what is an acceptable weight for wheels to be?

i saw a post by someone degrading someone's wheels saying they probably weigh 25lbs

what is a typical weight of a lighter wheel compared to a stock wheel?

just wondered what was going on with that...

any thoughts on this would be appreciated.....

 

Well it depends. Rim weight only or with rims with tires. Rim only that's heavy as hell. The tipical rim is probably 20lbs but there are wheels out there like the axis maglites that weigh 14lbs. So yeah 25lbs of rim is heavy. But you have to pay the price. Most of the nice wheels are heavy. Hopefully that helped.

 

Well, "nice" is sort of a relative term. But if by nice you mean a high-quality wheel that is well-constructed of good alloys, then nice wheels are actually usually lighter than similar doo doo wheels. i.e. take a certain Japanese wheel and its knock off, and you will see the real wheel will weigh quite a bit less than the cheap facsimile, not to mention it will usually have better fitments, be of better quality, and generally look a lot better.

 

an example of a knock off wheel that I'm looking into are the Rota Circuit 8s, they weigh in at 12 lbs each wheel (no tire attached) but in general tend to be viewed as a good compromise wheel between cost and really high quality (such as lightweight Volks)

 

The only difference in performance that wheels will make will be in the 1/100 second column at the drag strip. The handling difference may be felt by a pro driver but not by us ordinary mortals.

One big disadvantage of light wheels is fragility. One rock can ruin your whole day!

So, get what looks nice, but don't think that losing a couple of pounds of wheel weight will turn your xB into a Porsche!

George

 

that's a good point, do not think that suddenly switching from a stock 15 inch to a lightweight 15 inch will make a huge difference.

Every pound can count, but this is just in contrast to jumping up in size... remember your geometry, for every inch of wheel diameter you go up, you add 6+ inches of wheel "edge" (the fat part up against the tire) where the bulk of the weight actually is (not in the pretty spokes, unless you have a lot of them or they are nearly solid like the ice wheels I saw this weekend, damn those looked nice).

Other than that if you are trying to just save up those pounds of rotational mass (i.e. like going through with a lightened flywheel where where 5 lbs difference is huge!) then consider it but don't expect too much, it ain't nitrous

 

dang it George!

i just got my Porsche badge to replace my xB badge! heh he

i like the thought of a little heavier wheel being sturdier, and i certainly won't be at the drag strip unless it was to watch....