Octy vRS 18" Vs 19" Wheels

stoofa

stoofa

stoofa

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I'm planning to go and see an Octy next weekend. I've found one in budget from January this year, less that 5k miles on the clock, looks great, but is on 19" wheels (225/35/19) as opposed to the 18" (224/40/18).
I've been specifically not looking at cars with the 19" wheels because of harshness of ride. The additional £40 - £50 per tyre isn't too much of a worry, mainly the ride.

Now normally I'd just go and give it a go, however this car is literally a 500 mile round trip to go and see (main dealer, so not a worry for future warranty etc).
So not something I want to do if I'm just not going to get on with the 19" wheels.
Anyone else driving similar, with the larger wheel and lower profile tyre? Is the ride as harsh as I'm lead to believe?
 
I was initially the same as you, discounting the 19s but I reconsidered because I quite fancied the vRS 245 with its VAQ diff and that only came with the 19s. It's harsh but then so are the 18s as the suspension itself is. It's nowhere near as bad as I first feared it would be though.

There will be plenty of vRS on 19s though, even if a local one isn't the one you want maybe worth a test drive of a local one just to experience the ride?
 
matthab said:
My Cupra is on 235/35/19 with adaptive suspension its very compliant and not harsh, until you put it in Cupra mode that is. Does the VRS have adaptive suspension?
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Not as standard, it was an £800 option so not many have it. The stiffest mode on adaptive is stiffer than the normal vRS suspension though.
 
Wheel size/harshness is highly subjective and dependent on the roads you will be driving on. Nowadays I find anything much over 17's harsh on the roads I drive. You're also more likely to bend a rim on a pothole.
 
17" is about the optimal size tbh.

Going bigger just makes everything worse. It's only for bling reasons.
 
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19" are more for looks, i would stick to 18", plus the amount of money you save in tyres
 
Tee Hee Johnson said:
I just swapped 205/40/17r to 195/45/16r and the difference is quite surprising!

Saying that, I'm usually quite sensitive to a rough rude...
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Smaller alloys is always the way to go for comfort.

I would buy the car you want. Then get alloys second hand off ebay or specialist forums in the size you want then sell the ones that came with the car or keep them for when you want to sell the car on.

You normally 25% of the RRP when buying alloys second hand. There will always be people out there who "upgrade" so selling old ones on even though they are in very good condition.
 
Worth bearing in mind the 18" vRS wheels can be bought fairly cheaply new from Skoda (about £150 per wheel from memory) and the 19s are popular enough that you'd offload them easily. As a result there ought to be plenty of 18s available cheaply second hand.

Not sure you can drop to 17s and still fit over the brake calipers of the facelift vRS.

Edit - just checked, they range from £145 to £166 depending which colour you want.
 
Unless a car is huge, 19 inch wheels tend to look silly. I would say you want 18 inch max really on an Octy.
 
Thank you all for your input. It's a very mixed response on the Briskoda forums too - with some saying 18" was where they wanted to be with others saying that they found the 19" option felt better and offered a "better ride".
I'm buying second hand, so things like colour are low on my list of priorities, I think I'll consider the wheels the same - it comes with what it comes with.
Saying that, I am (if it doesn't get sold before Saturday) going to see an 18 month vRS in Rallye Green that happens to have 19" wheels.
 
stoofa said:
Thank you all for your input. It's a very mixed response on the Briskoda forums too - with some saying 18" was where they wanted to be with others saying that they found the 19" option felt better and offered a "better ride".
I'm buying second hand, so things like colour are low on my list of priorities, I think I'll consider the wheels the same - it comes with what it comes with.
Saying that, I am (if it doesn't get sold before Saturday) going to see an 18 month vRS in Rallye Green that happens to have 19" wheels.
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there is no way larger alloys offer a better ride. i've had the largest possible alloys on 3 cars in a row now and all of them had a very harsh ride as a result. i've now started buying bigger tyres to help. 2 of the cars came with them the other i upgraded and the difference was night and day.

if brand new ones are only £150 a wheel then £600 for a brand new set is cheap. i'd definetely go smaller. maybe even go for 17's if they fit over the calipers.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
there is no way larger alloys offer a better ride. i've had the largest possible alloys on 3 cars in a row now and all of them had a very harsh ride as a result. i've now started buying bigger tyres to help. 2 of the cars came with them the other i upgraded and the difference was night and day.

if brand new ones are only £150 a wheel then £600 for a brand new set is cheap. i'd definetely go smaller. maybe even go for 17's if they fit over the calipers.
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Thanks for the input.
I think I'll go to look at cars and not worry. If I pick something up with 19" and I don't get on with them, as somebody suggested, I'll go and buy myself a set of 18" and sell the 19" - I'd probably come out on top money wise.
 
Agree with changing them to 18s (or even 17s) if you do that get example. Surprised you need to go so far to find a VRS mind?
 
Duke said:
Agree with changing them to 18s (or even 17s) if you do that get example. Surprised you need to go so far to find a VRS mind?
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If you want options on one you often do, as they fill the cheap and cheerful end of the VAG lineup, people often don't add options. Great if you're happy with standard spec, there are normally loads about but if you want one with a sunroof or with heated seats or something, they rapidly become scarce. Even more so if you want a petrol one, as most people are after 'all show no go' 2.0TDI versions (but a remap and 'dpf delete' soon turns them into RS6 beaters obviously) and so they heavily outnumber the petrols second hand.
 
If you look at cars set up for track, the majority only use up to 17" but wider. Often as small as 15" (even F1 cars only use 16"!). Then the car lowered to lower the center of mavity as much as possible. You'll also get better acceleration with smaller wheels.

But yea it's all about the show, not the go for many people. Even if it means wasting money on larger tyres for no benefit :p
 
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Duke said:
Agree with changing them to 18s (or even 17s) if you do that get example. Surprised you need to go so far to find a VRS mind?
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Facelift petrol models in my budget - currently if Skoda Approved Used is the way there are 15 available within 200 miles of me. If I factor in Autotrader and then ignore the duplicates, there are around 25 available.
Remove from that those with, for example, 15k on the clock when there are those in my budget with 5k - 8k. Then factor out those that are at the top-end of my budget for a 17 plate, when I'm seeing 67 & 18 plates (thus nearly an additional years warranty) for the same.
It's amazing how quickly you can narrow your choices.

15 miles from me there is a 17 Rallye Green with 19s with 10k on clock and a 67 Race Blue on 18's with 13k on the clock that I'm definitely going to look at. Although the one in Swansea ticks an awful lot of boxes, that's a 500 mile round trip.
If the ones 15 miles away don't tick boxes when I get there, my next closest are around 100 miles away.
 
I'd suggest figuring out which dealers are near you and looking on their sites directly if you're interested in approved used. Mine was approved used but didn't appear on searches on the main Skoda Used portal... I've just checked now and of 4 vRS they currently have, only 2 show up via Skoda.co.uk. It's a bit crap really. You might find there are actually more about than you can see via the central approved used search.
 
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