18"s Vs. 19"s - how much difference really?

[Item]

The longer I own my VRS, the more the road noise and booming over course tarmac and rough road bothers me. Great on the smooth stuff, but we have a lot of rough roads out my way and it is getting fatiguing.

 

I am wondering whether swapping my 19" extremes for some 18"s will help this?

 

I hear really mixed things on these forums - both that the 19"s are much worse that the 18"s and that there is hardly any difference between the two...depending on who you talk to.

 

Does anyone here have first hand experience of both and has anyone gone from the 19" to 18" and noted an improvement in general ride refinement and noise?

 

Cheers

Edited 23 July, 2016 by Item

[allan1888]

i had 18's on my mk2 vrs and have the 19's on my mk3.  i dont feel any difference between them but i did get rid of the pirelli pzero tyres. 

[Czechers]

This is something only you can judge. That said, in my view decent tyres can make a difference on the same size wheel if you avoid the harder compounds such as a Bridgestone.

[Item]

i had 18's on my mk2 vrs and have the 19's on my mk3.  i dont feel any difference between them but i did get rid of the pirelli pzero tyres. 

 

Yeah I got the P-Zeros and was looking to replace with some Goodyear F1 AS2 or Michelin Sports...but they only have 7000km on them, so unless I can find someone will to buy them I am not really in a position to swap them just yet!

 

The firmness of the ride doesn't bother me at all - it really is just the acoustic side.

[Wakey]

Although not a direct answer, I had the same issue with a Subaru. 

 

As I didn't buy it new I was convinced it was a wheel bearing it was that bad. As the tyres were appraoching their best at 3mm I changed from Pirelli to Michelin and the difference was night and day - totally gone.

[Mallettsmallett]

It's mostly a lack of sound deadening and treatment. Sit in any vw using the same platform and it's much quieter and more refined. The wheels aren't a major factor.

[Item]

It's mostly a lack of sound deadening and treatment. Sit in any vw using the same platform and it's much quieter and more refined. The wheels aren't a major factor.

 

Yeah - I will be treating the trunk floor and arches...hoping that will reduce the boom/resonance over certain surfaces

[Magget]

I went from 18 to 19 last weekend on my mk3 Vrs. To be perfectly honest it's not much different. If you're not annoyed by 18 you probably won't be by 19. You are changing the tire height only by 5, so unless you have a bad back you should be fine for stiffness. Road noise is the same (on same tires), apart from bad potholes which may be a bit louder, and harsher, although I tend to try and drive around them.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Cymru Blackline]

Had done 40k miles in a vRS with 18's, changed for a vRS with 19's 2 weeks/2000 miles ago.

Not much difference noise wise, the 19's are bit rougher over potholes, poor town roads.

 

I find both cars have lots of road noise, unless you're going over very smooth tarmac - which is quite rare to find these days. Cars could do with more sound-proofing basically.

On the 18's I had Continental. Bridgestone and Michelin on them, all similar noise wise.

[stephenek]

I had both 18' and 19' on my mk3. Honestly... not much of a difference. I think maybe look for tires with a lower noise index. I'm currently driving on Michelins and I actually think they are better noise-wise in comparison to Bridgestones for example. You may try some cheap online stores if you want. I usually use http://www.tirendo.ie/ or http://www.tyre-guru.ie/.

[Mence]

Unless you have cash to burn it's not worth the cost of change as the difference will be negligible.

[badger1340]

I had 19's on my Audi A4 Black Edition and it was a HARSH ride so debated long and hard over 19's for my new vRS......still went with them though ha ha and in all fairness its loads smoother & quieter

Could be tyres could be suspension but certainly easier to live with 

[Item]

Cheers all.

 

I think I will:

 

1) Go ahead with the Dynamat in the boot floor to hopefully take the resonance out of the booms/thuds/vibrations

2) Get the dealer (or maybe a 3rd party) to check the wheel alignment

3) Start planning my next set of tyres!

 

As I said, the ride is firm but that doesn't bother me it all -  it is really just the cabin noise that bugs.

Edited 27 July, 2016 by Item

[Mallettsmallett]

Let me know how the boot deadening goes.

[Mence]

Let me know how the boot deadening goes.

+1, be interested in the outcome...

[Item]

Let me know how the boot deadening goes.

 

 

+1, be interested in the outcome...

 

 

Will do - another thing I seem to hear really mixed things about on here!

 

I will be buying the Dynamat Xtreme Trunk liner kit next month and will likely use all of it to do the wheel well (I do have a space saver) and the entire bare metal of the boot floor. I won't do the wheel arches initially as I don't really want to start removing trim if I can help it and in theory (if it is all one piece) then the massloading effect of doing the whole trunk floor should help the whole rear floor pan....

 

Once I do that I will also look to get some heavy sheet rubber to glue to the underside of the MDF boot floor as extra absorption...currently if I bang on the boot floor (even with the two-sided mat) I do get quite a boom in some places which seems very similar to the sound and frequency of the resonance that I get over certain surfaces and bumps.

 

Having analysed it a lot of late, I am pretty sure it is not the volume of the interior noise which gets me, but the resonance/frequency...fingers crossed that this will take the sting out and allow me to start worrying over the other little niggles instead!

[Mence]

The doors to me seem to be good sound amplifiers, I was going to invest in some Dynamat for them.

[imikk3]

I heard that, by soundproofing the front wheel arches will make it quieter 

Edited 28 July, 2016 by imikk3