I always thought the ride on my 4matic sport with 19s was very harsh but after having a loaner for a week with the base suspension and 17s it rode like an entirely different car - way smoother and more comfortable. Hitting almost anything on 19s would make a loud sharp thud while the 17s were almost silent the entire time.

My question is, how do people live with 20s or 21s on a daily driver in north Jersey or NY?? Does it help if you have airmatic or some adaptive suspension?

 

i agree with you, in that the 19's with the run flats are quite loud and hard. doesn't help having the sport suspension either.

im pretty sure the consensus around here is that airmatic suspension helps a good amount.

or changing out the run flats to a more conventional air/tube tire helps smooth things out on the 19's

 

17's ride the best. I have an Airmatic car on 18" Michelin Pilot Supersports and it rides well but not quite as good as the 17" on a base car with a steel suspension. 19's look great on the car but to get the wheel's rolling diameter right it's got maybe 2" of sidewall.

 

It helps a bit to have suspension in comfort mode.

I used to run 20s on sport suspension and you do suffer for the looks. I'm too old for this ****, 19 is good enough and winters will go down to 18s for obvious reasons.

 

Unless a 300 is equipped with AirMatic, the agility settings (Eco, Comfort, Sport etc) have no effect on the suspension. Just throttle response, tranny shift points, and steering weight. The C450/63 do have an adaptive suspension but the settings are Stiff, Very Stiff and WTF.

 

My wife traded her 2013 Infiniti Sport M37 on 20's for a 2014 ML350. I really didn't like the ride in her car. I wondered why it didn't bother her until I realized she was sort of strapped in while I was hanging freely if you get my drift. The majority of the roads around Houston are seamed concrete. The slapping of the 20's on the seams was very annoying. The ML has a fairly soft suspension which we are enjoying. Now if I could only get to drive her car.....

 

That's funny. I have a 19" with sport package and when I took my car in for service, they gave me a base loaner. And I was asking myself, how do people live with base suspension? It's so horrible I had to skip on fixing some minor stuff just so I could get my car back. You guys must be in your 80's

 

Low profile tire/tyre cons:
- harsher ride
- increased wear on suspension
- more expensive to replace (and the rims if you damage them)
- more likely to be run flats
- perform much worse in cold conditions
- decreased fuel consumption
- more likely to curb your rims

low profole tire/tyre pros:
- look good (subjective).

 

Very, very carefully, with alot of paying attention, though I no longer live in the Tri-State area (grew up there). Suffice to say our roads can be rather s----y nationwide. And the last 2 comments seem to cover the good, the bad, and the ugly quite well.

Just came from an '09 C63 that was quite the neck breaker; steel gray, tinted windows, smoked head & taillamps, all black XO Miami's (like Vossen CV3s).........but riding on 285/25-20 rear tires; 245/30 fronts.

Found out very soon that dvery damn road imperfection was to either be avoided or confronted at great risk; totally nerve-wracking in a way I'd never experienced. Shocked me in a naive' sort of way, as the other vehicle is an '06 G35 Coupe on 20s, but with 275/30 and 245/40 (R-F) tires s that never seemed to have a problem.

So when Merc gave me the offer I couldn't refuse on a particular black, night-packaged C450 on optional 18s and on the value of the C63, jumped on it with no hesitation.

Have since tinted the windows, smoked the taillamps, and lowered it on H&Rs, so now the car sits/blends/flows perfectly front-to-rear..........like the the Mini-Me S-Class that it is. To my surprise I am quite satisfied with the 18-inchers on 245/40 and 225/45s, with a move the some 255/40s in the future. Sufficiently "big" and within the general 18-20" wheel range for this size car; in other words, 17" too small, 21" too big. (20", too, unless you have @ narrower wheel that can run at least 30-series tires in the rear.)

Could move up to 19s on 35 and 40-series tires, but maybe not. Long story short, if you don't mind constant trips to the tire/wheel shop and value scale model car looks more, knock your socks off.

If not, do your research, balance out your tire & wheel sizes and ride relatively worry-free. I just don't think about those %$#@ers anymore and could not be happier with my (paradoxically) almost-AMG that's still a real AMG.

 

That's true and it's funny. 10 years to go. In the meantime, I'll occasionally pop the clutch on my '67 GTO and as the Beach Boys sing "I get rubber in all 4 gears" which ain't easy to do on 15" radials. Dumping 425 ft lbs of torque will snap you neck back. I tell folks that driving the GTO is just like something else you do for fun. It's hot, sweaty, sticky, noisy, a lot of fun while you're doing it, but I can't do either one for very long anymore. So I'll take a softer ride when my old boney *** is going to be in the seat for awhile. BTW, how many of you teenagers here can even drive a manual transmission? It sometimes foils a carjacking.

 

We have a BMW Z3 and a Scion FRS, both of which ride like go karts, which is part of what makes them fun in small doses. Buyers of a 205 expecting a traditional German luxury sedan ride however are probably going to be disappointed, especially on the Sport suspension and 18" or 19" wheels. If you want a car that looks cool like the Sport but rides smoothly like the base on 17", get Air.

 

I agree with everything, and I really really regret not getting Air.

 

I feel for ya, believe me. I had to do a build and wait three months to get a Sport with air. There is a company that makes an aftermarket air suspension. Not cheap but very cool. You can set ride height with a smartphone app.

 

Don't get me wrong, 19s and sport rides well when the roads are smooth. Which is not the case on nearly 80% of the roads I drive on. Especially on narrow single lane tunnels where potholes cannot be avoided. Often times I get in my car and wonder if I'll even make it to my destination without my tire exploding.

I have never had a flat or bubble in any tire on any cars in my life. On the W205, I've had one flat, three bubbles, and 3 front tire replacements in the first year. I had a C63 with a stiffer suspension that rode much better than this C - though it had 18s. I am counting down the days to when my lease ends.

That is a lesson I have learned the hard way. No pun intended as I go over the potholes.

 

19" runflats and a Sport steel suspension is a recipe for sidewall ruptures. There's simply not enough give in the suspension or compliance in the sidewalls to soak up imperfect surfaces. I've lost count of how many owners have posted pics of 19" RFs with 1" tears in the sidewall right above the bead. That's caused when a sudden burst of air pressure in the tire has nowhere to go and exceeds the design limitations of the tire to contain it.

Pulling the 19" wheels with the RFs and replacing them with an 18" rim and smoother, more compliant tire like the Michelin PSS would solve most of your problems. If you figure on replacing at least one set of 19" RFs over the course of the lease, the estimated cost difference breaks out like this:

(2) 225/40R19 OEM RF @ $300 = $600
(2) 255/35R19 OEM RF @ $280 = $560

TOTAL $1160

(2) 225/45/18 Michelin PSS @ $230 = $460
(2) 225/45/18 Michelin PSS @ $210 = $420
(4) Staggered 18" Replica Wheels $700
(1) Slime Seal & Fill Kit 40

TOTAL $1620

Swing +$460
Resale of reps - $250

Net $210

Just stick the current wheels/tires in the garaged to mount back up for lease turn in, or when the Michelins need replacing. (Treadlife is 35,000 miles in a square set up, or 17,500 staggered)

I understand the resistance to dumping money into mods on a lease. I look at it like this: If I'm paying $700 or so a month on a lease payment for a car I'm supposed to love but can barely tolerate, that $700 is going right into the toilet. If for the equivalent of another $25 or so a month (the cost of the mod over the remaining term of the lease) I can love the car, that's a no-brainer.

(Before anyone goes bat-**** about Ebay replica wheels, let me share my personal experience. I've owned three S Class in succession. I've run both OEM and replica wheels on all of them. Never had a problem with a rep, and at $700 a set, if I curb a couple...whatever. In fact, the only wheels I've ever bent were OEM. As for the possibility of getting a flat on a Michelin and no spare, I've clocked close to 200,000 miles on them and I've never had a flat, or a bubble or sidewall rupture. I'm 100% confident the Slime kit would be plenty if I got a flat.)

 

19" is just looking for trouble!

 

It's unfortunate because it's the best looking wheel for the 205 but the car really isn't set up for it. In my experience with the 220/221, running the largest wheel (20") made little impact. The car rode very well on 20's, 19's, 18's. For the 205 not so much.

 

I have the OEM Run Flats on 18" wheels with Airmatic. Noise and ride are tolerable but not what I would expect from this car. I plan to put conventional tires on soon. (probably Michelin PS). I'm experiencing very uneven wear between fronts and rears. At 20k miles my fronts are ready to be replaced while the rears have lots of tread remaining. Anyone else have similar results?

 

Do you have spare tire?

 

My 16 came with the 18" RF, but they were off the car and stored away before the first month so I can't attest to wear. On Airmatic, set to Comfort, the 18" MPSS have a ride quality and handling characteristics that most owners would find consistent with their expectations for a German luxury car.

One thing that remains constant on the forum is that you don't see the guys who spent the extra for Air complaining the money was a waste, whereas some of the guys on steel do seem to regret it, and so far I haven't seen any complaints from the guys who switched to MPSS as far as being caught without a spare, the wear quality, or the ride/handling.

The MPSS aren't cheap, although they are cheaper than the RFs which wear faster, are prone to sidewall ruptures, are noisier, and ride like bowling *****.

 

No spare but I picked up a Slime Seal and Fill Kit at Amazon.

 

I'm just trying to decide weather to go ahead and replace the fronts or try to run them a bit longer until I get more wear on the rears and replace them all at once. Hate to leave tread on the table.

I too am very please with the Airmatic and bought an extended warranty to take care of any issues that arise. (heard a lot of negatives before I ordered the car). I'm looking forward to having a decent set of tires on the car that compliments the Airmatic instead of fighting it like the RF's do.

 

That has been my experience pretty consistently in my last two C's - 4matic in current one and previous RWD C63. I would think it's fine to just replace the fronts and leave the rears as I also had a lot of tread remaining, around half tread left in rears when the fronts were very worn down.

Anyone else has thoughts on this?

 

Yeah, the S Class was notorious for eating up rears at double the rate of fronts. I was always running newer on one axle or the other. Not a problem.