59 leon lowering and 18" wheels

[tidyrob69]

Hi, im new to this forum so appologies if this post is in the wrong section..

I've just bought a new Leon Emocion and would like to tidy its looks up a bit.

I have Fr bumpers for it and would like to fit bigger wheels.

My question is does anyone know how much lower the fr and cupras are than a standard leon as i wondered if fitting 17" or even 18" wheels to a standard leon might make it look too high.

Ideally i'd like to fit 18 scirroco or golf gti wheels but i would imagine it would need lowering quite a bit for these, with that in mind i would settle for 17" wheels if it did not need lowering as im not keen on lowering it in case it'll invalidate the warrenty (non genuine parts used) and make the ride uncomfortable.

rob

 

[Poverty]

you know you are killing all of the hard work made to give your car great mpg right?

There will be no difference between 17's and 18's as the rolling radius should remain roughly the same as the sidewalls will get thinner.

SEAT sell lowering springs btw

 

[tidyrob69]

Cheers for quick response.

Thats good to know about the wheels. Would the rolling radius of the 18" wheels be much more than the 16"s it already has then as the sidewalls on the 16"s are pretty big in comparison.

I'll give seat a phone monday and find out about springs then.

Why would the mpg be reduced then?

 

[jrsmooth]

Cheers for quick response.

Thats good to know about the wheels. Would the rolling radius of the 18" wheels be much more than the 16"s it already has then as the sidewalls on the 16"s are pretty big in comparison.

I'll give seat a phone monday and find out about springs then.

Why would the mpg be reduced then?

If you have the 18" wheels on the tyres will have a much smaller sidewall than what is on the tyres from the 16" rims. This means the overall size of the wheel + tyre should be the same. You will have to make sure you get some low rolling resistance tyres to keep the mpg up.

 

[Poverty]

Why would the mpg be reduced then?

Bigger alloys tend to get heavier in line with each size increase. Also if you are going to be fitting 18's they will be the grippier low profile tyres. The tyres on your car currently are low resistance tyres, ie not very grippy and thin, designed the engine work less to maintain speed.

 

[AndrewJB]

18'S Will make the car look like a tractor

My FR has got 18's and it rides high , Needs some Slammage

 

[Gary@Cookies]

The MPG figure will be almost identical to what it is now, the car is an Emocion (basically an S with f/fogs, multi-function wheel and alloys) I think people are confusing it with an Ecomotive which does run low resistance tyres.

17's or 18's will both look good although neither size will make it run any higher or lower, however bigger wheels always appear to fill the arches better as there's more wheel and less tyre.

 

[Poverty]

The MPG figure will be almost identical to what it is now, the car is an Emocion (basically an S with f/fogs, multi-function wheel and alloys) I think people are confusing it with an Ecomotive which does run low resistance tyres.

17's or 18's will both look good although neither size will make it run any higher or lower, however bigger wheels always appear to fill the arches better as there's more wheel and less tyre.

spot on, i thought it was a ecomotive we were on about!

 

[tidyrob69]

Thats the news i wanted to hear gary, was getting worried about ruining the fuel economy.

I think i'll go for the 18s then and if it looks like a tractor and needs lowering i'll look into that at a later date. I think koni fsds and eibach sportline springs were suggested before- do people have any experience of these? I know it'll invalidate the warrenty though.

 

[erichuyn]

The MPG figure will be almost identical to what it is now, the car is an Emocion (basically an S with f/fogs, multi-function wheel and alloys) I think people are confusing it with an Ecomotive which does run low resistance tyres.

17's or 18's will both look good although neither size will make it run any higher or lower, however bigger wheels always appear to fill the arches better as there's more wheel and less tyre.

I don't think so ts mentions fitting 17 or 18's which means it's running on 16's now.
the 16's are 205 in width, if you move to 17or18 they'll be 225 wide!
This extra width on all 4 wheels will mean more resistance. Also the alloys will be heavier which also adds to resistance.

Lowering looks best with H&R 45mm springs in my opinion. Ride should improve comparing to standard sport specs. But I only heard about it.

 

[rich146]

Ill be taking delivery of my 1.9TDI Emocion in a couple of weeks. Ive ordered it in Crono Yellow to give it an instant sporty look as I think the yellow does the job well (Disclaimer - other colours also look good ). Ive got 18" BBS Seat Sports to go on it and will add an exhaust tail pipe trim to add a nice finish.
Considering tinting rear windows to factory spec but to be honest I quite like it without the rear tint. The yellow makes the windows look darker anyway I think.
Im going for Falken 452 tyres for the new alloys as i read these are good all round mid range tyres for the price.

TIDYROB69 - Be interested to see hows yours turns out!

Cheers
Rich

 

[erichuyn]

Im going for Falken 452 tyres for the new alloys as i read these are good all round mid range tyres for the price.

DON'T!!! Have had the falken on mine, cupping nightmare .But the play on words aside, horrid in the rain, mediocre wearrate and also a very old model tyre. You can do better in the budget section. If I had to buy them with my own money I'd check out Vredestein Ultrac Sessenta and the Hankook V12 evo. The Hankook ended up in the top three of most reviews the last couple of years.
Have a 1.9TDI Sport-up with 18" BBS CO's, sport up is the sportiest spec before FR, maybe it's called differently in the UK, and mine where cupping very badly at about 8-9K miles.
Mine is lowered though, but was laser aligned afterwards.

Slightly offtopic with the 18's you need lowering, it just looks wrong without. Even more than on 17's.

 

[rich146]

DON'T!!! Have had the falken on mine, cupping nightmare .But the play on words aside, horrid in the rain, mediocre wearrate and also a very old model tyre. You can do better in the budget section. If I had to buy them with my own money I'd check out Vredestein Ultrac Sessenta and the Hankook V12 evo. The Hankook ended up in the top three of most reviews the last couple of years.
Have a 1.9TDI Sport-up with 18" BBS CO's, sport up is the sportiest spec before FR, maybe it's called differently in the UK, and mine where cupping very badly at about 8-9K miles.
Mine is lowered though, but was laser aligned afterwards.

Slightly offtopic with the 18's you need lowering, it just looks wrong without. Even more than on 17's.

Hi Erychuyn..Thank you for the advice. Whats cupping? I guess you are one of the unfortunate people that have had bad experience with the Falkens. Ive had mostly very good reviews on the tyre so will give them a go.
Im definately not going for lowering. I want a slight sporty look and not too racer. Its only a 1.9TDi 105 bhp so making it too much like a power horse would be just wrong. Im 37 years old..past that level of pimping my rides now lol... cheers.

 

[tidyrob69]

Will the extra width and weight really make much difference? That was the tires i was looking at rich146, heard they arent so bad.

I'm not sure what cupping is either...

Did you just go for the springs erichuyn? is it not a tad 'bouncy' being under damped?

Another thing about the wheels is what offset are the fr or cupra wheels? There are a few offset options on aftermarket wheels...

 

[erichuyn]

Hi Erychuyn..Thank you for the advice. Whats cupping? I guess you are one of the unfortunate people that have had bad experience with the Falkens. Ive had mostly very good reviews on the tyre so will give them a go.
Im definately not going for lowering. I want a slight sporty look and not too racer. Its only a 1.9TDi 105 bhp so making it too much like a power horse would be just wrong. Im 37 years old..past that level of pimping my rides now lol... cheers.

We'll you'll see when they are on the car, it looks like a range rover in off road mode.
This is mine with a 35mm drop on 18inch BBS CO ET44:

It's gotten a little lower since the picture was taken when it was new.
The sport spec car has very weird suspension/dampers which makes the car very hard yet very high. You won't notice much difference in ride with lowering but it will look a lot nicer. I have heard that the H&R and Eibach springs ride better than the sport spec car.
FR and Cupra wheels are ET 51 I think...the weight will go up quite a bit from 16 to 18. You'll have to remember that this is rotating mass which is counts as more than static weight.

Aside from my bad experience with the falken, why pick such an old tyremodel?! As I said the Hankook for example is a much newer tyre which has very good review's everywhere.
No I don't have a stake in hankook but just giving advice to a fellow forum member.

Back to cupping/feathering/stepped wear/sawtoothing( ? ), it's an uneven wear on the tyre which result in a sort of sawtooth pattern. Extreme example:

google it, a lot of the newer cars have uneven wear on the rear's due to axle layout or so.
Some tyres are more affected by it, some pirelli's/the older bridgestone's RE050 without A behind the name etcetc

for example this thread here:
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=116362
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=149822&highlight=tyre+wear
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=160361&highlight=tyre+wear

Here in holland and germany it is more commonly known as tyre cupping, but if you don't speak dutch or german that will limit you're research options just don't google cupping only .

 

[rich146]

Thanks for the info .My Emocion has standard suspension so I wont have such a rigid setup and probably less chance of 'cupping' problems im sure. I have read on this forum of some issues with poor camber setup from factory build on the Leon. Have you checked that as well?
I have a couple of weeks to make my mind up on the tyre but the Falken is a proven tyre even if it is an older design. Besides I like to try for myself. Experience is good knowledge
I can speak some Dutch and my mum is Dutch but I bet even she wont know the technical meaning of 'cupping'! haha..
Thanks

 

[erichuyn]

Well the cupping seems to be connected to the newer rearaxle designs and the tyre design.
A lot of threads talk about tyre rumble by the way but this can be different problems. From wheel weights to worn bearings.
Back to cupping, if you google the thread pattern of for example the FK452 and the Continental SportContact 3 you'll see that on the conti the thread is connected to eachother which should mean that there is less flex and less chance of deforming during wear.
As I said mine was laser aligned after the springs where fitted so I'm almost sure that that wasn't the issue.
Of course it could be that seat has revised the rear axle layout or settings and that this is less of a problem.
My experience is that tyres have evolved quite quickly. For example I have had the Sportcontact 2 and 3 and the 2 was absolute crap, compared to the 3. Only reason I don't have the 3 anymore is that the leasingcompany now only pays for michelin's or pirelli's.
Also I have not met anyone who has had the FK452 and then a newer tyre who has switched back to the FK452.
But I can only give advise and tell you my personal experience. Luckily the rest is up to you

 

[rich146]

Some very useful information which I will bare in mind thanks. However I do feel that im perhaps in a better position not having sports suspension simply from the threads I have read.
I'll let you know how i get on...

 

[erichuyn]

It's either the sport suspension or the bigger wheels/stiffer tyres. Not sure. Or maybe a combination. Let us know.

and you do know:

 

[tidyrob69]

Cupping very thoroughly explained, cheers erichuyn. The wheels and height look nice on your car.

Apparently seat do there own lowering springs so will give them a phone when i get the chance and see what they do- keeps in with the whole warrenty thing then.

Would the offset make much difference then as you say your wheels are et44 and cupras are 51?