I'm loving my new xA, but one thing that's not really been discussed very well here is xA lowerign. Plenty on xBs, tho.
One thing that I've been concerned with is driving in the snow here in NH, which is always a major pain when it really hits hard. When I was deciding on whether to lower or not before I bought, and the stock height was too much like a micro SUV, so I went with the TRD strut/shock/spring option. It's lowered just right in my opinion. Wouldn't want to go any lower with the 15" alloys.
Anyways, I measured my 2001 Grand Am GT before I was picked up by the new owner as well as the xA to see what the diffs were in ground clearance. I never had any trouble with the Grand Am in the winter as far as clearance goes, at least when the streets were considered 'drivable.' So I measured different spots around the cars. The measurements are w/i 1/4" accuracy, as I wasn't going for exactness and it was starting to rain anyway.

Location measured xA Grand Am
Front bumper/bottom side 7" 9"
front wheel well/behind wheel 6.5" 6"
rear wheel well/behind wheel 8.5" 9"
rear bumper/bottom side 11.5" 12"
front skirting/lowest section 5.5" 5.5"

Now this is with the xA lowered about an inch. I didn't have the chance to measure it before it was lowered for comparison. Anyway, it appears that I have pretty much the same clearance as the stock Grand Am. There may be other things that I need to consider. The wheel wells have much less space than the Grand Am. Any other things to consider for winter driving? I will be using the steel wheels for snow tires.

So, snow driving aside, it appears from what I've seen around here that a good amount to lower an xA would be something like the following:

15" wheels -- lower 1"
16" wheels -- lower 1.25" - 1.5"
17"+ wheels - lower 2"

Does that look about right?

 

The amount you lower depends on tire size, not wheel size. The taller or wider the tire, the less clearance you will have with the fender, strut, fender liner, etc.

It's easiest just to put taller snow tires on 15" wheels (like 195/60 or 185/65) and use the shorter diameter tires on larger wheels for the warmer months.

I noticed on my xA (2005), that the plastic mini-spoilers on the bottom of each side of the front bumper are about 1.5" deep. With 1.5" drop (Hotchkis springs) you can take those plastic pieces off and still have the same clearance. Of course, a few scrapes with curbs and those pieces may be missing already.

 

i'm happy with my tanabe NF210

 

I was making the assumption that with the larger wheel size, the tire would be shorter, in order to keep the total wheel size approx. the same as stock. Haven't seen anybody going with a larger total size, hence the assumption. Anyway, that list seems to be generally what people are going with, as a visually appealing choice.

I've been keeping my distance from curbs when parking. Don't want to be doing any scraping of that skirting. I'll have to find some time to visually check the clearance. The wife may be driving the car from time to time and I have to be sure she's fully aware of those kinds of things before any scraping will be happening.

 

Your two posts do not make sense to me

Then

Wheel size should play no part in your ride height with the properly sized tire - at least without screwing up your gearing.

 

Ok, I'll try to back up a bit. Or maybe I'm missing something completely. Here's some info from the Wheel size Sticky:

This is what I'm talking about when I'm say the tire size should be adjusted with larger wheels.

Now when you get a larger wheel, it doesn't look right at the car's stock height. Sooo, you want to lower it. Here's an example:



I'm not saying that you must lower, it just looks better when you do. Hence, a larger wheel would then lead a person to lower. The larger the wheel, the more you lower.
I've not heard or read anything about screwing up your gearing by lowering or the size of the wheel.
Any more info on that?

 

Off topic, but are they SubZeros and what did you pay for them? Thx.

 

Oh. That xA isn't mine, so I couldn't tell ya the price on them. Talk to drivenapollo about that.