I suggest you read this series on suspension basics, which is excellent: Explained: Weight transfer vs body roll (part 1)
Which includes this exact quote:
That series also covers the fact that all suspension tuning is a compromise:
Again, my only point here is that anyone that says "body roll is good" or "always start with shocks" or "roll bars are only for autox" without it being against a very specific vehicle is just misleading people that would go and apply that to all cars.
But we're also dealing with an OP who has never returned to this thread, and is clearly more concerned with looks than actual performance, so this is all academic.
Well, I apologize. I did check this thread for a few days and after no responses, I forgot about it for a while. In that time, I ran 80 foot of 2–2-2-4 though finished drywall to set up 60 amp charging. Also had a lot of other life things occur. For some reason, I did not get email alerts that there were responses here.
I have never driven the car, it’s scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks. I started looking in to this issue because I was concerned about the complaints people had with the car.my wife will be going from an f90 m5 to a model 3, and I’m prepared for her to be disappointed in the handling from all accounts I’ve read. So, I was doing my research.
the m5 had 9.5 inch rims on 275s on the front, and the P4s tire specs 9-10 inch for 275, so I thought I’d be able to save ~4k on wheels by skipping them.. looks like that isn’t the case
I found a very detailed setup that matches closely what I had in mind on a tuning site for the model three, and yes they all seem to go with 19s. The positive here would be I’d have the exact offsets and specs of a car that’s been tracked a bunch on 275/19 square with coil overs and no clearance issues. The downside is looks, and as silly as that sounds, when you’re paying ~4k for wheels and 1.5k for new tires on a car that cost only ~50k, that’s a consideration.
I did read the comments in the thread, and I appreciate those that responded. Handling is the biggest concern here, but looks are also a concern. I noticed that for some reason it seems very hard to find a wheel that looks proper on a Tesla (to me and my wife), while they may look amazing on other cars. I am a big fan of keeping stock wheels, and I’ve never actually changed wheels on a car. Usually, I find that the manufacturer made a better design decision than I could make myself. The Tesla rims, however, are extremely heavy. I did find a company that will custom make any size wheel, any color, many patterns and could get down to about ~20lbs each and are fully forged.
Now, when I added up the cost here, wheels, tires, coil overs, sway bars, other suspension odds and ends, I’m at about $10,000 not including the other things I need to do to the car (PPF, tint, homelink, charger install). I have to consider the cost/benefit on some of this stuff. None of this will be recouped on sale, and I probably wouldn’t sell the original parts.
That being said, I think I’m going to let her drive it a few days before I decide on anything, and then (based on advice in this thread), start with coil overs that can be adjusted separately for rebound and compression. At the same time, buy sway bars and try with and with out, as they are cheap and there seems to be some disagreement results.
Wheels/tires now move to the bottom of the consideration list, as people seem to agree that the tires are not limiting traction in normal driving, though I have seen people suggest that they are traction limited in anything but a straight line, it’s just the vehicle compensates for this very well.
Thanks to all that replied, I am sorry for the delay in reading the responses, but I do appreciate them and will reread them again (including links) when I’m not at the gym.