18" wheels vs 20" wheels

lacrosse881

Working on purchasing a 2016 Lacrosse but it has 20" tires. I don't like them since it provides a rougher ride. The 20" wheels are factory installed and part of the new car package. Is it possible to change these to 18" wheels with no impact to the vehicle suspension or performance other than the what would be expected with the size difference?

stever

It depends. I don't like big wheels either but sometimes you can't swap them because of the brakes, ABS sensors, etc. If you can swap them out, lots of dealers are reluctant to work with you because they get stuck with a set of wheels that may be hard to resell.

People have driven straight to an independent tire store after picking up their new car and swapping out the wheels and getting a nice credit for their factory wheels, but some stores won't do this either due to liability concerns of selling "used" tires.

And yeah the ride and performance may be affected (for the better as you've found!), but I'm not knowledgeable enough to speculate on that.

kyfdx

lacrosse881 said:

Working on purchasing a 2016 Lacrosse but it has 20" tires. I don't like them since it provides a rougher ride. The 20" wheels are factory installed and part of the new car package. Is it possible to change these to 18" wheels with no impact to the vehicle suspension or performance other than the what would be expected with the size difference?

If the LaCrosse comes with 18" wheels stock on another trim line, then you can probably swap with no issues. Can't imagine a LaCrosse version that has big brakes, etc.. New wheels and tires is going to be a pricy package, though.

imidazol97

You need to spend some time with the rockauto.com catalog to compare the parts for rotors and calipers, e.g., between the models to see if they are interchangeable. Best would be to ask someone in the parts department if they have done this. The salesman probably knows who is the expert on what fits. Rockauto talks about 16 and 17" parts for rotors. Also various pieces are keyed by being AWD and/or having power parking brake, based on rockauto's catalog..

I can't personally see going to all that trouble to change wheel sizes. I just bought a different model with the 18-inch wheel rather than a 19-inch wheel being one of 3 factors that kept me from getting the next up top-of-line Malibu. Another was mandatory sunroof to get the option packages on the top model rather than getting the same options my my next down model without the hole-in-the-roof.

It's all choices.