Best Of

So, good news. We managed to get the rest of those accursed subframe bushings out last night! It actually went relatively quickly (perhaps 30-40 minutes) since we had a system worked out on it, finally. We cleaned up the mounting surfaces for the new bushings, ended up pressure washing the subframe, and decided to stop for the evening in order to let it dry. My son wants to put some rust inhibitor on it to help maximize the opportunity since this is probably a once-in-a-car-lifetime event for this nearly 200,000-mile Forester....



Yes, the "floor" of our workspace is rather muddy due to heavy rains all day yesterday. We needed it, though; the nearby fires are growing rather large, and the resulting smoke is getting more than tedious!

From my pov the tires on the Camry XSE aren't ideal: 235/40/19. The 40mm or 4 centimeters of sidewall will result in a stiff ride lacking comfort I'm guessing. 4 Michelin CC2 tires at this size are $1140 at Costco with installation, which is getting somewhat expensive I feel.

The tire size for my 2018 TLX 4-cylinder is 225/55/17. 5.5 cm of sidewall gives a cushier ride while still being sporty, if you have good Michelin tires or similar. 4 CC2 tires are $912.

The Camry's LE size is 205/65/16. Hmmm. That 6.5 cm sidewall will certainly give a comfortable ride, and the narrow tire improves mpg to over 50, but at the sacrifice of some handling and grip. 4 CC2s $824.

The Camry's XLE's size is 235/45/18. Still a rather thin sidewall, and so not exactly a comfortable tire, but better than the XSE from my pov. $972 for CC2s at Costco.

If I were getting a Camry I might be tempted by the LE to get the mpg and comfort. But in the end I'd probably want the XLE to get the near-Lexus levels of luxury. But I'd probably skip the pano sunroof etc. to keep the msrp at $35k.

40 is not 40 millimeters of sidewall.

40 is a percentage of the width of that tire

235/40 = 94 millimeter of sidewall
205/65 = 133.25 millimeter of sidewall
225/55 = 123.75 millimeter of sidewall

It's entirely width X percentage. The diameter of the wheel measurement has no effect.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.