Woody_in_MN
Ready to race!
- Location
- Mpls, MN, USA
So today I made the swap out of stock 15 inch wheels to 17 Drag wheels, and Continental Extreme Contact dws 06s. I did not have a chance to do much spirited driving, and hard cornering, but my impressions so far are:
1) Wheels and tires look great. The Drags in 2 shades of grey look nearly stock on my Platinum Grey TSI. Really fill out the wheel wells much better.
2) I feel more of the road, but not extreme. Not a night and day difference but the ride is a little tighter, and I feel more of the road including bumps - but again, not a huge difference.
3) Feel more sure footed. I think I will have a better sense of this after living with the new wheels/tires for a couple weeks.
4) Lost some of the acceleration zap on the TSI. This was disappointing. With the 15 inch wheels I could make the tires chirp off of a dead stop in 2nd gear. Not now. With my kind of driving I don't have an opportunity to floor the gas very often, but I was curious abut this and tried flooring the Golf a couple times, and now the Golf feels slower. A lot slower. I was careful in my choice of wheels and think I found something in weight close to the stock 15's - but if I were to do it again I would look for some wheels under 18 lbs. In my case this is not a deal breaker, as I am planning to do the APR Stage 1 in the next few months.
SUMMARY: So from my experience if you are looking to go to bigger wheels go light weight. Otherwise the added weight from the bigger wheels and tires take a lot of the fun out of the Golf TSI experience. Otherwise consider bigger wheels along with a Stage I tune.
Hope to post pictures later.
My 2 cents.
- w
1) Wheels and tires look great. The Drags in 2 shades of grey look nearly stock on my Platinum Grey TSI. Really fill out the wheel wells much better.
2) I feel more of the road, but not extreme. Not a night and day difference but the ride is a little tighter, and I feel more of the road including bumps - but again, not a huge difference.
3) Feel more sure footed. I think I will have a better sense of this after living with the new wheels/tires for a couple weeks.
4) Lost some of the acceleration zap on the TSI. This was disappointing. With the 15 inch wheels I could make the tires chirp off of a dead stop in 2nd gear. Not now. With my kind of driving I don't have an opportunity to floor the gas very often, but I was curious abut this and tried flooring the Golf a couple times, and now the Golf feels slower. A lot slower. I was careful in my choice of wheels and think I found something in weight close to the stock 15's - but if I were to do it again I would look for some wheels under 18 lbs. In my case this is not a deal breaker, as I am planning to do the APR Stage 1 in the next few months.
SUMMARY: So from my experience if you are looking to go to bigger wheels go light weight. Otherwise the added weight from the bigger wheels and tires take a lot of the fun out of the Golf TSI experience. Otherwise consider bigger wheels along with a Stage I tune.
Hope to post pictures later.
My 2 cents.
- w
