Hello, I'm possibly looking at swapping my 19" Vega wheels for 18".  Mainly to improve ride comfort, with thicker tyres.  Any ideas on how I might go about this process?  I'm guessing this isn't something Skoda dealers get involved with?

Have you looked inside the petrol filler cap to see what the different wheel/tyre fitment sizes are?  I'd then look on Ebay or Facebook Marketplace for a set of wheels.

No, I hadn't thought of that.  Thanks for the advice.

Once you have the sizes your car is homologated with (used to be on tyre pressure chart as indicated by Derbyshirebod), then can either buy aftermarket wheels through a specialist, find them being sold by ebay etc or order new ones from a Skoda retailer.   You can sell the existing on usual auction sites.

 

Take a look at this brochure, all the Superb wheels (with their part numbers) are on pages 14-20.   It is the German accessories brochure, (but there is no comprehensive UK version)

 

https://www.skoda-auto.de/_doc/c7684484-4438-48a7-a6ed-f3aec77544c1

 

Once you have your wheels, order new tyres in appropriate size to be fitted (from any UK tyre retailer website). I would suggest getting all season tyres rather than summer tyres, as better in UK climate.    Some sites let you order both wheels and tyres, so then you can just jack it up and change each in turn as you would if you had puncture (or you can pay a tyre centre to fit them for you)

 

 

Edited 11 January, 20224 yr by SurreyJohn
typo corrected

Great advice.  Much appreciated. 👍

First you need to decide, are you swapping for oem/original wheels or are you going aftermarket?

The easiest thing for me would be to just swap the 19s for 18s and keep the same style.  Probably a lot of faffing around for a bit more comfort.  The firm ride spoils an otherwise excellent car; plus, I've blown two tyres on pot holes in the last six months. 😠

Shame your not after the same size, I like the vega alloys. But mind are 19s too so no good to you. 

changing to 18" wheels is unlikely to make any  noticeable difference to comfort levels

you said you want to get wider tyres, but even 245/45 x 18 is only about 3.5mm more profile, so next to nothing and not worth the expense 

even if you go to  255/45x18  that only  gives you about 10mm more profile and you cant really have a 50 series profile on a 255 as that creates other problems

11 hours ago, Donc said:

Hello, I'm possibly looking at swapping my 19" Vega wheels for 18".  Mainly to improve ride comfort, with thicker tyres.  Any ideas on how I might go about this process?  I'm guessing this isn't something Skoda dealers get involved with?

 

Changing from 235/40R19 on 8J rims to 245/45R18 on 8J rims would make a noticeable improvement to ride comfort, especially if you drop the tyre pressures by 3psi-4psi.

 

You can drop the tyre pressures because 245/45R18 has a higher load index than 235/40R19, so doesn't need as much pressure to support the same weight.

 

Notice on the below links that the 18" tyre is £165.25 cheaper for 5 tyres than the 19" tyre, and has less rolling resistance.

 

Michelin CrossClimate 2 245/45R18 (Euro Label B B 71dB) £139.60

https://www.camskill.co.uk/m141b0s8826p208505/Michelin_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Michelin_Cross_Climate_2_-_245_45_R18_100Y_XL_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_B_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_71dB

 

Michelin CrossClimate 2 235/40R19 (Euro Label C B 71dB) £172.65

https://www.camskill.co.uk/m142b0s10015p208554/Michelin_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Michelin_Cross_Climate_2_-_235_40_R19_96Y_XL_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_C_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_71dB

 

There's a photo of a Superb MK3 4x4 280HP with 245/45R18 tyres on this thread.

 

 

Edited 12 January, 20224 yr by Carlston

10 hours ago, Carlston said:

 

Changing from 235/40R19 on 8J rims to 245/45R18 on 8J rims would make a noticeable improvement to ride comfort, especially if you drop the tyre pressures by 3psi-4psi.

 

You can drop the tyre pressures because 245/45R18 has a higher load index than 235/40R19, so doesn't need as much pressure to support the same weight.

 

Notice on the below links that the 18" tyre is £165.25 cheaper for 5 tyres than the 19" tyre, and has less rolling resistance.

 

Michelin CrossClimate 2 245/45R18 (Euro Label B B 71dB) £139.60

https://www.camskill.co.uk/m141b0s8826p208505/Michelin_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Michelin_Cross_Climate_2_-_245_45_R18_100Y_XL_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_B_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_71dB

 

Michelin CrossClimate 2 235/40R19 (Euro Label C B 71dB) £172.65

https://www.camskill.co.uk/m142b0s10015p208554/Michelin_Tyres_All_Season_Car_Michelin_Cross_Climate_2_-_235_40_R19_96Y_XL_TL_Fuel_Eff_%3A_C_Wet_Grip%3A_B_NoiseClass%3A_B_Noise%3A_71dB

 

There's a photo of a Superb MK3 4x4 280HP with 245/45R18 tyres on this thread.

 

 

you can drop the tyre pressure on a 19" tyre just the same as a 18"

so the only real difference between the 2 tyre sizes you quoted is around 3.5mm more sidewall height on the 18"

average person would'nt notice any difference to comfort level

 

if the op is looking for comfort better to go to a 17" wheel with 55 series tyre  225/55 x 17  imo

I'm not sure how the car would look on 17" wheels.  Maybe I should just save up and upgrade to one with DCC - assuming it's worth the extra cost?

Dcc to complex for me, there's much that can go wrong and usually costs you more £££ to put right than standard suspension 

1 hour ago, Donc said:

I'm not sure how the car would look on 17" wheels.  Maybe I should just save up and upgrade to one with DCC - assuming it's worth the extra cost?

Depends on the colour of the car, oddly if you pick the black or graphite or anthracite alloys then they often looks better than shiny silver 18s or 19s as whole lot is one colour.  Look at the pictures in this brochure.  In German schwarz is black, platin is platinum, silber is silver, anthrazit is anthracite, hochglanz is gloss, politert is polished

 

https://www.skoda-auto.de/_doc/c7684484-4438-48a7-a6ed-f3aec77544c1
 

DCC is just another thing to go wrong, and shock absorbers do not last the life of a car, and will someday need replacing.  Active shocks are not cheap to replace.

If you’re going to buy new Skoda wheels buy from the accessory list and not normal part number.

 

Same wheel but soooo much cheaper on the accessory list

On 12/01/2022 at 11:31, 310golfr said:

you can drop the tyre pressure on a 19" tyre just the same as a 18"

so the only real difference between the 2 tyre sizes you quoted is around 3.5mm more sidewall height on the 18"

 

Your tyre calc is wrong. The tyre is 7mm bigger diameter but the smaller rim of the 18 gives more sidewall too. Overall height is 8mm extra sidewall. With the added width it could well be more comfortable.

 

The pressure can be dropped due to the larger air volume in the tyre. This can be done with fewer side effects that dropping the pressure on the 19s.

1 hour ago, MarkyG82 said:

 

Your tyre calc is wrong. The tyre is 7mm bigger diameter but the smaller rim of the 18 gives more sidewall too. Overall height is 8mm extra sidewall. With the added width it could well be more comfortable.

 

 

No his calculation isn't wrong because he wasn't talking about diameter. He was talking about the side wall height being 3.5mm taller for the 18" wheels which is effectively a radius.   A radius of 3.5mm X 2 = 7mm difference in diameter.

19" = Tyre Ø 671 

18" = Tyre Ø 678

 

Yes the 18" tyres are 10mm wider than 19" increasing the volume of air in the tyres and possibly making the ride more comfortable as suggested.

Edited 14 January, 20224 yr by Derbyshirebod

23 minutes ago, Derbyshirebod said:

No his calculation isn't wrong because he wasn't talking about diameter. He was talking about the side wall height being 3.5mm taller for the 18" wheels which is effectively a radius.   A radius of 3.5mm X 2 = 7mm difference in diameter.

19" = Tyre Ø 671 

18" = Tyre Ø 678

 

Yes the 18" tyres are 10mm wider than 19" increasing the volume of air in the tyres and possibly making the ride more comfortable as suggested.

Thinking about it I've also  got it wrong!

 

235 40 19" side wall is 94mm

245 45 18" side wall is 109mm

 

So 109mm - 94mm = 15mm taller side wall for the 18" wheel.

 

My previous remark would only be correct of 3.5mm side wall difference if both wheels were the same diameter.

Edited 14 January, 20224 yr by Derbyshirebod

yes  my calculations are way out

 

19 "   94mm  sidewall height

18"   110mm

17"   123mm

 

so 16mm difference between 19 and 18

 

and 29mm difference between 19 and 17

i think i'd still go to 17" wheels if comfort is the main aim

with a 225/55 x17  tyre the wheel arch gap would still be the same as the 19" wheel and as was mentioned a darker wheel might help to blend out the extra sidewall height so it's not as noticable

I didn't mean to sound rude so apologies for that. It was the tyre width that was confusing things I think.

 

17s would definitely be better comfort wise if you could fit them over the brakes. Less steering feedback and a touch more body roll to go with it though. 

The car still has 3 of the original P7 tyres on, at 40k miles.  They're still legal, but I wonder if a full set of new tyres would make a noticeable difference?  The stiffer side walls clearly have the biggest impact on ride comfort - thumping over rough surfaces and pot holes.

6 minutes ago, Donc said:

The car still has 3 of the original P7 tyres on, at 40k miles.  They're still legal, but I wonder if a full set of new tyres would make a noticeable difference?  The stiffer side walls clearly have the biggest impact on ride comfort - thumping over rough surfaces and pot holes.

Remember that tyres come in various grades.  
Anything called Sport or Eco tends to firmer than comfort tyres.

 

Also as a general rule at average UK temperatures all season tyres will be softer than summer tyres.

 

 

Gone from the original 19" rims to a set of Audi Q3 17s and yes with a set of Michelin CC2s at 225/55/17 rather than the much narrower oem 215/55/17 tyres which would have looked a little too out of pl;ace on a 4x4 190tdi.

Gives a 1.3% increase in size, just about spot on mph rather than the slightly over-reading originals. Also invested in full alignment & ACC calibration. For me, ride is so much better. I need confidence to drive down rutted & potholed v minor rural roads without constant worrying about wrecking a tyre and even a rim.  If I wanted to tear round corners nice & flat on "nice" roads, would have gone for a sportline version. The shocks on my SEL-Exec are however far too soft over challenging undulations and deep sleeping policemen ... mulling over investing in a set of B6s for when I get round to selling the very nice 19" rims.

I have 19” summers and 18” winters. The difference in ride quality is just about noticeable. 
Id put my money into better suspension instead, as I find the factory fitted units to be terrible. I have DCC and it still thumps and bangs it’s way along most uneven surfaces. 
I have bilsteins on order but delivery keeps getting knocked back. 

The other item to address is the damned road noise. Some sound deadening in the boot, doors and probably wheel arches would stop the suspension and road noise from seeming as harsh as it is.