Wheel Size

What is everyone doing with the wheel size on the new Cayman? Are you going with the 18' or paying the extra 2K for the 19'? If so, which wheel design did you choose? Personally, I think the 18' look great on the Cayman. I am hard pressed to pay the extra 2K for 1 more inch of wheel. The size of the car makes the 18' look substantial. I went with 19' on my Cayenne S because the 18' just looked too small on such a large vehicle. I also like the Cayman 18' style which helped make my decision. What is everyone else doing?

I'm staying with the 18' - I love the style

I didn't like the standard 18' wheels. I feel the 19' will very much improve the looks of the car. I will go for the 19' but have not decided which one yet. I like the sport design one on the silver pic. I'm going for Seal Grey. I dont know how good it is gonna be on the Seal. Then I saw the yellow pic with the carrera classic ones. They look good too, but again I'm not sure how good it looks. I guess I will have to take a call soon /fckeditor/editor/images/smiley/MWPX/shades_smile.gif

Funny, I much prefer the standard 18" Cayman wheels to those sport design ones in the marketing materia;. I have never been a fan of the millions of spokes look. I have deleted those pictures of the silver Cayman with the sport desgin from my collection because it makes the car look so....different. Not bad and of course everyone has different taste. The wheels on the yellow really do look nice. I am going to stick with the Cayman stock wheels. At least in the pictures I really like them.

I can't decide either. I think the 19's look much better, especially in the Carrera Classic wheels. However, the 18's handle better and ride better obviously, and the brakes look small with the 19's. Don't know, they both have pros and cons.

A quick correction the 18's don't handle better than the 19' sport designs, the 19' SD's weigh less than the 18's and put down a larger tire patch, both of which improve handling. Now vs. other 19's that's true like the CC's or Carrera S 19's both of which are significantly heavier. BTW, even though I have 19' SD's on my 2005 Boxster S, I'm going with 18's on the Cayman for 2 reasons: 1) price savings 2) I can get R compounds in 18' wheels, much harder to do in 19's...

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr id="quote" noshade="noshade" height="1"/> A quick correction the 18's don't handle better than the 19' sport designs, the 19' SD's weigh less than the 18's and put down a larger tire patch, both of which improve handling. Now vs. other 19's that's true like the CC's or Carrera S 19's both of which are significantly heavier. BTW, even though I have 19' SD's on my 2005 Boxster S, I'm going with 18's on the Cayman for 2 reasons: 1) price savings 2) I can get R compounds in 18' wheels, much harder to do in 19's... <hr id="quote" noshade="noshade" height="1"/></blockquote> Good point about the R compound K-man. I also didn't know that the SD is lighter than the 18's. Any actual weightfor them? Either way, I may get a set of Champion forged wheels for the track later on. Those are very light. Edited by - WAY on 08/24/2005 11:08:35 PM

19 lighter than 18????? 19 cars has more understeer than 18 also porsche instructors prefers 18 vs 19

Maybe this isn't a factor to most of you, but cleaning brake dust off of the SD 19' wheels will be a nightmare. Unfortunately I have to clean my own wheels and the 5 spoke standard 18' look a lot easier to clean.

I will have to try to find the weights for each wheel again, but if memory serves correct the 19' SD's were about a pound lighter than the stock 18' Boxster wheels, I don't know where the 18' Cayman wheels come in as they weren't available to weigh at the time. I totally concur about cleaning the brake dust off the 19' SD's. It is a PITA! I bought a special brush to help with it, wiping down an open 5 spoke will be a lot quicker. As for understeer on 18 vs 19, never heard that before, but I suspect you could tweak the suspension to get it out. I know Walter Rohl has been misquoted as liking the 18's better than the 19's, he was specifically referring to the 19' Carrera S wheels (those blocky ones) that are the heaviest wheels Porsche makes (next to the Cayenne wheels) for the Boxster/911/Cayman. I like the 19' SD's for several reasons, disklike them for others, so as I said I'm going with the stock 18's this time and like WAY will probably get a different set of wheels for the track anyway, maybe a set of ForgeLines as I've heard good things about them.

Hi...can someone clarify for me what the difference is in the base 18" wheel and the 987S 18" wheel that is a $390 option...I don't know what they look like? thanks!

I will stick with 18's also. I have a set of 17' Kinesis wheels as track wheels now and hope that they will fit the Cayman without any problems. I may transfer my 18' Fikses to the Cayman. Dunno, it'll probably be time for something new. Will have to see what the budget allows. For sure I will want to lower the car. Probably will put coilovers on eventually. Hans at Ruf Auto Centre said they have some springs for the new Boxster that don't affect or interfere with PASM. I am sure there will be more options by the time the Cayman S goes on sale

Someone know the weight of every Porsche 18 and 19 wheels???

Dave 90601, I asked my dealer the same question and he told me there is only one 18' wheel and it is the one you see in the brochures. I am not sure he knew since he had no explanation for the option you refer to. Maybe someone else on this board has the answer.

I really like the standard Cayman 18' wheel. Braman has a couple of CGTs and you can clearly see the lineage of the Cayman wheels. I'm not a big fan of the 19' wheels, I think the 18' are difficult enough to keep in good shape. I had a 99 2.5 Boxster which had the 17' sport design wheels. They were a pain to keep clean. Anyway a guy in Lauderdale bought a set of Gemballa 18' RC cups (look like Turbo 3.6s)for a 97 Boxster not realizing that you can't do that with a 97. I swapped my wheels/tires for his plus $2K. Even in flat Florida with good roads a rim got bent and I had to have it straightened out (not cheap), although they looked terrific. I'm not a track junkie, but wouldn't it be better (if not easier)just to have another set of wheels/tires for the track rather than try to do double duty?

I believe what that option refers to is if you want the base 18' wheel from the Boxster S you can get it on th Cayman S, but it will cost you extra to do so vs. the standard 18' wheel that comes on the Cayman S. They look different, I will have to put up some pics of both if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

thanks...if you guys can show me a pic of the standard 18" cayman S wheel i'd be obliged..i'm sure its on here somewhere but i don't know which is which!

My rep found out for me that the wheels shown in the photo on pages 14-15 of the preview brochure are the standard wheels. 18'. Sweet.

I should of kept my hollow spoke turbo wheels from my 996. Those were VERY light. Although I like the standard look of the Cayman S wheel better.

Well it looks like I didn't make the right choice on my order!!!! I went with the 19' Carrera S wheels. I think they look stunning on darker color cars. Mines Black. Talking tyres, does anyone know if the 19s are the same width rubber as the 18s? ie 265 rears, etc? Thanks

Same width I believe just profile is different.

So will 911 wheels still fit? I know that the 997 Carrera S wheels use a 295 profile at the rear. Is there going to be no problem with those?

I'm gonna go for the standard 18's. FWIW I like the look of those 19' Carrera Classic wheels slightly better, but think that the handling/grip/balance compromise will be better on 18's than 19's. Also it means that I can check the box for PASM... Might well be proved wrong though!

I love the stock Cayman wheels, but I want 19' because (my understanding is) the work better on a track. I want no compromise sport. My dealer says the Cayman look wheel is not available in 19', so I chose Carrera Classic, like on the yellow car in the 2nd post.

Just my .02.......Porsches own test drivers prefer the 18' wheelsfor the track (slightly less unsprung weight I believe). Also it is my understanding that R compound tires are a bit rare for the 19's at this point in time. If you like the 19's just for looks that's a different story.

Chris, The 19' Carrera Classic wheels are heavier than the 18' Cayman S wheels, the only 19' wheel that stands a chance of being lighter is the Sport Design (which is lighter than the Carrera Classic or Carrera S wheels). As Atlas mentioned, getting R-compound tires in 19' is both difficult and expensive $$$$. I have 19' SD's on my Boxster S and I'm switching back to 18's because of the ease of finding R-compounds and the ease of cleaning as the SD's are a pain to keep clean. UItimately if you want pure sport you need to go with lighter forged wheels anyway, some HRE's or Forgelines, etc. Less unsprung weight is a better thing. As for Walter Rohl prefering the 18's to the 19's it was because the 19's they were asking about were the heaviest (and ugliest IMHO) 19's the Carrera S wheels, Walter never gave an opinion about one type of wheel vs. another across the whole family of wheels offered in the Porsche line up. I've also heard, but not had technically explained, that you want to dial in more negative camber with 19's vs. 18's and that the factory set-up doesn't have enough. Hope that helps... Oh, and yeah, if you are buying on looks then buy whatever you think looks best!