15 inch rims, anyone tried them? they fit, with pics

drees said:

minispeed said:

Not all of that is true to all tires.

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Well said. I'd love to find some reasonably light ( < 16 lbs ) 15" wheels that are also reasonably aerodynamic - and reasonably priced.

Hmm - looks like TireRack lists a bunch of 15" wheels that fit.

These look like a good choice: Sport Edition CS1 - 15.2 lbs. Not the most aerodynamic, though. But smaller wheel diameter with larger sidewalls should be an improvement over stock.

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Rota slipstreams, on ebay you can find many for $550 a set, you can't get much lighter without spending $850 plus. 12.9 lbs each. They are a desmond regamaster / spoon sw388 copy. They don't make the originals anymore, they were 8.8 lbs each in 15x6.5. Expect to pay $1200 if you find a set used.

I think rota has pretty much killed off the light weight high quality wheel market. Many people debate quality vs weight on them as track tires. Many have failed on the track, but many more have stood up. I think that's enough to qualify for acceptable road use. They are probably also as aerodynamic as you can get, and have a flat face that would lend itself to an aero cover if you're so inclined.

minispeed said:

Rota slipstreams

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Yeah, those would be awesome. Not the prettiest wheel, IMO which is why I think they're hard to find, but very functional and affordable. Rota does list them in 15 x 6.5 5x114.3 e+40 to +45, but trying to find them? Good luck! Especially since most people want the 7" wide wheel but for a 195 width tire, that's really just slightly too wide.

Plus given the tight fitment, there's no guarantee that the 15" slipstreams will fit. You can be confident that the 15" wheels listed on Tirerack will fit because Tirerack measures each car/wheel to ensure fitment.

drees said:

minispeed said:

Rota slipstreams

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Yeah, those would be awesome. Not the prettiest wheel, IMO which is why I think they're hard to find, but very functional and affordable. Rota does list them in 15 x 6.5 5x114.3 e+40 to +45, but trying to find them? Good luck! Especially since most people want the 7" wide wheel but for a 195 width tire, that's really just slightly too wide.

Plus given the tight fitment, there's no guarantee that the 15" slipstreams will fit. You can be confident that the 15" wheels listed on Tirerack will fit because Tirerack measures each car/wheel to ensure fitment.

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Here's your aero wheel!

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/JDM-SSR-MK1-...uck_Wheels&hash=item233c68401f&vxp=mtr&_uhb=1

minispeed said:

Here's your aero wheel!

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Those are pretty cool! But the cost is pretty high for used wheels - and looks like the offset isn't anywhere close to correct...

Here are the rims and tires mounted.

205 65 15 Nokian hakapelliitta r2's at 20.5lbs. Total weight 31lbs.



They are now broken in with over 3300 km on them. Today at 10 to 12 C out I was able to match my best ever drive to work at highway speeds at or over 100km/hr. 70 km and I used 41% off the battery with the heat on today where with the old 16s my 41% was without climate control or seat heaters. I've got them at 46psi now. They'll do 51.

I've had multiple sets of wheels/tires on my 2013 Leaf S.

-Stock S steel wheels @ 40.6 lbs total
-17x7 Drag DR38 (17.2 lbs) w/ 205/50/17 @ 37 lbs total
-17x9 Drag DR38 (21.6 lbs) w 235/45/17 @ 45lbs total
-17x9 Enkei RPF1 +35 offset with 245/45/17 Bridgestone RE71R @ 40.4 lbs total

I am now looking to go EXTREMELY light weight. I can't in good conscience spend $400 each on a 15 x7" wheel. I'm going to have to just take what I can get from the slim pickings available. Best I can find is the Konig Zero In at 13.4 lbs each and a 195/65/15 Continental PureContact @ 16.2 lbs each. The tire's light weight makes up for the rim being a little more than I'd like for the size. I'm curious what I can get for range with a setup that weighs 29.6 lbs TOTAL! I'll let you guys know what I decide to do. But first some thoughts on my prior setups...

Stock- LRR tire, rim is heavy, but tire is light in the 18.5 lb range for the Ecopia 422 in the stock 205/55/16 size. As good as range is going to get without going even lighter.

17x7- I lost 3 lbs per wheel/tire, but the extra rolling resistance neutralized things as far as range

17x9- Got a ridiculously cheap deal on the wheels/tires and wanted to start going for grip. Range did suffer. When from 4.5 miles per KW to 3.7 miles per KWH. Handling was nice tho and notably more stick than the 205/50/17 setup above.

At this point, I added a camber kit to the front and set to full neg camber of approx -2.25 and zero'd out the toe. Handling improved noticeably, but not night and day...just a good noticeable imrpovement.

17x9 Enkei RPF1- My goal was to go same weight per wheel/tire as stock. Of course, these wheels stick out much further than stock, and the weight dist is 16 lb rim, 24.4 lb tire vs OEM being 22 lb rim, 18.6 lb tire. Even tho the same weight, the weight is now focused towards the outside of the rotating mass, decreasing accel or reducing range if u will even without factoring in the extra rolling resistance from the wider contact patch/more aggressive offset (aero disadvantage). Still getting only 3.7 miles per KWH. OMG tho, the grip is AMAZING.

Just took off the 17x9 Enkei's for now since I'm driving the car for work and wanting max range. So anyway, I'd like to see if a lightweight 15" setup can net me another 4-5 miles range per charge. It might be worth a try at least.

I think aero matters much more than weight, at least for my drive. Last winter I hit a curb and one of the rims cracked. Looks like it was a previously repaired rim and painted over too. I didn't notice that when I bought them. Probably wouldn't have done anything to it if it was a different corner or 180degrees opposite oh well....

So I bought a used infiniti q45 set for cheap.



I read that the brakes from that car are used as a cheap big brake upgrade on 240s so I was hopeful they would clear. They didn't clear the fronts, but since they are a high +50 offset I'm pretty sure they would clear with 15mm spacers which would put them only +7mm further out from stock which would be near negligible if I switch to 195s.

So I was in a pinch to put my winter set on so I ran them on the rear only and have mismatch now. I did all black plasti dip so it really doesn't stand out. Not a single person has ever said anything.

Now it's hard to compare ranges from one year to the next especially as the battery degrades but I did notice it was easier to hold a high efficiency when I was trying to stay at highway speed. I'm thinking when I need new tires I'll probably put spacers on the front and run these at all 4 corners. They're 18lbs each so the same as stock with the weight moved in and a lighter tire so they are sure to beat stock in both aero and weight, I was planning on trying plastic covers for the SSR's as the spokes are all inside it would be really easy to do and that would be the best of both worlds. The one thing I can say for sure is the go pedal response is way better!

If I wanted performance and didn't care about range I think I'd still stick with the light 15s and put on summer only 205 55 15 or 225 50 15. The drop in FD and low weight would be kick ass.

When I post about using smaller lighter wheels usually someone comes out of the woodwork/peanut gallery to tell me it will handle worse. It isn't true as an absolute rule and I get tired trying to defend the actual pros and cons.

Here is a youtube video that at least covers some of the points fairly. Well worth watching if you thought larger wheels equals better performance full stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPyg3ilw3KU

It doesn't cover efficiency or cost, tread wear, puncture resistance, or anything else I forgot to mention so far, but it does cover dry handling, wet handling, noise, vibration, harshness and presents it in a reasonable fashion.

Yes that was a great video. I recently got an old porsche 944s and saw that video but oddly I was looking at doing the opposite. They don't make 15s or many 16s in top performance tires anymore so I was looking at 17 's or 18. A lot of porsche people bash 18s on the 944 since the car was never designed for them and porsche put out a tsb saying not to do it. However that was around 1990 when 18inch was newish, tire size was limited and evrything was likely to be really heavy. I did it anyways. Over all diameter was a small decrease which I wanted since the 944s like many Porsches are geared too tall, weight went down in the front by about 1 lb and 4lbs in the rear with oem bbs porsche 996 911 wheels.

For 2018-2019 I'll have to revsit winter tires on the leaf. The Nokians have a handy tread indicator and the winter snow flake is just starting to fade, they recommend not to start the winter season if it's gone. I'll prob use 185 65 15 for better aero or put my old aero disc porsche 16s with 195 55 winters on with adapters, they are a +52 so there's room for a 15mm adapter in there.

Very nice minispeed!
I'm surprised you got 15" on a 2015 LEAF, my experience was otherwise.

I have a LEAF 2012 SL, and I successfully installed 15" steel wheels for the winter, no problem there.
My father has a LEAF 2014 SL, and we tried my 15" steel wheels on and they didn't fit!
It would seem the calipers are larger on the 2013+ models vs 2011-2012.

Possibly it's because those SSR rims have more clearance inside than regular 15", or simply any 15" aluminum rim would fit whereas 15" steel wheels don't have enough clearance for the calipers on gen2 models.

Here are some pictures of my my LEAF (blue) with the 15" wheels and Versa hubcaps. In the background you can see my father's LEAF (white) with 16" wheels and Rogue hubcaps.

I'm posting on this thread simply because I might consider buying new 15" wheels in the future, for some extra range when I might need it, and I don't want to forget these as they are very reasonably priced:

https://www.discounttire.com/buy-wheels/mb-wheels-14/p/75909

This explanatory video on the range impact of wheels got me thinking about dropping down to a 15" wheel someday:

https://youtu.be/NYvKxsYFqO8

I have also wanted to try 15" rims on my S+ (and then move my S+ rims to my SV+) to see if it would help the range. I would be very curious to learn from other's experience as to whether it improves range at all. It would be great to get another 5%.

if the 15" wheel+tire combo is lighter it will improve range. If the aerodynamic on the highway are worse though, any improvement will likely get cancelled out.

@dhanson865 did this: https://imgur.com/ILKqfQL the civic hybrid center bore has to be drilled out 2mm to fit over the nissan hub, but he claims a 10%+ efficiency gain from that alone. " Took my daily driving from 4.4 miles per kWh to 5.1 miles per kWh (though the old tires weren't LRR)."

Sounds promising, every little bit will help when my 11 bar LEAF becomes a 10 or 9 bar LEAF. Hopefully, being in a mild climate, that won't happen for several more years though. By that time, I'm hoping to be able to afford a used 2018 LEAF. If not, I'll try some mods to try to increase my range a bit.