that upgrade OEM to bigger wheels will affect performance, now I can say AT LEAST weightwise, there shouldn't be any difference Thanks rominl, really good info

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yup that's true. bigger wheel doesn't mean more weight, in fact if you pay good money you get less weight. however, of course, that's not the end of the story. coz' bigger wheels the tires are heavier, and also with bigger wheels, it depends on the design, and you might get more weight towards the outside of the wheel, which contributes to the unsprung weight. now that's costly

DXC

icic very detailed analysis

Smoothride

rominl,

You are about 1/2 right. As far as unsprung weight goes, it doesen't matter where the greatest part of the mass of the wheel/tire combo is. For unsprung weight, 50lbs is 50lbs. BUT, for acceleration, the distribution of the mass does matter. Acceleration will be affected by mass distribution. Since you are accelerating the wheel in a rotational direction, one would want the mass as close to the center of the wheel as possible for best acceleration.