I've been enjoying this car too much to get this post together earlier, but wanted to share my "new ride" which has now been substantially street tested. The short story is that after driving a loaner P85 and doing some experiments to compare to my S85, I decided that a large part of the handling difference came from the wheels/tires. Following the path of many others here, I decided on the sweet spot of 20" wheels which have a large choice of reasonable tires, and gave me the opportunity to reduce unsprung weight, choose my new look, and add a staggered configuration. As you see from the photos below documenting my odyssey, I did a lot of my own measurements using household tools and assistants to plan the new config, did the research, and settled on a set of extremely lightweight wheels by Motegi Racing (MR126, lifetime structural warranty):
I did a special order by phone from TireRack to get the right configuration since it is not listed in the database (the closest I found was searching for a staggered configuration for a Camaro SS 1SS). In my PG&E EV Charging thread, PGE EV Rate Timing Chart by Musterion, there is a rendering of the car with the wheels which helped me decide on them and the color, black with milled accents. After they arrived, I was still waiting for some special lug nuts before installing. In the meantime, I took the car to get paint corrected and to do an XPEL Ultimate wrap and Opticoating (thanks Joe at Orinda Motors). So I took the opportunity to Opticoat the new wheels too before installation. Back home, after removing the old wheels at around 3500 miles, I noticed uneven wear on the inside edges of the rears, which triggered my alignment suspicions. I wrote another post on this at Checked Alignment: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Page 16 which confirmed and fixed the problem (final alignment posted below).
I wanted to thank the many members of this forum for the excellent advice and exhaustive feedback on the Model S in general, and specifically all the reports on various coatings, wheel, and suspension configurations. In particular, my configuration geometry (but not wheel or tire type) matches @johnmodels (My new wheel/tire setup, and tint.) and he gave me useful info on tire pressures. Originally I found that 45 psi all around was not so stable and I was experiencing the now infamous floaty feeling of a misaligned car with toe out in the rear. Indeed, after alignment, the feeling was like night and day, and I now run 45 psi all around with a rock-solid grip. I have logged efficiencies before and after the wheel change, and see similar or better efficiency with the new wheels. I will compile these numbers and post them here later after I choose a cutoff date before the recent spike in low efficiency due to the cold weather spell in the Bay Area. Aesthetically, the XPEL / Opticoat is stunning, and the new wheels are eye-popping. You can see in the photos that the rear wheels are now nearly flush with the fenders (about 26 mm further out than the stock configuration). Behold:
- Front: 20x8.5, 21.9 lbs., Offset +38mm (Backspacing 6.22”)
- Rear: 20x10, 24.75 lbs., Offset +38mm (Backspacing 6.93”)
- Front: 245/40ZR20 99W 500-AA-A
- Rear: 275/35ZR20 102W 500-AA-A
I did a special order by phone from TireRack to get the right configuration since it is not listed in the database (the closest I found was searching for a staggered configuration for a Camaro SS 1SS). In my PG&E EV Charging thread, PGE EV Rate Timing Chart by Musterion, there is a rendering of the car with the wheels which helped me decide on them and the color, black with milled accents. After they arrived, I was still waiting for some special lug nuts before installing. In the meantime, I took the car to get paint corrected and to do an XPEL Ultimate wrap and Opticoating (thanks Joe at Orinda Motors). So I took the opportunity to Opticoat the new wheels too before installation. Back home, after removing the old wheels at around 3500 miles, I noticed uneven wear on the inside edges of the rears, which triggered my alignment suspicions. I wrote another post on this at Checked Alignment: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Page 16 which confirmed and fixed the problem (final alignment posted below).
I wanted to thank the many members of this forum for the excellent advice and exhaustive feedback on the Model S in general, and specifically all the reports on various coatings, wheel, and suspension configurations. In particular, my configuration geometry (but not wheel or tire type) matches @johnmodels (My new wheel/tire setup, and tint.) and he gave me useful info on tire pressures. Originally I found that 45 psi all around was not so stable and I was experiencing the now infamous floaty feeling of a misaligned car with toe out in the rear. Indeed, after alignment, the feeling was like night and day, and I now run 45 psi all around with a rock-solid grip. I have logged efficiencies before and after the wheel change, and see similar or better efficiency with the new wheels. I will compile these numbers and post them here later after I choose a cutoff date before the recent spike in low efficiency due to the cold weather spell in the Bay Area. Aesthetically, the XPEL / Opticoat is stunning, and the new wheels are eye-popping. You can see in the photos that the rear wheels are now nearly flush with the fenders (about 26 mm further out than the stock configuration). Behold:
