The car looks bigger to me with smaller wheels, cool optical illusion.

If you like the ride, keep it. The world has gone crazy for large wheels. The LS is a luxury car - large wheels and low profile tires on a luxury car are a contradiction anyway.

 

i just put my stock 17's back on (2 weeks now) while getting my 20's fixed... i love the feeling of the thick tire rubber (for pure straight line comfort) but i can't get past the floaty magic carpet no handling at all feel of the huge rubber. its definitely a trade off.

in my case i notice a big gain in mpg with the 17's vs the 20's but this is due to the width of the tire and ultra high performance stickiness of the tread i presume. do you notice any difference in mpg??

i think the shiz looks ugly too, but i'm sure its more comfortable over bumpy roads.

 

The wood mesh is my part of the walkway to the rear deck...freshly power washed and waiting to dry for new stain application (final color will be redwood)
By the way, it's fitting that the word "deck" is a four letter word. I've never spent so much effort and money on something I don't use or give a rat's **** about owning.

 

I like the look of the 16". It give the car a retro look.

 

Keep the 16s, swap your 18s with my 17s so your ride would be more comfy all yr round?

 

No offensive I definitely don't like those 16 on the ls gotta go atleast 17s . But the ride should be comfy.

 

I really don't notice any handling difference. With the shock/damper control and roll being the same, the car feels identical zipping around the roads I drive on.

I had to attend a driving school for work where I spent the day doing all sorts of stupid things, pushing a car near the limit on a big black lake of ashphalt, driving a course marked out with orange cones. Maybe in that type of driving the tire response difference would be easy to notice, but around town I don't feel a difference.

After driving the 16" tires for a couple of days, what I do notice is that all the road imperfections feel a little less sharp, like there's an extra layer of cushion, but it's not a huge difference.

I would describe the ride difference to be as if you took the 18" tire pressure from the stock 33 psi down to about 25 psi. Perhaps with a little more suppleness than that would provide, but about that level of change.

 

Good method of hiding that stuff. I hear ya about a deck being of little use. The only folks that really use our deck are my adult children when they visit - as a smoking lounge. My wife occasionally sits out there. I find it to be too hot or too buggy most of the time. I considered covering it and creating a screened in porch. Then our neighbors installed an in-ground pool - complete with outside stereo speakers and kids entering their teenage years.

 

I agree, the world has gone crazy for large wheels. They make every vehicle look so much better, so I think they're here to stay. Some of those 35-series tires I see on BMWs and Mercedes must ride like crap and must be very fragile.

 

I only put the 16's on a few days ago, so no time to measure fuel economy, but I don't expect a difference to show up. I can understand your difference, moving from 20 inch hi po summer tires.

 

Nice try, but the 18's look too nice to give up. I'll wait until they road crews are done patching and put them back on.

Another reason to keep the 18's...When digging in the trunk for the wheel lock key, I discovered there's a 5th 18" full size wheel with a new Dunlop spare in the trunk (not a phoney space saver), so I can put that into the rotation of the 18's. (I can't remember the last car I bought with a full size spare.) Super bonus!

 

^^^^
Yep, that chrome spare came in handy for me. The previous owner had scraped up one of the wheels worse than the others. That tire picked up a nail and I had Belle tire swap the tires with the spare so the scraped wheel, now with the OEM Dunlop tire, is riding in the trunk and one of my wheels is pristine.

 

Funny, I have the same scenario as you. All four of my wheels are pretty much trashed from the previous owner but the spare is about pristine. Too bad the tire on it is almost 10 years old.

On a side note, tons of MI owners. On my old forum I only knew of a 2 in my area. We need to do a meet!

 

I think your car looks better with the 16" wheels. Nicely understated so that attention is drawn to the car and not the wheels ... but I prefer the other LS430 16" wheel version - photo attached.

 

Haha I figured that would be the answer but it was worth a try. If you do tire of those 5 spokes, I am always willing to take them off your hands....

Yes we do! My friends were talking about going to cars and coffee in Detroit. Anyone here interested?