17" Wheel On Mkiii Ls400 95 ?

[sdurkin]

I have been offered a set of 17" LS 400 wheels to replace the 16" ones I have now.

Will there be any difference in ride, noise, speedo calibration etc ?

Will they fit without rubbing / snagging anything ?

Thanks

[T7RY B]

I put 17"s on my last LS 400

No rubbing or catching but because you have a lower profile tyre on the bigger wheel you do lose some ride quality but not much and the look of the car was worth it! Check with your tyre specialist before you buy the wheels unless you are getting a package deal. Then you can get a higher profile tyre.

Terry

[megabuck]

I've recently bought a '97 LS400, which I guess started life as a demonstrator, since it was owned by a Lexus dealer for the first ten months. Whilst the handbook only mentions 225/60-16, mine has 245/50-17, fitted to what are presumably optional Lexus rims, since they've got the Lexus 'L' badge in the centre. Full set, including spare. Fortunately the car had four new Pirelli PZero fitted before I bought it - a set of those is over 700 quid!

I don't know what you'd need to do to recalibrate the speedo, if anything; I recently clocked mine over a measured mile at an indicated 60mph, and it was about 2s slow, making the speedo fractionally fast. The important question is whether the circumference changes - i.e. is 225mm x 60% + 16" more or less than 245mm x 50% + 17"? Doncha just love mixing metric and imperial? So it may well depend on what rubber you intend to fit.

Since Lexus obviously do an optional 17" rim, there should be no problem with rubbing - PROVIDED the offset is right. For non-Lexus rims, you might need to use spacers between the hub and wheel to get this right, and the thickness of the spacer will vary from rim to rim.

Regards,

Martin

[flotsam]

I've recently bought a '97 LS400, which I guess started life as a demonstrator, since it was owned by a Lexus dealer for the first ten months. Whilst the handbook only mentions 225/60-16, mine has 245/50-17, fitted to what are presumably optional Lexus rims, since they've got the Lexus 'L' badge in the centre. Full set, including spare. Fortunately the car had four new Pirelli PZero fitted before I bought it - a set of those is over 700 quid!

The LS400 had an optional £2424 dynamic handling pack which offered 8Jx17 alloys with 245/50ZR17 Pirelli P-Zeros. There was a slight firming and lowering in suspension too.